YoHo Expands

An article in the Westchester Business Journal talks about YoHo and the expanding community of artists in the former mill building. Quite informative, and worth reading. And if you are looking for a studio in Yonkers, they have some great space available. Article also available below:

http://westfaironline.com/2011/12101-artists'-space-grows-in-yonkers/

ARTISTS' SPACE GROWS IN YONKERS

George Huang, property manager at YoHo Artist Studios.

“We found a gem in the rough when we took over this space five years ago,” said George Huang, co-owner and property manager of The Heights Real Estate Co. in Manhattan. He stood against a backdrop of sculptures, paintings and mixed-media art displayed along a long white-walled, pine-columned corridor illumined by track lights in Yonkers.
Working artists have replaced the factory workers that occupied that space a century ago on gritty Nepperhan Avenue. Huang and his brother and investment partner, Tony Huang, paid $12 million in 2005 for 540 and 578 Nepperhan Ave., connected five-story brick buildings that total 150,000 square feet of warehouse and distribution, light manufacturing and studio space.
Today that space, excluding a recently built-out area, is about 90 percent occupied, Huang said. It includes nearly 60 working artists among its tenants.
The Huang brothers took over a piece of the city’s proud and vital industrial past in the 40-building sprawl that is the former Alexander Smith Carpet Mills beside the Saw Mill River in Yonkers. The two buildings, which Huang said were built in 1900 and 1901, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They also took over and have expanded an adaptive reuse of factory floors started by former owner Allen Eisenkraft, who about 20 years ago welcomed the first artists to the well-preserved industrial relic.
Eisenkraft branded it YoHo, an affordable alternative in artist lofts to the likes of Manhattan’s high-rent SoHo. The new owners have continued the phased conversion to studio space with 16-foot-high ceilings and tall factory windows that yield abundant natural light.
Huang said his company is about to begin marketing and securing preleases for the latest addition to YoHo, 25 white-walled artist studios in about 10,000 square feet of fourth-floor space at 578 Nepperhan Ave. He expects to receive a certificate of occupancy in about one month.
Rents range from $300 for entry-level space to $600 and up at the high end, said Huang.
Most artists who rent at the YoHo show up in evening hours, said Huang. Outside their studios, they share what Huang called “user-friendly” communal spaces in which they mingle and freely display their works.
“When we first came here, these were more artist-tenants,” he said. “Now these are more members of an arts community. It’s a very tightly woven arts community that we have here.
“Before these were just artists’ studios. They have now taken on the ambiance of a gallery. Art, like a community, needs to be shared. And it needs a proper home to be displayed.”
Huang noted the new addition will increase the number of studios and potential tenants by nearly 50 percent. “That’s when a community with a small ‘c’ becomes a community with a capital ‘C’ – critical mass,” he said.



Yoho Artists Studios is planning to hold its annual open studio weekend on May 14-15.
As part of a grand-opening promotion of the newly converted fourth floor, the property manager, George Huang, said artists who sign leases in May will receive 25 percent off their rent for the first three months.
The Yonkers center’s website is www.yohoartists.com