BRITE Energy Innovators / Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center

Located at 125 West Market Street on Courthouse Square in downtown Warren, Ohio, the facility now known as BRITE Energy Innovators began as the Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center (TBEIC), created to support the development and commercialization of emerging energy technologies. Phillips Sekanick Architects served as lead architect, working with DeSalvo Construction to transform the historic former S.S. Kresge five-and-dime store into a contemporary business incubator, technology center, and collaborative workplace. The completed rehabilitation encompassed approximately 38,940 square feet and represented an investment of more than $4.3 million.

A central challenge was balancing the needs of energy and technology entrepreneurs with preservation of the historic downtown building. Phillips Sekanick Architects designed flexible offices, training and meeting rooms, collaborative spaces, laboratories, and product-demonstration areas within the existing structure while retaining significant architectural features. Original elements, including restored window trim, plaster ceilings, and a historic interior corridor, were preserved or restored while contemporary components supported the building’s new technology-focused mission.

The project utilized Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits and federal energy funding, demonstrating how adaptive reuse, public investment, and economic development could return a vacant downtown property to productive use. The rehabilitation received a 2016 Mahoning Valley Historical Society Historic Preservation Award, recognizing the successful integration of high-technology spaces with the historic character of the former Kresge building and identifying Bruce Sekanick and Phillips Sekanick Architects as project designer.

TBEIC opened its Warren headquarters in 2015 and was renamed BRITE Energy Innovators in 2019. Today, the facility remains BRITE’s headquarters, providing energy labs, office space, and resources for emerging energy-technology companies and entrepreneurs.

The BRITE Energy Innovators project demonstrates Phillips Sekanick Architects’ experience in historic preservation, adaptive reuse, technology and research facilities, laboratory design, commercial office architecture, and economic-development projects, giving new purpose to an important downtown Warren building while supporting innovation and reinvestment in the Mahoning Valley.