These days, warehouse-sized reuse centers selling old construction supplies and development detritus seem to exist in
nearly every major metropolitan area. But in Philadelphia,
The Resource Exchange -- currently located on the corner of Cedar and East Cambria streets in Port Richmond -- operates with a slightly different mission.
Sure, it resells salvaged building materials and housewares, but it also offers donated and salvaged film props and set pieces, along with arts and craft materials, making it popular with artists, makers, DIY-types and other members of the city's creative class.
That popularity has led to an issue.
"Right now, we're kind of tucked into a residential neighborhood," says Resource Exchange founder and Executive Director Karyn Gerred. That makes it difficult for budget-conscious customers to reach the shop via public transportation.
So Gerred decided they needed a change. The Resource Exchange will close for the month of February, then reopen at a slightly larger and much more accessible location on the corner of North 2nd Street and Cecil B. Moore, only six or seven blocks from the Berks Station on the Market-Frankford Line.
"Just in terms of creating a great, welcoming, creative reuse center in a way that I've always imagined, it's a much better building," says Gerred. "It's much better suited to what we are. It lends itself more to being able to have the workshop-and-event part of what we do."
The new-and-improved Resource Exchange plans to open its new 4,500-square-foot location on March 1.
Source: Karyn Gerred, The Resource Exchange
Writer: Dan Eldridge