Starr Catering to Have “State of the Art Office Headquarters” on North Broad

EBRM’s Studebaker Building project | Photo: James Jennings

The recent sale of Stephen Starr’s catering arm won’t alter the redevelopment plans at the Studebaker Building at 667 North Broad Street, Eric Blumenfeld, president of EB Realty Management Corp., said in a statement late last week.

Starr, who flipped his $40-million-per-year Starr Restaurants Catering Group to global food service firm TrustHouse Services Group for an undisclosed fee last week, has his Starr Events headquartered at the colorful building on North Broad. Blumenfeld said he initially “invested approximately $2 million in the build out of their facility, which includes a magnificent tasting room and a top-of-the-line catering kitchen.”

We told you back in January that EB Realty Management Corp. plans to take the multi-color facade off and restore the original “brick skin” from its former life as a Studebaker automobile showroom that is still intact underneath it. So while the plan hasn’t changed, it has been tweaked. According to Blumenfeld, the upper floors of the Studebaker Building will be expanded into “a new state of the art office headquarters” that will serve as the “home-base” for the entire catering operation.

The rest of the project includes 20 apartments, more office and storage space for Starr’s set up and two restaurant spaces from chef John Mims, a New Orleans-style restaurant called Treme and a cafe serving coffee and beignets.

In the statement, Blumenfeld said that he hasn’t yet met with Brian Poplin, CEO of TrustHouse, but he has worked closely with Simon Powles, president and CEO of Starr Events, and Guy Keller, COO of Starr Events, and considers them “rock stars” in the industry.

The Studebaker Building is just one of many projects currently in the works on North Broad Street, where the transformation is starting to bubble to a frenzy. Blumenfeld is about to go full-speed ahead with the redevelopment of the Divine Lorraine and is also about to wrap up the historical conversion of the former Thaddeus Stevens School into the luxury apartments at Mural Lofts.