Web-design company joins greening of Fishtown

In the mid-1990s, the World Wide Web was relatively new and just beginning to be appreciated by businesses for its e-commerce potential.

To many, the Internet was still a great unknown and a source of anxiety. Thus, the name that Mia and Tracy Levesque chose at the time for their Web-design company: Yikes.

It's a five-letter word the couple are uttering with regularity these days over their own anxiety.

"This is the riskiest thing we've ever done," Tracy Levesque said, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a $1.1 million construction project in full sawdust-laden progress.

Effective Aug. 1, it becomes the new offices for Yikes - and a likely popular attraction among green-building enthusiasts. The property, actually two of them - 204 and 206 E. Girard Ave. in Fishtown - is being renovated to qualify for the highest ranking under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification: platinum.

Whether renovations or newly built, buildings achieving LEED platinum status are rare. There are seven in Philadelphia, one of them in Fishtown - Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts - according to local green-building groups.

Upon completion, the Yikes project will include two storefronts (one of them to be occupied by Yikes), along with a two-bedroom apartment and three one-bedroom apartments arranged over three stories on a block of Girard Avenue just east of Frankford Avenue that includes a seafood restaurant, a bar, a combination tattoo parlor and art gallery, a lawyer's office, and a flower shop.

With New Kensington Community Development Corp.'s Sustainable 19125 initiative - an education program aimed at making the zip code that encompasses 1.4 square miles north of Northern Liberties and a population of 24,000 the greenest in the city - and a growing stock of environmentally sensitive, energy-efficient buildings in the neighborhood, proof is abundant that "Fishtown has reached critical mass . . . it has to be the easiest place to build green in Philadelphia," said Janet Milkman, executive director of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council.

Of course, that depends on your definition of easy. The Yikes project is about as close as possible to building from scratch without actually doing so.

A tavern in the late 1800s, the structure was later a hair salon and then a rooming house before becoming abandoned five years ago, but for the drug users squatting in it, the Levesques said. The roof had to go; brick interior walls that were crumbling had to come down.

"You would walk into one room, and right next to the giant hole in the floor was just a toilet sitting there," Mia Levesque said of the property she and Tracy Levesque bought for $349,000. "Not even a mouse could live here. There was a dead mouse on the third floor."

Angie Williamson, economic development director for the New Kensington Community Development Corp., whose focus area includes Kensington, Fishtown, and Port Richmond, summed up the Yikes site with a variety of unflattering descriptions: "Absolutely devastating . . . complete eyesore . . . just in shambles."

Tracy Levesque saw "the beauty in this place," from the generous supply of natural light to the tales of prior inhabitants told through the layers of brick, plaster, and even Hopalong Cassidy wallpaper the crews from Greensaw Design & Build have uncovered - and even framed in some parts - as part of the renovation. In keeping with Greensaw's Earth-friendly mission, many of the features of the new Yikes quarters - including cabinets, mirrors, doors, and window framing - are made from salvaged materials.

"I felt compelled to do these buildings justice and . . . bring them back to life," said Tracy Levesque, a 1992 Temple University graduate who majored in radio, television, and film and was working at a video store near South Street when she met and later married Mia Levesque, a customer with a degree in French from the University of Connecticut, in Canada.

They pride themselves on having built their Web design business of seven employees in a conservative, slow-growth fashion, which has helped them avoid significant debt - until now.

About 60 percent of the building project is being paid for through a Hyperion Bank loan; 30 percent came through financing from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. and city grant programs. The remainder is coming from the Levesques' personal finances.

"We're spread a little thin right now," said Mia Levesque, who confessed to being "scared."

Yikes has always been a company committed to the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profits. So having a headquarters that reflected its dedication to sustainability through several-hands-thick insulation; energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems; low-flow toilets; and water-saving faucets was a philosophical natural, regardless of how "crazy" the timing of the project was, Tracy Levesque said.

With nonprofit groups accounting for a substantial portion of its client base, Yikes has not had an easy time of it during this strained economy, but it has avoided layoffs and pay cuts, Mia Levesque said.

Moving from a leased walk-up in Northern Liberties to a storefront in Fishtown will afford Yikes more direct connection to the community, and that, the Levesques hope, will lead to new customers.

"The financial meltdown has forced us to look into different ways to reorganize and rejuvenate the business," Mia Levesque said as she watched the new place taking shape last week. "Moving into this space is part of it."

Mia and Tracy Levesque chronicle the rehab of Yikes' HQ on their blog, at www.yikesinc.com/blog

 Find more coverage of the region's commercial development at www.philly.com/commercial

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