On the latest Small Town Life, Garrett Wright and Brennen Thompson talk about abandoned buildings, a year-long wait at the bank, and how buying 80 appliances turned into buying the whole store.
LITTLE FALLS, N.Y. – The first time Garrett Wright walked through the building that was Ivy Garden Apartments, the windows were boarded up, the hallways were littered with thousands of empty beer bottles, and the most recent mail inside was dated 2007. He compares it to something straight out of a horror movie.
His business partner, Brennen Thompson, needed convincing.
“Let me put it like this, Dave. Garrett is a hell of a salesman, because I was not sold on the building,” Thompson told host Dave Warner on the newest episode of Small Town Life. “It was that bad.”
Today, that same 21-unit building is days away from welcoming its first tenants, and the pair have also become owners of one of Little Falls’ busiest storefronts: Best Buy Appliances.
From the gridiron to Main Street
Wright and Thompson met playing college football and went separate ways after graduation, Thompson to Florida and Wright to California. They eventually reunited out west, started investing in single-family and small multifamily real estate, and kept at it in Florida.
Then they made a bigger bet. They sold everything, started from scratch, and returned to upstate New York. Their first major project was a 15-unit apartment complex in Wright’s hometown near Albany, a gut renovation very similar to what Ivy Garden would become.
One day Wright asked Thompson, a Herkimer native, what was going on in Little Falls. The listings showed buildings that needed work and a lot of opportunity. On his first visit, Wright was so busy admiring the architecture that he drove the wrong way down the one-way Main Street.
“I really wasn’t expecting much,” Wright said. Between the historic buildings and the canal, he quickly fell in love with the city. Their first purchase was the Main Street building now home to the Athenix bookstore.
A month turned into a year
The partners figured financing for Ivy Garden would take about a month. It took a year. They used the time to line up local subcontractors, materials, National Grid rebates, and architectural drawings.
They are candid about why it was hard. Banks are not quick to hand a construction loan of that size to a pair of late 20s kids. “This is the hardest it’s going to be,” Wright said.
The 80-appliance deal that became a business
Best Buy Appliances exists because of Ivy Garden. While shopping local for the renovation, they walked into the store needing about 80 appliances and asked then-owner Pete Campion about contractor pricing. Campion said no, but offered to sell them the business instead.
“We’re not appliance guys,” Wright admitted. They took the chance anyway, partly to show their commitment to Little Falls.
Thompson remembers telling his mother that two or three sales a week would make him happy. “Now it’s like, we sell two to three appliances before 10 a.m.,” he said.
Customers come from St. Johnsville, Herkimer, Mohawk, and Ilion, and the store has picked up contracts in Utica. The owners credit pricing that aims to beat the big-box stores, a growing scratch-and-dent selection, three times the floor space and staff, and old-fashioned service.
If your stove dies on Thanksgiving morning, Thompson said, they will figure something out.
No corners cut
The building dates to around 1950, and the partners stripped it down and rebuilt it with granite countertops, GE stainless steel appliances, and their first fire sprinkler suppression system. Thompson said he wants whoever opens up the walls decades from now to say the job was done right.
“It’s a damn good feeling when I lay my head on the pillow at night and say, you know, we did our best with this,” he said.
They also credit businessman Frank Ross, whom Warner introduced them to about a year ago, as a partner and mentor with deep connections across the Mohawk Valley.
The goal is to have the first tenants moving in by November 1, with finishing touches continuing into December.
A mural honoring Little Falls history is planned for the back of the building in the spring, with or without a grant.
What’s next?
Warner tried hard to get breaking news from them. The partners say they now have more potential projects than they can take on, and they will choose the one that makes the biggest impact on the community. That’s all they would say on the record.
Watch the full episode
Hear the whole conversation, including the wildest stories from inside the abandoned building and why the partners say they’d rather make an impact in Little Falls than in Tampa, on Small Town Life, part of the Studio 25 Podcast Network.
Watch on YouTube or below, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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