One of our readers emailed us, and asked us what we knew about the empty factory at 1201 Jackson St., in South Philly. Apparently, some work has been going on in this building, though this has stopped in recent weeks. We trekked down there this weekend to investigate.

Large building

Appears to be ripe for a rehab

The building was purchased back in 2007 by Tr-Jackson, for $2.5M. It sits on a lot that measures a little over an acre, and the building itself has nearly 150K sqft of space. According to a neighbor, a plan was on the table to convert the building into apartments at one point, but the developer was having trouble completing a project in another location and was considering selling off this building rather than redevelop it.

According to public record, a $300K home equity loan was taken against this property a few months back, but we couldn’t tell you whether that money was being put toward improvements at this site or financing for another investment. It is somewhat surprising that the building has sat unused for almost five years now. The annual property taxes are over $45K, and the property owner is currently over $110K delinquent.

So does anybody in the neighborhood have any more insight about this place? While the building is a bit out of place in this mostly low-rise, mostly residential neighborhood, we could certainly imagine a successful adaptive reuse. Neighbors would probably be very grateful to see the eyesore turn into something productive for the area.