Sibley Square adding six new tenants; 100,000 sq. ft. under construction

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — In the heart of downtown Rochester, on Main Street: Sibley Square. The former iconic department store has since turned into a mixed-use development.

WinnCompanies owns the building, which was built in 1905 before the last solar eclipse in 1925.
Developer Ken Greene said this on the eclipse traffic and afterparty.

“We did three times are much business as we would compared to a normal Monday,” he said.

In addition to The Mercantile, the development has apartments, learning and educational fronts, development businesses, and more.

WinnCompanies bought the 1.1 Million sq. ft. development 12 years ago. Today, only 60,000 square feet remain unleashed. 100,000 of it is currently under construction for six future tenants:

Including SWBR, Bandwidth, and UltraPhil, an aseptic bottler: the first of its kind in the world.
Project manager John Eaton said the light manufacturing business will open in quarter 2 of next year, and plans to churn out thousands of bottles per day in 10,000 sq. Ft in the heart of downtown.

“We wanted a really nice front door to our business, to have our customers come in and enjoy the mercantile… Hotels nearby, it just made sense,” Eaton said.

They’re in the part of Sibley that held the loading dock for the horse-drawn delivery service. Greene says they kept some of the cobblestone for a future creative and forward-facing project.

“To say to the history of Rochester, we recognize how important this is to you, and we’ve preserved it,” he said.

As for the remaining 60,000 sq ft:

“We balance… I want Bank of America at the corner of Clinton and Main, and I want to figure out how to social mission work like Miss Julie’s, and figure out how we balance those competing interests, while we honor the city of Rochester and everyone in it,” he said.

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