News

Revolution Mill adds new retail, apartments; new restaurants, brewery to open later this year

Photo from the 2005 Ribbon Cutting Event

The owners of Revolution Mill recently marked the second phase of development at the campus with the opening of a new retail, apartment and office building.

Officially known as 2005 Revolution Mill, the five-story, 145,000-square-foot building is located at 2005 Yanceyville Road.

The Revolution Mill campus was formerly the site of a flannel mill founded by the Cone brothers around 1900. The mill ceased manufacturing operations in the early 1980s.

The property has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The structure was seen as significant in part because it was believed to be the South’s first flannel mill and the structures represented “the most intact of the turn-of-the century Cone-affiliated textile mills in Greensboro,” according to the preservation paperwork filed in 1984.

Since taking ownership of the property in 2012, Self-Help Ventures, a nonprofit development group based in Durham, has been working to redevelop it, putting in apartments, two restaurants, event spaces and offices for more than 100 groups and organizations.

2005 Revolution Mill is located in a space that previously served as a warehouse for the mill, Revolution Mill General Manager Nick Piornack said. He said it cost $38 million to develop the building, an amount which included about $17 million in state and federal tax credits.

The brick facade retains the look of an old mill while the inside has been modernized. In the case of the 2005 building, that meant opening it up to allow light in the formerly dark warehouse building. Much of that light comes through the glass ceiling.

The floors are original and while they have been sanded and sealed, some cracks are still visible.

The site now includes the medical spa Restoration Medspa as well as a nail salon which uses steam rather than water and a jeweler from South America. The building includes 33 apartments and office space for companies such as Cone Denim.

Piornack said he expects the entire building will be fully occupied by the end of the year. Several new drinking and dining options are currently planned for 2005 Revolution Mill and an adjacent building.

A taco restaurant will open by the end of this year in the 2005 building while Winston-Salem-based Incendiary Brewing will be opening a taproom in an adjacent building.

The brewery acknowledged the plans in a Facebook post earlier this month.

“The new space will open up to a large courtyard common area and feature our signature black walnut furniture and glowing bar inside. We’ll bring more of the live music, community events, and special beer releases that our patrons have come to expect,” the post said.

Piornack said the taproom is expected to open by this fall. Grapes and Grains, a speakeasy-style lounge, will open next to the Incendiary taproom space in June.

“All these restaurants and bars and breweries will all kind of come together to create somewhat of a social, interactive, cultural district so people can go from place to place,” he said. “Currently, we just have the pizzeria and we have Kau restaurant. This will add three more hospitality pieces to the puzzle so looking forward by the end of this year to really have a vibrant campus.”

See the article on the News & Record >

Revolution Mill Unveils 2005 Revolution Mill: A New Milestone in East Greensboro

Revolution Mill is thrilled to announce the official opening of its second phase, 2005 Revolution Mill, on Wednesday, May 1st. The celebration will commence from 3:30 to 5:30 pm at 2005 E. Yanceyville Street, Greensboro, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4:00 pm followed by a reception, refreshments, and guided tours of the development.

2005, the most recent development on the Revolution Mill Campus, aims to bolster economic development in northeastern Greensboro. This ambitious project by non-profit community development organization Self-Help Ventures Fund has been in the works since 2018, turning a 145,000-square-foot building into a dynamic mixed-use hub featuring residential and commercial tenants, and creating an estimated 315 construction jobs and 323 new permanent jobs in the process.

Built in two phases between 1915 and 1935, the historic five-story building now blends modern aesthetics with industrial heritage, boasting original brick walls, expansive windows, exposed concrete pillars, and polished concrete floors. Significantly, the structure is built atop the recently restored North Buffalo Creek and is situated adjacent to public gathering areas known as “The Stacks” and "The Docks."

Currently, select leasing opportunities are available for the third and fourth floor Class A commercial office spaces. On the first floor, "The Grove" offers flexible office spaces tailored for new businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and three retailers. Excitingly, negotiations are underway for a future 6,000 square foot restaurant within the project, and adjacent to 2005, an upcoming hospitality area is in the works, set to introduce a tap room, bar, additional restaurants and retail spaces in 2025. 

