BENTON HARBOR — After sitting vacant for about 15 years, the former Kay Building on Main Street in downtown Benton Harbor is again teeming with activity.
The 125 employees in the Consumer and Appliance Care Division of Whirlpool Corp. moved to the newly renovated 25,000-square-foot structure few months ago. Renamed the Harbor Town Building, the structure is the anchor of the Harbor Town project, a proposed development that is a mix of residential, industrial and commercial sites in the city of Benton Harbor. “(The Harbor Town Building) has multiple advantages and benefits to the community, to say nothing of 125 professionals in the downtown area and the support it’s going to have for the local retailers,” said Jeff Noel, president of Cornerstone Alliance. “The other obvious long-term benefit is taking a derelict building that was not on the tax rolls, and putting a fairly significant investment onto the tax rolls.”
The initial purchase of the building by Cornerstone Alliance was the first step in the project.
“As we normally do here at Cornerstone, we try to figure out what can be done to enhance the community, and our focus has been on Benton Harbor for some time,” said Greg Vaughn, vice president of financial and small business services. “We were talking about some of the buildings downtown, trying to see which building would make the most sense to get somebody in and rehab the quickest and easiest, and in conjunction, finding a user for the building if we did that.”
Before buying the building, Cornerstone staff discussed which local businesses might be interested in using the space.
“I made the suggestion that we should just go out and see who in the area could use such a building,” Vaughn said. “Somewhere along the line, we thought maybe Whirlpool would be interested in doing something in downtown Benton Harbor. There was some interest indicated, if the right facility could be found.”
While some abandoned buildings in Benton Harbor are beyond repair, Cornerstone staff could see the potential in the former Kay building.
“The building wasn’t in terrible shape,” Vaughn said. “There wasn’t a lot of water damage or anything like that. It was just an old building that needed some attention.”
Once Whirlpool indicated the building could be a match, Cornerstone proceeded with the purchase.
“It’s all been one planned project,” Noel said. “Whirlpool made a commitment to come onto Main Street if we could get some state funding to put in the infrastructure to do single-family housing about two and a half blocks away. That was all done in early 2003.
“It was also a way of getting us all to work together to commit to redoing the parking lot that is behind the building and the old parking lot adjacent to it, to support the Arts District and Harbor Graphics (at 123 Hinkley St.).
“Whirlpool deserves to be given a lot of credit for helping us understand their planning process, and then we made them understand how the development opportunities could be linked together. As a result, the project was completed.”
The Harbor Town building project investment totaled $3.2 million, which included land and building acquisition, renovation, asbestos removal, adjoining building demolition, and parking lot and tenant improvements.
Cornerstone chose Pearson Construction in late 2002 to renovate the building.
“Pearson did an excellent job,” said Tom Welke, Whirlpool vice president and general manager of consumer and appliance care. “They came in on budget and on time. It’s a pretty-looking building. They’ve done a terrific job.”
The Harbor Town building has two floors of office space, decorated in muted shades of yellow, green and rust. Light pours in from the front windows, which were once boarded up.
Employees appear quite happy in their new location.
“I love it,” said Stan Buntin, national manager, service contracts operations. “It’s new, it’s fresh, and it’s very pleasing.”
Although he gave up a corner office with windows at the Whirlpool corporate office in Benton Township, Dave Cosgrove, director of e-business, said seeing the daily activity in downtown Benton Harbor was worth the swap.
“Most of the people in our group were never outside,” Cosgrove said. “Now we see traffic, pedestrians, and different things happening. It’s different. It’s neat that it forces you out to lunch. You can’t stay insular, so we’re trying a lot of the local establishments.”
From The Herald Palladium