The City of Ravenna’s downtown continues to undergo revitalization as the Ravenna Work Hub officially opened its doors and held a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Friday afternoon at 1010 North Park Way.
“We want to use this as a catalyst as an idea for how other property owners can rehab buildings,” building Owner Ben Levenger told The Weekly Villager. “Ravenna has great building stock; we just need to encourage the property owners to use the resources and leverage that to rehab their buildings.”
The building is home to five offices, a conference center, and 10 rotating desks, all available for rent for employees seeking a remote workspace or environment. The private offices can be leased for either six or 12 months while other rooms and desks can be rented for shorter periods of time.
The conference center can also be rented for employees seeking a remote area to conduct meetings or depositions. The upstairs area is home to the conference center and also a workstation where all 10 desks are located. Levenger said that he has already received extensive interest in renting the rooms, desks and conference center.
Ravenna Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Ryann Cline spoke of how the work hub will represent a vital service to interested parties.
“It is absolutely wonderful because it offers people an opportunity to come in from out of town and have a nice place to work,” she told The Weekly Villager. “It is efficient and modern and all of that. It is really a great opportunity for Ravenna; Ben has done an amazing job with this.”
According to Levenger, remote workspaces have become quite the fad especially in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, and he has specialized in renovating buildings to accommodate the need for remote work areas.
“People are virtual, and they can now work remotely but often times people just need a space outside of their own work, whether that is during the holidays and during Christmas or during their kids being home from summer break,” he added. “They just need a place to work sometimes, and we want to be able to foster it.”
Levenger has found success in rehabbing buildings into remote work hubs across the country including in Salt Lake City, Denver, Pittsburgh and Dallas.
He said that when he arrived in Portage County several years ago, he could not find an office for his business, so he did the next best thing, which was to make an office out of what he already had.
Levenger’s latest rehab project was formerly home to Manfrass Architects & Planners, which had only one office upstairs after the firm downsized. Levenger said that he acquired the building through one of his companies, Levenger Holdings, which specializes in rehabbing properties such as the one that is now the Ravenna Work Hub.
He noted that the building was in decent shape, as it was last renovated in 1990’s, but did need some polish Levenger Holdings assumed the responsibility for the architecture, planning design and maintenance of the building to transform it from a building with only one office to a multi-office venue.
“Every wall was taken down, every door was replaced, all of the electrical was updated, the bathrooms were added, every floor was changed, the light fixtures were changed, and everything was updated,” Levenger said.
In addition to successfully rehabbing buildings into remote work hubs, Levenger said that another benefit of this initiative is to revitalize downtown areas, as he has tried to set a precedent for how downtown areas can be saved.
“It is very important,” he said. “Downtowns are kind of like the lifeblood or heart of the community. If you have a deteriorating building, it shows and people notice it, so it is important to rehab it.”
Levenger spoke of the importance of leading by example and has taken the first steps in spearheading the revitalization efforts of several downtown areas.
“It is also important for consultants and property owners, if we are going to hopefully get other people to do it we need to lead with our foot first and show people how it is done as opposed to saying that you shouldn’t,” he said.
