Does this sound to you like a usual conversation between a Kingston building owner and a prospective commercial tenant? It has been confirmed by both parties.
TENANT: This is a beautiful space, excellent for our growing needs. We definitely want it to lease it. But we’d like to have a couple of small conference rooms on this end of the room. Would you build them out for us?
OWNER: Why don’t we think about it and get back to you?
OWNER (later): We’ve thought about it. We can’t do that. I’m sorry, but it would break our hearts to have to do that. We think even a glass partition would break up the flow of the space, and the light and the site lines wouldn’t be the same. (Pause.) But, tell you what. We have a couple of contiguous small rooms on the other side of your space. Why don’t we let you occupy them rent-free as conference spaces so you can leave the big room the way it is right now?
TENANT: You sure? I think we’ll be good with that solution. Thanks.
The space being discussed was the third floor of The Fuller Building on Pine Grove Avenue in midtown Kingston. The building owner was architect Scott Dutton, and the prospective tenant was Stew Meyers, co-founder and chief technical officer of Exago, maker of embedded business intelligence software.
Exago moved last week to The Fuller Building from its office location at the corner of Wall and John streets in Kingston’s Stockade neighborhood. On Monday morning, about 20 people, some sitting and others standing, were working on their large computer screens in the middle of the space. A row of 21 windows on the structure’s parking-lot side flooded the room with light.
Exago, which has an office in Shelton, Connecticut as well as the one in Kingston, employs around 35 people, mostly doing highly technical work, in each. Founded in 2006, the business has been doing well (its website characterizes it as “a quietly growing presence in and around Kingston”), and it is considering a cautious expansion. Co-CEO Meyers, who moved to Kingston last year, said he has been giving considerable thought to strengthening his company’s commitment to the community. “We want to be part of a Kingston in which everyone is thriving,” he wrote recently, “and we will work to help make that Kingston, together.”
Stew Meyers says he doesn’t have all the answers. He’s listening. He’d like to be part of a successful community process. The move to The Fuller Building represents an expression of Exago’s willingness to participate.
“This building was not just a factory,” architectural writer Ben Schulman explained in a telephone call. “It was a cultural touchstone, a point of identity.” Schulman praised Dutton’s deft design touch, his tenant mix (there are 60 jobs in all), and his devotion to community inclusiveness. All this was accomplished without public subsidy.
At noon on March 6 the 8800-square-foot Exago space will be hosting a two-hour gathering and panel discussion about how businesses can support local prosperity and job creation. Among the invited participants are congressperson Antonio Delgado, county executive Pat Ryan and Kingston mayor Steve Noble.
A historic small city like Kingston has an extensive inventory of structures of different vintages and architectural styles built in different eras for different purposes. While some buildings have been turned into rubble by phenomena like urban renewal, others — like The Fuller building — have been successfully repurposed. Sixteen varied tenants occupy all but the plentiful common space of The Fuller Building’s 69,000 square feet.
Are all the elements in place for a sustainable Kingston renaissance? Too much optimism is a dangerous thing. Too many things are being done in the name of progress that are in fact undermining the human foundations they claim to be supporting.
But there is hope. And the hope stems from folks like a landlord willing to take a financial hit to preserve the integrity of one of the most elegantly restored interior spaces in the city and a tenant who says he wants to be part of a community in which everyone is thriving.
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