New uses for old factories

Mercer Business, May 01, 1998

Old structures to become eyesores. And, of course, they represent a serious loss of tax revenue to their municipalities.

In one Mercer County community, however, a foresighted businessman has discovered that there is gold in those delapidated buildings. Gene Pascucci, president of Empire Antiques Corporation in Hightstown, has salvaged one old structure and is in the process of restoring another to be used as an outlet for antiques.

Four years ago Pascucci, whose business is the sale of antiques and reproduction of antiques, purchased the idle Triboro Electric building at 278 Monmouth Street in Hightstown, a 76,000-square-foot assembly plant which at one time was known as the Lace Factory. With the completion of extensive renovations, that structure is now filled with antiques for sale.

About three years ago, Pascucci took over the former Phillips factory, perhaps better known as the one-time Hightstown Rug Company, at the corner of Bank and Academy Streets. He is still involved in a massive job of turning that 190,000-square-foot facility, on a 7-acre property, into what he plans as an antiques co-op, or mall.

The refurbishing at both factories have involved an enormous amount of work, Pascucci said. "We had to fix the sprinkler systems in both buildings" he explained. "In the Monmouth Street plant we had to put in about 4,000 glass window panes, and all new doors. The Phillips property needed some 8,000 new window panes, and we have installed about 2,000 of them so far."

Pascucci also had to overcome some serious environmental problems at both sites. "There were a lot of underground tanks that had to be removed," he said. "We've taken a 10,000-gallon fuel tank out of the ground at the Phillips site, and on Monmouth Street here were 5,000 and 10,000-gallon tanks to remove."

"That's the biggest problem when you buy old factories," he continued. "There are people buying distressed properties and trying to recycle them, and if they have the expertise to solve certain environmental problems there is money to be made."

Pascucci said the antiques mall he is planning on the Bank and Academy Streets site will not be the first of its kind. "A number of other towns have done something like this, although not on as big a scale. Red Bank has an antiques center, and Hopewell has a sort of antiques district. Now we're trying to encompass something like that in one large building.

"There could be a variety of antiques and antiques-related shops here, and there is room for offices. There is a three-story office building here with 13,000 square feet per floor, as well as a 31,000-square-foot warehouse."

Pascucci has been interested in collectibles since he was a boy. "I've been collecting coins and stamps since I was 8 years old," he said. "Then I went to a flea market when I was about 15, and I was hooked." He began selling at the Lambertville flea market, and when he outgrew that he bought his first building. "I kept going from one building to another, and finally began looking for a really big structure.

"I had this person I told to find me a building. One day he called me up and said 'I've got five buildings to show you.' The first couple were small, only about 15,000 square feet. Then when he showed me this place on Monmouth Street I knew it was what I was looking for. It was in terrible condition. When it rained you needed an umbrella inside. It was bad. We had to put 70,000 square feet of new roof on the place. But I could see it was structurally okay, and that it could work.

"So I just went to work on it. It took me two years to fix it up. I had a contractor who did the whole job. He's with me now on this second venture, as a partner."

Pascucci has no present plans to acquire other obsolete factories, but he left his options open. "I don't want to get too far ahead of myself," he said. "But once this project is completed, if I saw possibilities for another one, I would certainly look into it, as long as it wasn't too far from these buildings in Hightstown. One of the rules of real estate is don't go more than an hour away, because it's too hard to keep tabs on everything."

He said people have asked him to look at a property in Freehold and another on Mercer Street in Hamilton Square, a former rubber company facility.

How did he become involved with antiques? "I bought a piece of furniture one day, just because I liked it," he explained. "I think it was an old wooden ice box. Then I just started picking up furniture items, and I quickly found out that they sold faster than a lot of the trinkets. That was because furniture was actually usable, as opposed to being just collectible.

"Everybody needs furniture--lamps, chandeliers, desks, tables, chairs. Whether it was old was really not important. Every office needs a desk, so why shouldn't it be a nice looking one?"