The $38 million dollar project was made possible with $5.5 million in New Market Tax Credits, $5 million in Federal Historic Tax Credit investment, and $6.7 million in State Historic Tax Credit Investment, along with Self-Help’s significant investment. 


For More Information, Contact:

Lee Mortensen, Real Estate Leasing & Marketing Manager, Self-Help, Revolution Mill
Lee.Mortensen@self-help.org
919-956-4455 (direct)

Jenny Shields, Director of Media Relations, Self-Help
jenny.shields@self-help.org
919.794.6798 (direct)
(919) 584-4379 (cell)

Food Photographer Dhanraj Emanuel Puts Secrets on the Wall

Food Photographer Dhanraj Emanuel Puts Secrets on the Wall

After moving to the states, Dhanraj Emanuel craved the Indian dishes of his childhood. He had never cooked before, so he mixed spices by smell to sate his nostalgia.

Emanuel comes from a family of photographers. Soon enough, the two worlds collided and Emanuel found his way into the field of food photography. Finding commercial success required leveraging food to elicit emotions like desire, FOMO, or comfort. But his new project does just the opposite.

The project is an expression of Emanuel’s experience with overwhelming grief. He uses photography to deconstruct and make that origin abstract. “Reclaiming” interacts with the symbolic nature of color, texture and form using only powdered foods and spices.

Host Frank Stasio discusses the changing landscape of food photography in the age of social media and organic food with Dhanraj Emanuel, who is also an instructor at Randolph Community College. The exhibit is on view at Revolution Mill in Greensboro through the end of 2019 with a special reception on Saturday, Dec. 7 at 6 p.m.

Listen on WUNC >

Greensboro Farmers Market Temporarily Moving To Revolution Mill

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If the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market on Yanceyville Street is part of your Saturday routine, that routine is going to need some adjustment for the first month of the new year.

The Greensboro Farmers Curb Market at 501 Yanceyville St., across the street from the World War Memorial Stadium, is moving for the month of January 2020 to Revolution Mill at 1601 Yanceyville St.

The building at 501 Yanceyville, which has housed the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market since 1963, will have the interior painted and extensive ceiling work done, which is supposed to be finished by the beginning of February when the Farmers Market is scheduled to return to its home.

The work on the ceiling will highlight the curved barrel ceiling by removing layers of paint to reveal the wood lathing, and the massive interior steel beans will painted to bring focus to the expansive ceiling.

The Farmers Market management expects the majority of the vendors to make the move to Revolution Mill. It’s a good time for the move since the winter months are considerably slower at the Farmers Market, but the market at its temporary location will continue to offer fresh seasonal produce, eggs, dairy, seafood, meats, baked goods, crafts and more.

Greensboro Farmers Curb Market Executive Director Lee Mortensen said, “We’re building on the synergy with Revolution Mill created when we partnered in October for A&T Homecoming and we’re looking forward to returning to a refreshed Market building in February.”

During the past four years the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market has had nearly $200,000 in building and grounds improvement including the establishment of a chef demonstration kitchen and cafe, a community education and meeting room, interior and exterior performance states and an audio and video system.

If you find that your car takes you to 501 Yanceyville Street on Saturday mornings out of habit, the temporary location at Revolution Mill at 1601 Yanceyville is only a mile north.

See it on Rhino Times >

Greensboro Fashion Week Presents Summer Edition

Greensboro Fashion Week (GSOFW) will hold a "Summer Edition" fashion show on Saturday at the iconic Revolution Mill.  

It is an annual showcase of the glamour, style, and talent present across the state of North Carolina.

GSOFW Creators Witneigh Davis and Giovanni Ramadani introduced the fashion show to give local models, hairstylists, make-up artists, and clothing designers an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the realm of fashion. 

Watch the rest on WFMY 2 >

Our Opinion: Kontoor fits here like a pair of old jeans

When three executives from the freshly minted Kontoor Brands paid a visit last week, they came dressed in denim and steeped in optimism.

