History

Rochester Greenovation started in 2011 with Jason Rowe and an idea to help keep useful objects out of the landfill. In the beginning, we had many projects, including a tool library, deconstructing houses, hosting and participating in events, building tiny houses, and more. What's survived have been the missions of keeping things out of the landfill, helping people in need, and supporting and collaborating with local artists.

The Greenovation Second Hand Store has become the hub of our mission where we sell anything usable no matter how outdated, ugly, odd, whimsical, or ultra-specific. Providing reasonably priced, everyday items helps people who are struggling. We also donate items to other local non-profits who give them to people in need. From the beginning, we have collaborated with local artists, who have painted murals on the walls of our stores.

We opened our first store at 1199 East Main Street in downtown Rochester in June of 2012. The 16,000 square foot store was managed by Jay Rowe until Kimberly DePrez took the reins. Unfortunately, the building owners told us they were going to use the building themselves, so we had to move. The building is now a chocolate factory.

So in 2021 we moved to a slightly smaller space at 850 St. Paul St. in the northwest corner of Rochester. The move took us four months, from March through June, and was done completely by volunteer labor. Whew!

We found out the hard way that the roof of the new building leaked. Two months after the new store opened, two pieces of the ceiling fell in, and rain poured through the holes, drenching couches and other merchandise and flooding the store and offices. We had to close the store for two months while we dried out, regrouped, fixed the places where the floor was buckling, removed the ruined merchandise, and tried to get rid of the black mold in one of the offices.

The landlords eventually fixed those holes, but did not fix the roof, which kept leaking in more and different places. The floor kept buckling. The landlords put tarpaulins up by the ceiling to catch the water and ran hoses down to the floor into tubs that we had to empty manually, sometimes daily depending on the weather, and kept promising to fix the roof. We could see a crack developing in a main supporting beam. Finally, it all became too much.

In April of 2023, we moved to 22 Flint Street, which is across the river from the University of Rochester in the Plymouth-Exchange PLEX neighborhood — a quick walk, bike ride, bus, or drive from downtown, the South Wedge, Corn Hill, and the 19th Ward. We’re hoping that this will be our forever home.

Right now, we’re waiting for a Certificate of Occupancy from the City of Rochester. We started the process in July of 2023 by submitting our plans for renovating the building. We’ve done a lot of work since then to get it to pass the city’s inspection, but there’s still more to do.

See our progress on the store

We can always use your help — please see the Volunteer and Donate pages. Thanks, friends.