The Maranatha Family Center has a new owner who’s anxious to develop the long-vacant gym.
2457 Holdings LLC, a Cobleskill company, bought the giant Warnerville gym a month ago and has plans to place business tenants there.
Mike Moore, Mike Galasso and Anne Marie Galasso are the principals of 2457, and Mr. Moore––also vice president of Cobleskill Stone Products––said Mill Services’ success with the former Guilford Mills plant is a model to follow.
Mill Services purchased the vacant Cobleskill plant––now called Aker’s Industrial Development––several years ago and now has tenants ranging from a shed manufacturer to a hair salon.
“We were impressed with what Mill Services did,” Mr. Moore said. “We’ve watched what they’ve done, and it’s a success story, a good business model.”
Plans to convert Maranatha to a going concern took some by surprise.
Stella McKenna opened the gym in 2012, and it closed a year later. New York Business Development Corporation took possession of it in a 2015 auction.
The corporation’s first asking price was $1.595 million, which later dropped to $950,000.
“It was still too high,” said Mike Piccolo, the Town of Richmondville’s code officer.
“We were afraid it was going to sit there for years like Guilford did.”
Cobleskill-Richmondville considered Maranatha for a school bus garage but decided it wouldn’t work.
“After the school said they weren’t interested, Mike [Galasso] said, ‘let’s go look at it,’ ” Mr. Moore said.
2457 paid less than the asking price, he added.
“It’s an impressive building,” Mr. Moore said. “We got the power back on, and we’re talking with the village [of Cobleskill] about getting the water turned on.”
The building has 32,000 square feet of office space and about 29,500 square feet of warehousing, where the indoor soccer field was.
Mr. Moore envisions three businesses on the ground floor and two on the upper, “and then there’s the whole warehouse area,” he added.
There’s been talk that 2457 would put a computer or tech business on the second floor, but Mr. Moore said those plans are tentative, depending on whether Richmondville Power and Light can supply enough electricity.
Ms. McKenna had a physical therapy office at Maranatha, and Mr. Moore said that area is mostly intact.
“That would be great for a doctors office, or if the hospital needed more room,” he said.
Actively seeking tenants, 2457 will have help from Mr. Piccolo, who handles economic development from his office at the Village of Cobleskill. (See related story.)
Maranatha is a START-UP NY property, so tenants––if eligible––could qualify for tax-free status, according to SUNY Cobleskill’s Jason Evans, who handles START-UP NY locally.
Fears that the gym would sit vacant were real, as were concerns that the building would come off the tax roll if Cobleskill-Richmondville bought it.
Most of all though, officials wanted an employer at the former gym.
“We’re very happy, especially with the purchasers,” said Richmondville Supervisor Dick Lape. “They’re an established group that’s been in the area for many years.”
Mr. Moore is pleased with the purchase, too.
“It’s a shame to see such a nice building without much age on it just sit there,” he said.
“Ice had knocked off some of outside lights. Trees were growing by the air conditioning units. Mother Nature was taking it back.”
He added that 2457 will probably renovate and rent the yellow house that sits on the property, close to Route 7.