They were bullish about their company, which was part of a more familiar company, VF Jeanswear, before it was spun off last year.

They see sales ticking up and new possibilities for their marquee brands, Wrangler and Lee, which will remain separate.

And most encouraging, they see a bright future in Greensboro, which they have embraced warmly and unequivocally as their hometown.

They say they like it here because of Wrangler’s deep roots in Greensboro.

They also consider this city a good place to live and raise a family, with reasonably priced housing and manageable traffic.

And they not only want to be in Greensboro, they want to be partof Greensboro.

See the rest on News & Record >

Revolution Mill event not a typical comic-con

“Comics Life is not a comics convention,” stressed Tristin Miller, who organized the March 31 event at Greensboro’s Revolution Mill with Acme Comics’ Jermaine Exum.

Greensboro artist and event organizer Miller is a longtime fan who thinks comic book conventions are great, but she and Exum wanted to do something a bit different with Comics Life, which she described as “more like a TEDx-style event centered around comics” in a recent phone conversation. “It’s about skill-sharing, networking, having real conversations. It’s an opportunity to connect on a deeper level and have a real talk about the industry.”

She said that doing the Greensboro Zine Fest, as well as seeing a variety of comics artists use the zine format to share information, had been a big inspiration and that the format was inspired by the Hand-to-Hand Market she’s been doing for the past eight years.

“So, the booths and the costumes and the boxes of comics for sale and the artist meet-and-greets, all the stuff you usually see at a comics convention, will only be one part of Comics Life. The meat of it will be the workshops, the panel discussions, and the presentations.”

Read the rest on Yes! Weekly >

Anj ponders significance of black hair and other adornments

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“When my mama finished my hair she would pull the hair from the comb, sit it in her ashtray and burn it,” Anj writes in the first line of a tender poem nestled on her website beside a photograph of people with intertwined arms, their faces obscured — his wound up with gauzy cloth and hers by an encirclement of braided hair.

“Anj” is multimedia artist, writer and creative entrepreneur Ashley Johnson, a UNCG grad who grew up in Winston-Salem and who’s recently landed her first solo exhibit in the Central Gallery at Greensboro’s Revolution Mill. Reach, a selection of Johnson’s past and contemporary works that focuses on generational aspects of Southern femininity and black-hair identity, will find a home at the old textile mill through Aug. 12.

“The crux of my work and the crux of who I am today is tied to the practices of black hair,” she says.

Johnson’s mother chemically straightened her hair for as long as she can remember. She recalls picking at scabs from burns the relaxer’s hydroxides seared into her scalp, and years of back-of-the-mind curiosity about the natural layer of growth underneath.

Read the rest of the Triad City Beat article here >> 

Agnes Preston-Brame leaves an impression at Revolution Mill

Preston-Brame in front of “Where Are We Going?” (2018). (photo by Lauren Barber)

Preston-Brame in front of “Where Are We Going?” (2018). (photo by Lauren Barber)

They say if you want to know what mood you are in, you best start singing,” she says. “Whatever song comes out of you, it will tell you.”

This is one of Agnes Preston-Brame’s firmly held beliefs, and for her it holds true for the colors on her painter’s palette.

Born in Budapest, she defected from Soviet-controlled Hungary and immigrated to the United States, where she felt she could become the artist she wanted to be without the threat of state censorship. She earned her fine-arts degree from New York University in 1971 before moving to Greensboro in 1986. When she’s not traveling the world, she splits time between her interior design firm, Metamorphosis Design, and painting in her home studio. Her latest exhibit, figurEtively speaking, which is on view in the Central Gallery at Revolution Mill, features her most recent works.

“What I do is depict emotions, attitudes,” she says. “Often, I have done paintings without facial character that people recognize as their daughter or someone. So, it’s a character of the body, the human form that interests me.”

