The Developer Behind Kennett Square's Creamery Just Bought the Building Next Door
Square Roots Collective paid $2.3 million for a 1903 trolley barn on Birch Street, locking down the block between its existing Creamery and Opus properties.
Square Roots Collective, the group behind the Creamery of Kennett Square, bought the building next door at 225-229 Birch Street for $2.3 million from Wilmington based Commonwealth Group in late September. The 16,000 square foot building started as a trolley barn in 1903 for the West Chester Kennett Wilmington Electric Railway Co, then cycled through a mushroom spore production facility, a cleaning and repair center, and part of West Branch Distilling Co before landing its current tenants, Braeloch Brewing and Chaikhana Chai.
The address is the real story. Square Roots reimagined the former Eastern Condensed Milk Co site at 401 Birch Street in 2016 into the Creamery, and this new purchase sits on the same block between that project and its Artelo and Opus properties, rounding out a block it already controls most of.
Square Roots declined to discuss its plans for the new building, keeping Braeloch and Chaikhana Chai in place for now. For anyone holding an old industrial building in a small downtown with foot traffic already built by a neighboring project, this is the playbook. Buy the building next to your win and let the first project's crowd do the leasing work for the second.
Source: Philadelphia Business Journal, Vista.Today
Why it matters
A hospitality developer just bought the building next to its own hit project. Old industrial buildings beside a proven draw are worth pricing as an extension of that draw's traffic.
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