Redeveloping Mothballed Factories

Forbes magazine recently published an article about Stu Lichter, a re-developer of abandoned factories in the Midwest. Here’s the Forbes intro:

“In 1950 canal place, the 3-million-square-foot epicenter of BF Goodrich in Akron, Ohio employed 23,000 and had its own police and fire departments. By 1990 competitors using cheap foreign labor had turned the tire factory into a ghost town. ‘It was a recipe for blight,’ says Stuart Lichter, who offered $2.5 million for the land and 27 remaining buildings.

Today Canal Place brims with stores, law offices and technology companies. Its brick interiors and original cement columns are embroidered with flat computer screens, murals and glass atriums. Says Robert Bowman, Akron’s deputy mayor for economic development: ‘You look out in the parking lots here and you’d never know there was a recession.’” Read the full article.

Biddeford, Maine, one of Orton’s Heart & Soul Project towns, is trying to revitalize its abandoned mills as well, just on a much smaller scale. The City’s two biggest textile manufacturers—the Laconia Company and the Pepperell Company—opened in 1845 and 1850, respectively; at the height of their production, Biddeford mills employed 12,000 people. Immigrants flooded in from Ireland, Eastern Europe and especially Quebec, bringing with them a distinct mix of cultures, languages and traditions that made Biddeford the most ethnically diverse city in Maine.

Biddeford’s industry had all but disappeared a century later. By the time the last log floated down the Saco River in 1943, the textile mills had already begun to close down. Residents recall watching looms loaded onto flatbed trucks, destined for the southern mills and lower labor costs that sapped Biddeford’s industrial lifeblood. Workers followed the factories, and the rows of austere brick buildings gradually became hulking, hollow reminders of a city that used to be. Biddeford’s last textile company—WestPoint Home, where some 400 workers made Vellux blankets and linens—finally shut its doors in 2009. Read more about Biddeford’s history and the Downtown Master Plan that aims to change its future for the better.