WOONSOCKET – A mainstay of Winter Avenue for 17 years has formally discovered a brand new residence in Highland Company Park.
Athena’s Residence Novelties, owned by native businesswoman Jennifer Jolicoeur, held the tape final week at 1296 Park East Drive. The mixed workplace and warehouse condominium is one among a number of situated between the bigger company places of work of the enterprise park on the Woonsocket / Cumberland line.
Jolicoeur stated the transfer was surprising. In April, members of the Fall Pageant Steering Committee made a shock go to to the corporate’s former headquarters at 640 Winter Avenue to announce that she was chosen to be the Grand Marshal of this yr’s Fall Pageant parade. Only a week later, she stated, she discovered that the constructing’s new homeowners had completely different plans for the premises, which she had rented for the previous 17 years.
“I used to be so excessive from the Grand Marshal and per week later I felt like somebody hit me with a sledgehammer,” she stated.
These different plans embody increasing one other native enterprise. In line with Richard Petrin, the proprietor of the constructing, Bellingham Electrical will broaden into the just lately vacated second ground. The corporate has already rented a smaller area on the third ground of the constructing, he stated, and can use the bigger area as space for storing whereas sustaining its showroom on Pulaski Boulevard.
“It will likely be so much higher for them, leaner and possibly much less time to maneuver,” he stated.
Petrin owns NorthEast Ending, a sprig portray and powder coating firm that has additionally operated off-site for the previous 20 years. Petrin stated he determined final yr to purchase the constructing from the earlier proprietor underneath the title Pine Hill LLC. Metropolis tax information point out that the constructing bought for $ 1,030,000 final March.
As a part of the redesign, Petrin stated he additionally expects extra space on the third ground of the constructing along with his firm’s present floor ground area. Enterprise is sweet, he stated, regardless of the value hikes and bottlenecks that make manufacturing tough.
“We’re advantageous. Generally it is an excessive amount of enterprise, ”he stated.
Though the transfer was surprising, Jolicoeur stated it turned out to be a blessing. Just a few weeks after the transfer, the workers are happy on the new location of the enterprise park, which provides extra fashionable tools than the previous warehouse constructing. The partitions are painted in Athena’s signature purple, and framed information of her accomplishments already line the hallway that results in the employees places of work.
“Now you are feeling at residence right here,” she stated on a tour of the brand new premises.
The most important problem was to combine all the firm’s merchandise and places of work into the brand new 3,500 sq. meter unit. Their former space on Winter Avenue was 12,000 sq. ft. With an “all on deck” strategy and a few artistic stacking, she stated, staff had been in a position to transfer their merchandise to the brand new storage space. Jolicoeur stated she was wanting ahead to utilizing the weatherproof loading dock on the rear of the constructing, a characteristic she did not have within the outdated room.
Earlier than Athena moved in, the unit was residence to ExpoTrac, an occasion providers firm that shut down final yr amid the pandemic.
Final Thursday, July fifteenth, Jolicoeur welcomed Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, members of the family and different native enterprise homeowners to a celebration of the brand new premises. Along with her fiftieth birthday later within the week and the waning affect of the pandemic on enterprise, Jolicoeur stated she was wanting ahead to a brand new chapter.
“I simply felt like this was an entire new begin. It is symbolic to chop away the outdated and welcome the brand new, ”she stated.
