Three African American entrepreneurs—Lin Thomas, Derrick Suswell, and Ismail Shahid—have given new meaning to the phrase “Bring home the goods” by opening a 70,000- square-foot facility at 48th and Jefferson Streets in West Philadelphia. The building cost $25 million.
“This was a blighted area for the last 30 years,” said Lin Thomas, president and CEO of SUPRA Office Solutions and EMSCO Scientific Enterprises. “Frankly, it was an eyesore.” EMSCO, an office supply firm, occupies 30,000 square feet of the space. An adjoining 40,000-square-foot sophisticated biorepository houses an area for storing both human and animal cells at extremely low temperatures.
