When buildings stop getting used in this part of the country they just get torn down. Or else they sit around until somebody else rents and renovates the space. It's rare for a property to sit around for years untouched. Right here in Brewer there are few examples that catch the eye. The old paper mill sat around for a few years before being sold to Cianbro and made a useful, if unattractive, addition to the town. Sad. Impossible (and unhealthy) to get into the place before it was leveled.
I've been spending the last two months, however, working in a warehouse. I mentioned before how much of a difference this new project was in my life, and now I realize it was for the better. I'll talk about all that at a later time. Right now the focus is entirely on the location. Sitting on the main drag in Brewer, the warehouse is the abandoned Pepsi building. For ten years the building has sat untouched, the owner for whatever reason deciding not to do anything with the property. My company was the first to touch the place since Pepsi left it back in the 90s.
The working conditions weren't quite the best considering the dank state of the back four warehouse rooms (which was the space we were renting). The first week the floor was covered in old motor oil and kitty litter was needed to soak it up before any work could be started.
It wasn't until my final day there that I had the opportunity to explore the place more extensively. My company only rented out the back of the building which was simply four large empty rooms and a dock for trucks. The front of the building was where the offices had been. So on our last day there we had nothing else to do and we decided to go and check out the rest of the place.
The first room was a large room that the Pepsi trucks had used in some capacity or other. There were drainage grates in the floors, so perhaps they were cleaned here? Hard to tell considering the state of the place. There was a lot of water in this room thanks to a giant hole in the roof and a rainy night. Pics taken with my phone (sadly), so forgive the quality.
After this room there was a hallway. Going down there led to the front lobby area. The place was in pretty good condition considering how long it had been untouched. The ceilings were the cheap white paneling you'd find in plenty of offices, and had tons of water stains.
The front rooms in this part of the building were in decent shape, surprisingly. There were some big empty spaces that had been some kind of conference area I'm guessing. There wasn't a lot of evidence that anybody had used this place. Nothing was left behind. Just emptiness. And a LOT of dead bugs. The window facing the front window had at least two dozen long dead wasps. Probably something you'd find in any abandoned place.
In one of the front offices was a pretty damn fancy looking safe built right into the desk. The thing looked pretty secure. There was a massive floor to ceiling safe just down the hall from this room but I wasn't able to snag a good picture. It looked about the same as this one just the size of a regular door.
Past the giant safe door led to some kind of teller window. It looked like a drive through window and was a little booth with some shelves and desks. I couldn't figure out what it was for, because the other side of the window just looked out into another big room.
From here there was darkness. No windows and no working lights meant it got dark and trippy (not the drug kind). We explored up this way a bit. It lead into the bowels of the building. Anything that you would've expected in a basement was down this way. It had an industrial feel, and a musky smell.
Looking back at the light.
Turning back it was time to head upstairs. There was only one route up and that was back in the main lobby.
It was more of the same up here with empty rooms that were once offices, supply rooms, and meeting places. Greater disrepair greeted us up here with the rooms much more decayed than the others.
Hanging wires, exposed ceilings, and rubble on the floor were common hazards up here. After ten years I admit that I was expecting the floors to be in much worse shape. The place was fairly solid. Like the rest of the warehouse we had been in the only real damage was in the roof. I'll admit, this was really exciting. Even though it was just empty, dilapidated rooms there was something... FUN about this exploration. It's a shame there aren't more places around.
At one point we found a couple of storage rooms built above the room we were in and I swear there were bats. Either that or it was just more insulation with black mold (which was everywhere in our part of the warehouse).
Anyway, this final part was the coolest. After passing by a block of office rooms and what was likely a break room, there was a small hallway. Taking a left at the end greeted you with this site.
What was once a walkway was just a sudden ending of the floor! Yup, the floor just ended and boom there's the next room. Was kind of a shock to turn the corner and see this greeting you. Stopped me dead in my tracks. Here's the view from the bottom looking up.
This was a result of recent construction work. That's right, while this property was abandoned for ten years it had been sold in the last month we were there. Here's to economic recovery! The whole property is being redone and rented out... just like I had said. So all of this will be renovated soon. Sadly this place won't be allowed to linger as an aging relic any longer. Even so, I enjoyed adventuring in it's crumbled glory. It was a fine send off for someplace that had been a decent chunk of my summer.
I enjoyed haikyo! I wish I could do more haikyo. Abandoned properties have a haunting spirit about them that is undeniably enticing. Perhaps the chance to do something like this will come up again in the future. If not I'll enjoy this experience and have a memory of seeing the corpse of a building untouched for a decade.
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