By Laura Burnett | AZRE
The downtown Phoenix Warehouse District is no longer just for storage. The area from Jefferson to Grant streets, between 7th Avenue and 7th Street, is growing in a direction away from its history as a warehouse district.
Case in point: The Ong Gyut Wholesale Warehouse. Built in 1926 as a grocery storage warehouse, it’s now the new Phoenix home of Las Vegas-based advertising and marketing firm R&R Partners. The company moved into the building in November 2014, after renovating the historic building with the help of CCBG Architects.
Matt Silverman, vice president and managing director of R&R, saw the potential in the building years ago and held onto the building, waiting for the right time to renovate and move in.
A half-underground basement worked for cargo loading from rail cars but made for a challenge when deciding how to accommodate the space for the company. To make the lower level habitable for the creative team, a hole was cut in the second floor – now a stairwell – allowing light from the building’s six original skylights to flow downstairs.
