The Innovation and Design Building on Drydock Avenue in South Boston is best known for its sizzling startup scene, but 2015 could be the year when it emerges as a model of the American-made goods movement.
Lifting a page from the tech industry’s shared office space set-up, the complex will add The Makers Guild at IDB, a 35,000-square-foot makerspace. Potential tenants include existing furniture-makers and related trades already scattered about the century-old complex, and newcomers seeking to build connections to other entrepreneurs in the home goods industry.
The Makers Guild is the latest repositioning phase by IDB landlord Jamestown as it modernizes the 1.3-million-square-foot former warehouses and seeks to fill 450,000 square feet of available commercial space. Jamestown modeled the makerspace concept on a similar guild at its 6.5-million-square-foot Industry City complex in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The concept appeals to IDB tenants ranging from Fort Point Cabinetmakers, a woodworkers’ collaborative, to Artaic, a 7-year-old startup that uses robot technology to manufacture tile mosaics for luxury hotels and resorts.
“The opportunity to be around other like-minded companies and getting the benefits of that is an upside,” said Ted Acworth, a former MIT researcher and CEO of Artaic. “We’d probably attract more visitors, just to see a bunch of maker companies together.”
Jamestown’s Arrival A Turning Point
But first, a little background. The massive eight-story structures at the eastern tip of the Seaport District were used as Army warehouses through the 1970s and acquired by the city of Boston in 1983. Since 1985, the Boston Design Center has occupied 550,000 square feet of furniture and lighting showrooms geared toward interior decorators and contractors. In the past decade, a vanguard of tech and creative firms began colonizing the vast expanses in the adjoining buildings, attracted by industrial-chic trappings, open floor plans and affordable rents.
Tenants say the arrival of Jamestown, the Atlanta-based developer which acquired the master lease to the city-owned property in early 2013, marked a turning point for the complex bordered by seafood plants and boatyards.
After taking control of the building, Jamestown added many of the perks now considered necessary to attract startups and creative companies: food trucks, outdoor seating and two Hubway bicycle stations. Jamestown is in the midst of a three-year, $100-million improvement project that includes common area upgrades and conversion of 50,000 square feet of industrial space to retail and restaurant uses. The shops and lunch spots – expected to arrive early next year – will primarily serve the complex’s workday population. And retail furniture shops would be a natural extension of the Design Center, which does not sell directly to consumers.
Refugees Of Gentrification
When Jamestown took over management of the complex, a variety of light manufacturing tenants including lampshade and cabinetmakers were scattered in various corners of the building. Some of the IDB’s tenants are companies and artists relocated from the South Boston waterfront and Fort Point neighborhoods, where commercial rents have doubled in the last few years, and where artists’ spaces have been converted into luxury housing.
Fort Point Cabinetmakers, a woodworkers’ cooperative, moved from Fort Point to the IDB eight years ago at the recommendation of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).
“Time ran out on Fort Point Channel,” said Matthew Huffman, the furniture maker. “The push has been further and further out, and we are one of the few (craftspeople) places that are actually still in what I would call the downtown area of Boston.”
There’s plenty of room for more: approximately 35 percent of the complex remains vacant. The IDB’s workforce – estimated at 1,746 people by Jamestown in June – could grow to 4,700 if it fills up in coming years, according to a BRA filing.
Huffman hopes the makerspace will add members such as upholsterers and finishers, and build more business connections with Boston Design Center tenants.
“Once it gets up and running, it’ll become a better resource for the Design Center itself. We’re here, but it’s not always known that we’re here and it’s hard to interact with the individual designers,” he said.
Randall Levere, who sells hand-crafted bamboo bicycles, moved from South End to the IDB last spring. Jamestown offered his Erba Cycles company a one-year lease and 2,000 square feet of space, more than Levere thought he’d need.
“They were like, ‘Look, it’s going to waste. The key is getting you here and letting you do your thing and we’ll worry about things later,’” Levere recalled. “I have a lot of respect [for them], because they’re looking at the long view, which I think is a little atypical in our Wall Street-driven economy.”
Email: sadams@thewarrengroup.com
