EASTON, Pa. — Looking for a historic building with plenty of room for a ground-floor business, office space and an expansive urban-chic apartment in Easton?
As it happens, 225 Ferry St. is open for occupants — completely furnished and upgraded with the latest appliances and features for anyone seeking out a place to energize an upstart company.
- Historic mixed-use Easton property 225 Ferry St. is up for lease
- The three-story building includes ground-floor retail, shipping and storage space, a second-floor office space, and an expansive third-floor apartment
- Owner Hagai Feiner said the building would be ideal for a startup business looking to grow in Easton
The three-story property previously housed a church and dry-cleaning business before Carl Martinez, a New York resident and custom doorknob and cabinet handle maker, bought it in 2007.
Falling in love with a building
In 2015, when Hagai Feiner came to Easton with his now-wife to visit family, he said he fell in love with the city and planned to open an office if and when his business — Access Networks, a company that focused on electronic networks for high-end homes allowing owners to control their domiciles all from their tablets — would expand to the East Coast.
In 2016, Feiner returned to Easton, found 225 Ferry St., fell in love again and made an offer on the spot. About a year later, he dropped $900,000 on the property and went to work.
“We opened our doors here in 2018, and the business has been here ever since," he said. "I actually ended up selling that business because it became very successful in 2021, and that’s how I transitioned from computer networking into real estate.”
Feiner now is president of Platform Five — which happens to be working on several other Easton projects, such as 214 Spring Garden St., a 13,000-square-foot, single-family mansion being transformed into apartments.
Looking for lessees
Now, Feiner is looking to lease out to someone else the building that he said helped cultivate his successful East Coast operation — perhaps even to a new startup.
Associate Advisor for SVN Imperial Realty Gregg Marzano, who is co-listing 225 Ferry St. along with EXP Realty LLC’s Nadine Caban, has suggested the location would be a “perfect fit for a growing professional firm, a subscription box business or a small manufacturing group.”
Encompassing more than 9,000 square feet, with first-floor retail, shipping/receiving and storage area, second-floor private offices, and an expansive apartment on the third floor, the building could be used by an industrious entrepreneur to grow a business.
“The high ceilings, the natural exposed brick and stonework and the fact that it’s been updated to state-of-the-art fire suppression systems and technology throughout the building, and it comes furnished — that really appeals to a lot of people from a lease standpoint,” Marzano said.
Feiner said the building has “a little bit of everything,” and its prime location on Ferry Street would serve a renter well.
“It’s very appealing, it’s incredibly unique,” Feiner said. “Usually, it would be very difficult for any one person to show up and buy a building like this, and then go spend seven figures renovating it, but that’s exactly what we did. All the infrastructure is new. It’s been a joy to own, and also stay here when I’m in town.”
'Incredible opportunities'
While the world of commercial realty is a bit choppy at the moment — the coronavirus pandemic certainly contributed to a work-from-home economy, and some businesses never returned to physical locations — Feiner said the Ferry Street property already has yielded inquiries and even some potential offers.
A recent “Friends of Pete” get-together, which revolves around “influential folks that get together monthly for cocktails and networking — offered visitors an up-close-and-personal look at the property, which Marzano said he hopes will attract more attention.
“Any business that is looking to expand and is thinking about growth would belong in this building, and really Access Networks grew immensely shipping products out of this building, having people work on the second floor and having people stay here coming in from L.A. to support the team."Building owner Hagai Feiner
Feiner said he hopes the modern-meets-historical building could help another businessperson on their voyage to success, and based on what he has experienced himself, it could very well work for the right client.
“Any business that is looking to expand and is thinking about growth would belong in this building, and really Access Networks grew immensely shipping products out of this building, having people work on the second floor and having people stay here coming in from L.A. to support the team,” Feiner said.
“That helped us a lot. With this building, we were able to build a team out here from scratch, sending people from Los Angeles to train the new people that joined us here, and start that motion and effectively expand the business. There are incredible opportunities for anyone coming in.”
