CEDAR RAPIDS — Stepping into the Cherry Building feels like Dorothy stepping into Oz.

From warehouse to where-it’s-at-house, this former dairy manufacturing plant at 329 Tenth Ave. SE now embodies the motto: “Where creativity works.”

The three-story structure is full, housing an eclectic mix of more than 40 businesses. Among them: an art gallery, dance and exercise studios, a bevy of visual artists, fabric artists, de Novo Marketing, two musical instrument repair shops, a florist, photographers, massage therapists, wellness practitioners, the Friends of the Library, and the huge Ceramics Center, which features a gallery, classes and work spaces for all ages and abilities.

During early December’s Very Cherry Holiday open house, tenants’ artwork graced the first floor commons, and holiday scents mingled with the calming aromas wafting from the healing-arts suites. Santa listened to children’s wish lists while ensembles from the Five Seasons Chamber Music Festival added their jingle jam. And everywhere, visitors strolled the premises, exploring every floor. You could practically hear their jaws drop.

That’s a common reaction.

“They say, ‘I thought this only happened in Chicago or New York, and it’s happening in Cedar Rapids,’” said Lijun Chadima, president of the Thorland Co., which owns and operates the building.

The family real estate and development group also owns the nearby Suchy and Kouba buildings — the first is home to Bata’s Restaurant and the latter is the site of the New Bohemia Solar Project, billed as “the largest multi-array solar panel installation in the state.”

The Cherry Building’s grass-roots vibe belies its tenants’ international reach.

Buyers and quilters from around the world seek out Frond Design Studio’s one-of-a-kind fabrics that are awash with bright and lively hand-generated designs. Eco Lips, which began as a kitchen hobby in the 1990s, is now a full-blown manufacturer of organic lip care products, “making its way around the world, one set of lips at a time.” Mortuary Lift designs and sells body-lift equipment to funeral homes and mortuaries around the globe, and maintains an office on the second floor.

HOME

Four people who work in the building also live there. Photographer David Van Allen came to the building in 1997, attracted by the neighborhood and its possibilities.

“I just wanted to be in a community that had some artists in it,” he said.

Now 64, he retired from the Mount Mercy University art faculty in 2012, after 29 years. He loves living and working in a third-floor space, totaling about 1,500 square feet, where work and home blend in an explosion of photos and fascination on every surface.

His photo studio, darkroom and digital workspace abut his kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, laundry and stairway to his upper library and guest quarters. One of the main benefits, he said, is only needing one set of tools. The other is being able to heed his muse at any hour.

“Whenever the spirit moves, I can do it right now — I don’t have to go to the studio. Life and art are intermingled. It’s not conventional,” he said, but it works for him.

Down the same hall is Jane Gilmor’s studio, where she makes sculptures, shrines and metal art, and explores the intersection of kitsch and fine art. She and Van Allen were colleagues at Mount Mercy, and he moved into the basement of her Cedar Rapids home after the Flood of 2008 forced them out of the Cherry Building. Afterward, people “just swarmed to” the renovated structure, said Gilmor, 68.

One of those tenants is wood artist John Schwartzkopf, 65. He carved out a shop in the back of the first floor, adding insulation so it’s warm in winter and easy on the energy bills.

“I’ve always liked the building,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing you don’t normally find in a city this size. ... It’s just a lot of interesting stuff going on down here.”

Plus, the Cherry Building is a fun place to work, he said.

“People become friends with one another and friends with the landlord. It’s a very open, and at the same time, a tight-knit group of people,” Schwartzkopf said.

“The thing that’s really exciting about the building is that you have this mix of very cool and creative businesses, so the whole building has a really good feel about it,” said co-owner David Chadima. He calls the building is his “hobby” as his full-time job is area sales manager for Asian-Pacific for Dexter Laundry, a commercial laundry manufacturer based in Fairfield.

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“What’s also nice is being able to preserve and repurpose a historical building like this,” he said.

This mainstay of the burgeoning NewBo District began its life in 1919 as J.G. Cherry’s dairy manufacturing plant. Robert Chadima, now 90, gave it a new life in 1976 when he purchased the mammoth structure for his welding supply business.

With 104,000 square feet at his disposal, he hoped to lease out the space he wasn’t using.

HACAP was one of the early tenants, siting its kitchen and offices there. Professional photographer Rod Bradley created a studio and living quarters on the third floor in the late 1980s.

Theatre Cedar Rapids moved its scene shop to the back of the third floor in 1989, and of those early tenants, remains there, leasing about one-third of the top floor for scenery construction, a drafting studio and a storage/paint room.

Where pigeons once flew freely, the fully renovated structure is aflutter with human creativity, attracted by 12-foot ceilings with exposed joist work, full-length factory windows on the first floor, 30-foot skylights on the third floor, a loading dock and freight elevator, oak flooring and individualized HVAC and electrical supplies.

Space on the first floor is the most expensive, ranging from $10 and $12 per square foot. Rents on the upper floors are less expensive, and vary by size. All occupants are invited to design their digs to reflect their personalities, as long as they don’t damage the existing structure.

FLOOD and future

Water did enough damage and could have spelled doom when the nearby Cedar River spewed over its banks in 2008, coursing through the basement and rising eight feet into the first floor.

But Mother Nature didn’t know with whom she was dealing. The entrepreneurial spirit that rushes through the building today began with Chadima and flows through son, David, and daughter-in-law, Lijun, both 55.

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They couple recognized the building’s potential when they moved back from China and Taiwan to Cedar Rapids in 1999. They now own 50-percent interest in the Thorland Co., and the elder Chadima holds the other half.

When the flood hit, they all rolled up their sleeves — and with a legion of volunteers, I-JOBS disaster recovery funding and other grants — renovated the building. In so doing, the Chadimas, along with Mel Andringa and F. John Herbert at the nearby CSPS Hall, rekindled the fire that had just been lit for turning the rundown industrial district into the vibrant draw it is today.

It’s a place where the arts flourish and history dwells among restaurants, the CSPS entertainment venue and incubator, NewBo City Market, funky-chic shops, business start-ups and mixed-use buildings under construction.

“So many new people are coming,” Lijun Chadima said, “so we have a new creative force coming into this area. Now we just have to make sure that we will retain these creative minds and create another wave of new-New Bohemia.

“This is a very organic thing. You keep growing, you don’t stop. We have artists here creating art. That’s most important — to keep creating. If you only have the heart, if you don’t have the cultural soul, it’s just heart. Art and culture are so important.”

“Everything’s coming together,” David Chadima said. “It’s really cool.”