A yoga studio and wellness center will open to the public today, the first of four ground-floor businesses rapidly taking shape inside the former factory building along the Erie Canal at Gateway Harbor Park.

After at least four years of planning, remediation, development and ongoing construction, the more than $20 million project to convert the former typewriter factory into 79 work/live apartments — one of the largest commercial/residential projects in the city’s history — is finally coming to fruition.

“It’s a new building inside of an historic building that’s over 100 years old — you just don’t get anything like this anymore,” Tom Barrett, director of development for developer Kissling Interests, said during a tour of the building on Thursday.

The first phase of 18 apartments is nearing completion, and along with the ground-floor public businesses represents completion of the first phase of the building’s staggered opening.

“We’re delivering the goods here; you’re getting a lot of value,” he said while touring one such apartment on the building’s fourth floor, with granite countertops, massive tile and glass showers and stainless steel appliances contrasting raw elements of the original factory architecture. Guests can buzz residents from the ground floor, and are displayed on a video screen for residents as they chat through the intercom.

The building’s 12 separate apartment floor plans are a model of versatility, functional elegance and architecture designed to harness the building’s most pronounced feature  — natural light.

“That’s really the idea,” Barrett said, demonstrating one of hundreds of opaque sliding partitions installed to give tenants the ability to configure each space to accommodate residential, or residential/office uses as they see fit. Walls on each residential floor include light exchangers making it feel, standing in an apartment’s kitchen, that you are somehow inside and outside at once.

The yoga studio and wellness center joins Leon’s Studio One beauty school and walk-in salon, Liquid Energy Juice Bar and a planned stand-alone restaurant/bar as the anchor businesses that will serve residents of the building and members of the public.

Down on the first floor, sunlight pours through windows occupying nearly the entire wall space, washing over every corner of Leon Studio One’s immaculate main room.

“I walk into this place now and I’m in awe,” Leon Tringali, a veteran of the fashion world who owns several other nearby beauty schools/working studios, said. “The quality of light is very important in the hairdressing business so you can see the true quality of the color — and the other thing is it’s a feel-good light.”

Up to 100 students will begin study in hair and nail sciences in the next two weeks, and along with transfer students could begin serving customers soon.

The school offers a full range of financial aid and instruction in many other disciplines of the beauty field.

Evolation Yoga, founded by Hamburg native Mark Drost, will run a limited class schedule starting today, with a full schedule of 35 classes per week set to begin next month. The studio instructs classes in various forms of heated yoga, as well as meditation and will offer massage, acupuncture and other services seven days per week.

In June, the location in North Tonawanda will begin serving as the company’s global headquarters, training instructors and coordinating classes as well as corporate communications with affiliated studios around the world. Liquid Energy, to be housed within the studio’s space just inside the building’s main entrance, will be the second such location for owner Meghan Bromley. She opened her first store — currently serving smoothies, raw juice, wraps, salads and other natural products — in downtown Buffalo.

Apartments on the upper floors range from about 1,000 square feet starting at $1,500 per month to others about double that size. Numerous rental incentives are available for reductions on rent depending on lease details. A model apartment will be unveiled for public viewing in the next month.

Though rents remain comparable to trendy lofts in downtown Buffalo, all of the building’s apartments are designed to easily serve as live/work spaces popularized in New York City, San Francisco and elsewhere, where business owners and employees can eliminate entire rent payments.

The top floor penthouse was scooped up months ago by a debt collection company.

With gas prices above the $4 mark, Barrett said the elegant yet functional arrangement is a no brainer for that and many other businesses.

“People have to work smarter. In order for businesses to continue to compete globally you have to combine costs,” he said. “The live/work concept really does work in the world of $5 per gallon fuel, which right now doesn’t seem that far away. Every square foot of space is used in here. You walk into what looks like a hallway and there’s your walk-in shower. When you round the corner you’ve got a huge closet,” he said.

Prospective tenants may visit www.remingtonlofts.com and fill out an application, with application fees currently being waived.

A booth will be set up at this weekend’s T-NT Expo trade show at the North Tonawanda SportsPlex, at 90 Ridge Road, where Barrett said he and others will be on hand to answer any questions from the public and view images of the property.