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Jun 27, 2023

Rogers home to unique concept in shared warehouse space

Loloft turned an abandoned 30,000-square-foot factory into a mixed-use building with 27 warehouse units Loloft turned an abandoned 30,000-square-foot factory into a mixed-use building with 27

Loloft turned an abandoned 30,000-square-foot factory into a mixed-use building with 27 warehouse units

Loloft turned an abandoned 30,000-square-foot factory into a mixed-use building with 27 warehouse units

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Loloft turned an abandoned 30,000-square-foot factory into a mixed-use building with 27 warehouse units

You wouldn’t know it, but next to the old trains in downtown Rogers could be the future of reimagined warehouse space.

"It’s been an amazing transformation from what we started with," said Loloft CEO Brendan Howell. "It was really just a dirty old rundown factory."

Eight months later, the 30,000-square-foot refurbished facility is about to offer the local warehousing industry a low-cost option to store and manage their products.

Entrepreneur Squires Smith moved his bicycle tool business from Houston to Rogers. He said Loloft was the perfect opportunity to get out of his rented storage unit.

"We’re just doing 500 square feet and that’s part of the beauty of this place is we can, as we need, scale up or scale down," he said. "So, we can have long-term storage here or bring it in for fulfillment weekly or monthly or simply get a bigger unit."

Loloft has multiple units in multiple sizes under one roof. And it’s designed to help local start-ups, start up.

"For small companies, especially, it's such a great option because you don’t have to compromise and have long-term leases, so that’s fantastic for them," said Loloft CMO Paola Ibarra.

The two founders say Loloft grew out of frustration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they were manufacturing masks and couldn’t find a 5000-square-foot facility to rent short-term.

"So we rented a building and out of that was 280,000 square feet and we built a 2000 square foot micro plant in the middle," Howell said. "And people saw what we don’t and ask if they can share the space. And so that was really the genius and we said, we are not the only one’s having this problem. And so this is how the idea was born. Out of pure frustration."

And once complete, this idea will go from downtown Rogers to the nation.

"We are looking for markets like Dallas, Miami," Ibarra said.