In early 2010, Mitchell Jureckson and his business, EMJAY Display, were getting hung out to dry.

Some of his longtime clients who had bought his point-of-purchase displays were either cutting back or in bankruptcy, unable to pay him.

Along with that, the value of EMJAY's building, a 14,000-square-foot former laundry at 420 W. Grant St., had plunged.

That eliminated the option of selling his way out of trouble.

"The lowest point was me sitting in here with an office manager and paying for everything out of my retirement fund," Jureckson said.

He was selling off EMJAY equipment to help pay debts, too. But it wasn't enough.

In May 2010, the doors finally closed at EMJAY — even while a new window was opening.

As the building emptied, some small ventures began to inquire about leasing space there.

It couldn't have come at a better time, because one more bit of misfortune awaited.

After EMJAY closed, Jureckson quickly got a new job in sales with a Lebanon company in the same industry.

But it too ran into difficulties. The next year, Jureckson found himself laid off.

Finally, Jureckson's luck turned. Interested tenants kept contacting him.

The result this year is a revitalized building, 95 percent full with seven tenants.

Jureckson has renamed the building the Wash House, in recognition of its origins.

The new occupants are a diverse group.

On one side of a large, dividing curtain in what had been a main production room, 13 students sat in a semicircle on the floor, learning English words for body parts.

"How many noses do we have?" the teacher intoned. "One," the students replied, pointing to their own.

The students are members of a Bhutanese community in the area.

They use the space for evening dance classes in addition to the English lessons.

Down the hall, Jerry Madrigale, the sole proprietor of Michael Angelo Furniture, was crafting a small stool destined for a Chanel makeup counter.

Up a flight of stairs was office space reconfigured as a ballroom dance studio.

Other tenants include a custom bike shop, a sculptor, a specialty craftsman and a consignment clothing store.

"All kinds of interesting entrepreneurs arise during a recession," Jureckson said.

He can count himself in that category.

Jureckson has reconstituted his business as a one-person operation, Brand-Aid, which has an office just off the old lunchroom.

Founded in 1989 and relocated to Grant Street in 1997, EMJAY peaked at 10 full-time employees, with up to 10 extra workers during busy times.

It biggest clients were publishing companies as well as cosmetics firms, including L'Oreal.

"Things were going great. I didn't know how good they were," Jureckson said.

The company had made a center court display for Park City Center.

But when the mall's owner, General Growth Properties, went into bankruptcy reorganization, Jureckson wasn't paid.

The mall job was one of several where a client's financial difficulties meant Jureckson didn't get his money.

Jureckson said the fallout from the recession prompted more people to create small-scale operations of their own.

Those entrepreneurs are the type of start-up business people who became his tenants.

"A lot of businesses were started during the Depression because things were cheap and space was plentiful and people were out of work and were using their imaginations — American ingenuity," he said.

"And that's what the people here are doing."

The Wash House tenants were highlighted two evenings ago at a First Friday event.

The building, which sits next to a large parking lot, just off Charlotte Street, was constructed in 1948 and expanded several times.

It was once the home of Red Rose Laundry and Penn Linens and then for a while, the metal manufacturer, Hodge Tool.

"It's a very flexible kind of space. It could work as retail for the right kind of business, depending on what happens across the street," Jureckson said.

He was referring to the building at 417 W. Grant St. that he once owned, back in EMJAY's glory days, but is now slated to house a micro-distillery.

Indeed, retail is represented in the Wash House's tenant mix.

Deb Burke turned Jureckson's former office into Resale Therapy, a clothing consignment shop.

The store contains an original scale from the building's stint as a laundry.

But, as an industrial structure with ample electrical capacity, the building makes an ideal home for its small craftsmen, too, he noted.

Overseeing a newly revitalized building and a newly launched business are not what Jureckson envisioned himself doing at this point in life.

Now 61, Jureckson had imagined that he'd be retired, having sold his EMJAY to some employees.

Obviously, it didn't work out that way.

Nevertheless, the affable Manheim Township resident sees a bright road ahead after the unexpected twists and turns of the last few years.

"Now I see things returning in the city. I also see things trickling this way," he said. "I think the future can only be better."