Read the rest of the Triad City Beat article here >> 

Preservation NC to Recognize Revolution Mill Campus at Celebration of First Phase Completion on Wednesday, Oct. 18 at 2pm

What: Preservation NC Presenting Award for Revolution Mill Rehabilitation at Public Ceremony
When: Wednesday, October 18, 2pm to 4pm
Where1250 Revolution Mill Drive, Greensboro, NC
Who: Speakers include Congressman Mark Walker, Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, Preservation NC President Myrick Howard and Self-Help EVP Tucker Bartlett.

GREENSBORO, NC – Revolution Mill is hosting a public event this Wednesday at 2pm to celebrate completion of the Campus’ first phase of redevelopment. Preservation NC will also present its Gertrude S. Carraway Award of Merit in recognition of Self-Help’s work in preserving and rehabilitating Revolution Mill. Self-Help is owner and developer of the $100 million Revolution Mill redevelopment. 

The event comes at a critical time for historic preservation as the future of the Historic Tax Credit, as well as the New Markets Tax Credit, depend on congressional support for maintaining the credits as comprehensive tax reform legislation is considered.

“The Historic Tax Credit, as well as the New Markets Tax Credit, made it possible to attract private capital to the Revolution Mill redevelopment and projects like it nationwide,” said David Beck, Self-Help Policy Director. “Historic rehabilitation is by nature expensive and private investors need incentives because of the additional risk inherent in these projects. But the payoff is huge. Revitalizing Rev Mill not only helps preserve our history it’s helping drive Greensboro’s economy by creating jobs and providing places to live, work and play while also increasing the tax base.”

Preservation NC’s Carraway award is named in honor of the late Dr. Gertrude S. Carraway, a noted New Bern historian and preservationist. Presented since 1974, the Awards of Merit give deserved recognition to individuals or organizations that have demonstrated a genuine commitment to historic preservation through extraordinary leadership, research, philanthropy, promotion, and/or significant participation in preservation.

Self-Help purchased Revolution Mill in September 2012. One of Greensboro’s most significant landmarks, the Campus is being  transformed into a multi-acre, mixed-use development. Revolution now features 1,260 permanent jobs, affordable housing, market rate housing, creative space specifically reserved for entrepreneurs/innovators, multiple restaurants, a permanent art gallery, a greenway, and multiple outdoor performance spaces for festivals, movies and concerts.

Fall Food Truck Festival

We're gearing up for Sunday's Fall Food Truck Festival! With 18 confirmed trucks and great live music we know this is going to be a winning event. If you're looking to learn more about our apartments and development, come find one of our Revolution Mill staff members to learn more about the project!

Natty Greene's + Stonefield Cellars will be serving beer and wine, and for your listening pleasure we'll have a few talented musicians taking the stage: 

12 - 1:30  Emma Lee Music
1:45 - 3:45 Star Wizard
4:00 - 6:00 The Tyler Millard Band

This is Spring Garden's last food truck rodeo of the year, so we're planning to finish the season out with a bang! 

Peruse the line-up here: 

Preservation Celebration Recap

- Food provided by Pepper Moon
- Beer provided by Natty Greene's and Mother Earth Brewing
- Live music by the Jim Mayberry Band 
- Our architect, Eddie Belk, gave remarks and spoke about Revolution
- More than 200 people attended and toured through the project

Here at Revolution Mill we're not shy about our passion for preservation. Ask one of our Self-Help developers and they might tell you it's their dream to have people who appreciate the historic beauty of our campus wandering the halls every day… so when we got the opportunity to bring a whole conference of preservation lovers to campus we leapt at the chance.

Last week we had the chance to host the Preservation Celebration as a part of Preservation NC’s 3-day Annual Conference. As North Carolina’s only private non-profit statewide historic preservation organization, Preservation NC works to protect and promote buildings, landscapes and sites that are important to the diverse heritage of our state.

Preservation Celebration was one of the first events held on the Revolution Docks and in our WAMRev gallery. After the main event, we hosted the Young Professionals After Party in the 1160 event space -- a fun, casual get-together for the young and young at heart!

Flip through images of the event below – and be sure to follow us on Facebook to stay up to date with all of the upcoming campus events.