Nothnagle readies for move

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Three companies under the Nothnagle umbrella will move into a new corporate headquarters by the end of the year, the companies’ leader said Monday.

The new office is located at 217 W. Main St., at the intersection with Broad Street. The new building will be home to Nothnagle Realtors, Nothnagle Home Securities, its mortgage arm and Nothnagle Insurance. About 80 employees will be moved to the site, a former warehouse that’s been renovated in the Canal District.

“It’s going to be a very sharp building,” President Armand D’Alfonso said. “It’s going to be a highlight of Downtown.”

The building is undergoing a complete makeover, but will maintain some of the neighborhood’s industrial charm, D’Alfonso said. The brick from a demolished wall is now featured throughout the interior in archways that play off the four stories of glass viewed from the lobby.

“It wasn’t our first pick. Not initially,” he said. “It took some vision. It took some thinking about the right thing. At this point, I’m glad I made this decision. There’s so much interest since we moved in.”

The west side of Main Street has seen less redevelopment interest than other parts of the city and Downtown, but that’s changing, D’Alfonso said. Several proposals have been made for the Canal District since Nothnagle moved ahead on the plans for its new space, he said. Several developers have expressed interest in building 27 new townhouses on Plymouth Avenue, where a parking lot now stands within eyeshot of Frontier Field.

“That’s the kind of project that’s going to make that area really stand out,” D’Alfonso said. “And our company is talking with the developers right now. We think we can sell those.”

A bevy of projects have been proposed for the city’s center, where more than 50 projects are now in various stages of construction and planning. Of those, 18 include residential space with about 500 market-rate housing units and close to 90 mixed-income rental units. D’Alfonso said those units won’t flood the local market — they’re just what Downtown needs.

It’s “supply and demand,” he said. “There are so many people who, not for the first time but for the first time in many years, want to live Downtown. I get calls to my building once a week to lease it to a business. And then every once in a while I get a call asking me if I’m going to put a loft in the top floor.”

Steve Golding, Rochester’s manager of Downtown development, said there is residential demand Downtown, but there also is a need to blend residential with businesses.

“There are a lot of the class offices switching to mixed-use. That’s where the market is now,” he said. “There’s more demand for Downtown residential than is available, and that’s good for developers.”

Golding said having a business like Nothnagle could prove invaluable for Downtown.

“They’re really one of the anchor developments in Downtown on the west side,” Golding said. “It’s making a huge difference there already. … Nothnagle is making a big investment.”

D’Alfonso said developers also are expressing interest in the former Josh Lofton High School building on the north side of Main, where developers hope to create a mixed-use space that includes offices, apartments and retail.

Extending the Erie Canal down Broad Street, and proposals for new storefronts and fountains along Exchange Street, would create a water corridor to anchor the west end, which D’Alfonso said all were attractive points that helped to bring Nothnagle to Downtown.

The company now operates out of three separate offices along Monroe Avenue in Brighton. The upcoming move enables greater consolidation of resources, and more efficient use of administration, equipment and time, D’Alfonso said. The new headquarters also will be a more central location for employees. A recent employee survey revealed many employees live close by.

“We could have gone anywhere, there’s no question about it. We’ve been in Brighton for 30 years,” he said. “I really felt personally responsible that if we’re going to be Rochester’s Realtor, then we have to be in Rochester.”