Willowbrook transforming from office park to ‘neighborhood’

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Willowbrook Office Park is undergoing a transformation; one meant to replace traditional thinking about the corporate office atmosphere with a more inviting “resimerical” feel.

Christa Development recently closed on the purchase of the Willowbrook property and founder Dave Christa has embarked on a plan to create a neighborhood — The Place at Willowbrook — across the nearly 15-acre campus in the town of Perinton.

Five office buildings will receive a facelift inside and out while a five-story, approximately 100-unit apartment building will be constructed on the northwest edge of the property. The total project cost will be in the area of $50 million.

“What goes into a neighborhood?” asked John Manilla, president of Cushman & Wakefield|Pyramid Brokerage Company. “There’s housing, there’s amenities space, there’s outdoor space.”

By adding shared amenities as well as landscaped common outdoor spaces, the project principals believe businesses will connect just as neighbors do in any community.

“We foresee small companies and large companies getting to know each other, undertaking projects together and doing business together,” Manilla said.

Willowbrook Office Park sits just off Route 96, less than half-mile from Interstate 490 to the west and about a mile to Eastview Mall to the east. The Route 96 corridor is an area Christa knows well.

He developed Corporate Crossings — with more than 200,000 square feet of office space — on Sully’s Trail in 2000. That same year, Buffalo-based Uniland Development Co. bought the majority of the office park portfolio built by Charles Mills, including Willowbrook.

“His goal was to build the nicest office park in Perinton, and he did that until Woodcliff and Corporate Crossings came along,” Manilla said.

Willowbrook has maintained a solid reputation, but Christa and Manilla believe office parks must evolve to meet tenant demands.

“We’re seeing a movement to quality in a big way,” Manilla said. “An asset like Willowbrook and a developer like David can really change the view of the world out here. We’re going to go all-out here.”

Christa and Manilla began evaluating the property’s potential a year ago. The $9.5 million deal five buildings 100-500 closed on Feb. 26. Uniland maintained ownership of building 600.

“It made the most sense to have a local owner because of the type of buildings, because of the familiarity with the Route 96 corridor,” Manilla said. Christa has the ability, Manilla said, to finance, reposition and redevelop the property.

Work on the transformation is well underway. A fitness center is being created in building 200, and all tenants and residents of the property will have access. The town of Perinton has already approved a re-zoning to allow for mixed-use development.

The five two-story buildings have between 31,000 and 32,000 square feet each. The space currently is about 80 percent leased, with Seneca Foods, Fidelis Care, HR Works and Owl Autonomous Imaging are among the major tenants.

South Korea-based Megazone Cloud Corp. recently received a sales tax exemption from the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency to make upgrades to what will be the company’s U.S. headquarters in building 300 at Willowbrook.

Available space in other buildings would be a solid fit for small- to mid-sized businesses, Manilla said.

The residential component will target recent college graduates, a segment of the workforce that can make long-term contributions to the economy.

“We’ll be competitive enough (with rental rates) to retain some of the young people in town,” Christa said. “We want to keep young talent in town.”

Megazone would appear to be the poster tenant for The Place at Willowbrook. In applying to COMIDA for $23,200 in tax incentives on a $290,000 office improvement project, the company said creating a resimercial feel was important in achieving an employment goal of having 75 employees by year’s end. The company’s goal is to become an destination employer for high-tech talent.

“Our plan is to have around 30 co-ops (with Rochester Institute of Technology software engineering students) in 2026 alone, the application said. “This helps attract and maintain top RIT talent.”

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