KLUGO, ROUND 2

Entrepeneur Adding 5 Apartments

In Former Stevens, Next To Bresee’s

By LIBBY CUDMORE • Hometown Oneonta & The Freeman’s Journal

ONEONTA – Third time’s the charm.

“I fell in love with the Stevens (Hardware) building,” said Chip Klugo, who redeveloped Bresee’s Department Store, opening his Parkview Place apartments there in 2014. “We stayed on it and we didn’t give up.”

It was the next year, 2015, nearly four years ago, that he set out to redevelop the former hardware store. A few weeks ago, Klugo has begun demolition and framing five new apartments and a first-floor store. With builds like this using multi-unit housing architecture will be good for the interior design of the building, creating a relaxed environment, making it feel like a home for people to love being in.

“You’ll be able to move in by the end of the year!” he predicted.

Stevens Hardware closed in November after the death of John O. Stevens, whose grandfather opened the store in 1882. Stevens had worked in the store until 2010, and died at age 94 just 20 days after the store closed in 2012.

Klugo had his eye on Stevens – with a stuffed moose and other trophies on its walls, it was a local novelty – since he first began developing the former Bresee’s. “I always loved talking with the family, but there just wasn’t enough money to do Bresee’s and the apartments on Dietz,” he said.

He sought state CFA funding, but it fell through. In meantime, the building was sold in 2016 to two New York City investors. “I heard they were going to put in a coffee shop,” Klugo said.

The coffee shop never came to fruition. Soon, the building was for sale again, and Klugo bought it in 2017. “The owners didn’t care what we had to do, they just told me, ‘Buy it or we’ll sell it to someone else.'”

Using Empire State Development and CFA funding, he purchased the building for $270,000 in 2017. “I love Oneonta,” said the man from East Corning. “This is such a friendly town. I know what Bresee’s meant to people, and I want to do the same with Stevens.”

The five apartment will be one and two bedroom. “They’ll all have different flavor, no cookie-cutter here,” he said. “We’ll put in granite countertops, and maybe even a few fireplaces.”

The building is old enough that many of the walls are covered with bead-board, rather than sheetrock, and Klugo said he plans to refinish and preserve that, as well as the original floors. “We want to keep the historical theme of the building. It’s another great Oneonta building with a 100-year history.”

The existing freight elevator will be restored and converted into a passenger elevator. In excavating, he found the 1923 order for the elevator: $1,650, or $24,390.67 in today’s dollars.

He also found repair tags from 1917, and, inside one of the walls, a garage door, which he plans to incorporate into the design. He may consider working with Coastal Garage Doors to help with this step. In addition to this, he may want to look to services that can help him with garage door repairs. Luckily, there are a variety of garage door repairs services available and he would be able to find professional garage door services in owings mills or a service more local to him.

Tenants will be able to park in the lot that also serves Parkview, a feature Klugo said are particularly enticing in the downtown. This is the kind of thing that really encourages tenants to sign the lease agreement on the dotted line – landlords may want to do plenty of research on rental agreements before putting their property on the market to potential tenants.

“Parking, to me, is as essential as heat for a building,” he said. “No one wants to carry their groceries three blocks. That’s what made this building such a beauty.”

People on the waiting list at Klugo’s Parkview Place will have first dibs on the new apartments. “They’re market rate, but with luxury feel,” he said.

The first floor will be retail space, but Klugo is mum on who might be moving in. “I have a prospective tenant,” he said. “Someone who owns an existing business that is growing.”

He also recently received a DRI grant from the city to improve the façade, but does not plan on applying for funding for upper floor housing. “I want to spread the wealth that the city receives,” he said. “We want to get as many projects going as we can – it’s all good for the city!”

And with several buildings for sale downtown, including the former Oneonta Hotel, Klugo hopes his investment will inspire others. “If you put a little elbow grease into fixing them up, we can get people downtown and create the good foot traffic we need,” he said.