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Lexington artist and designer Erika Strecker, renowned for her metalwork sculpture, is forging another path as a developer of one of the city’s highest-profile gateways.
Now, a couple years after turning her former studio and gallery into the commercial space occupied by Blue Stallion Brewing Co., Strecker’s Peace Roots Properties is working to turn the historic wooden grain elevator building next door into a business incubator.
“They only built these for about a 10-year window of time,” Strecker said of the soaring 1893 structure known as the Lawrence Brewer and Son grain elevator building. “As soon as they got concrete construction — like there’s a 1910 grain elevator across the street — so they switched over to that pretty quickly.
“We’ve been calling this whole area Brewer’s Corner.”
The building, which Strecker bought in 2004, sits at 620 W. 3rd Street, at the busy corner with Newtown Pike.
“The traffic count is, I think, 35,000 cars a day, which is one of the highest in the city,” she said.
The area has is near the Bluegrass Community and Technical College campus as well as Transylvania University, and recently work has begun on the a 16-story, $34 million mixed-use development known as Thistle Station. But beyond Blue Stallion, the area is lacking in food and entertainment options, a situation Strecker hopes to change.
She is currently working to line up small businesses looking for a cool spot to grow and expand.
“It’s a 9,000-square-foot building,” Strecker said, “and I would like for tenants to take no less than 1,000 square feet. I’m thinking eight (tenants) is probably where we’ll land, because some of it will have shared bathrooms, share entrances.”
So far, she said, Nick Ring, owner of the popular Rolling Oven food truck, is planning to open a second brick-and-mortar spot (the first is in Nicholasville). Once about 50 percent of the leases spoken for, Peace Roots will undertake a renovation, which Strecker said will cost about $1 million. Her plans include removing the historic signage outside the building and moving it inside, re-cladding the outside, and renovating the inside, which still contains vintage elevators, dust collectors and sifters.
“I’d like to leave the bones of the building.” she said. “We’re going to de-clad it and then clean the inside and leave the wood exposed.”
Among the more ambitious aspects of her plan will be on the roof.
“I’m gong to put a solar system on this building, and it’s going to be 100 percent solar powered,” Strecker said. “So the price of what they term ‘white-boxing’ a space, which is utilities and outlets, etc., includes free solar energy.”
She said the leases are set at about $25 per square foot.
Strecker said she wants to develop the area with an eye toward preserving the history, noting Hal Price Headley, one of the founders of Keeneland, owned the operation for about 75 years.
“This small bin here,” she said pointing to a area on the third floor, “that’s where they made some specialty blends for finicky racehorses.”
Strecker is also planning to open a restaurant in an adjacent building — hopefully this coming spring or summer — and continue to foster the small business and arts community.
Peace Roots Properties can be reached at 859-396-7118.