Formerly Vacant Textile Factory In NE Philly Is Being Transformed
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A former textile factory in the Frankford section of Philadelphia is ready for its second act. The "Globe Dye Works" on Worth Street, just off Torresdale Avenue, is being transformed.
A group of partners paid $675,000 for the block-long structure, comprised of 11 buildings, in 2008 from the Greenwood family that served the yarn dyeing and textile trades from 1865 until it closed in 2005.
"We've stabilized a building that otherwise would have been a hulking, vacant, mess of a building," said developer Pete Kelly.
Now appraised at nearly $2-million, Kelly says the 1.7 acre campus serves as a versatile workspace for 35 tenants, including fabricators, artists, and artisans.
Ten of the units are residential, where some tenants found love in the air.
"They met, they fell in love, they got married and had a kid, and they still live at Globe," Kelly said. "It's been an evolutionary thing."
State Senator Christine Tartaglione and State Representative Jason Dawkins visited with a gift, a $1 million state grant for the event space they're building at Globe. Senator Tartaglione calls it "a prime example of the great, often hidden potential that exists in many of Philadelphia's older, underused industrial properties."