Transformation In Store For Vacant Factory Building on Spring Garden

Will Smith's real estate company had previously tried converting it into condos.

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Situated near the corner’s edge of Spring Garden and 11th, the old Lawsonia Building stands in anticipation of a pending renovation and three-story addition. The news, which we heard from GroJLart on Hidden City Daily, is great, considering the property has been vacant for well over a decade. Harman Deutsch Architecture is designing the mixed-use development, he says, which will include ground level commercial space. Currently, zoning issues have the project on hold.

According to GroJ, the structure has been in the neighborhood for eighty-five years and started out as the manufacturing headquarters of the Woodward-Wanger plumbing supplies company. The facility was actually a $45,000 construction built on the site of the original factory, which had consisted of five combined row houses that operated for fourteen years before burning down in 1929. The newer colonial revival building, he writes, lasted a little longer, with seven decades and a stint as a hand-crafted furniture workshop (Lawsonia Manufacturing Company) under its belt. It was vacated in 2002 and has been empty ever since.

You can read the rest of of the building’s old and more recent history on Hidden City Daily, which we highly recommend since it includes details on that time current owners Greenway Plaza LLC teamed up with Treyball Development Inc. to convert the building into six condos. Treyball, if you weren’t aware, is a real estate company belonging to Harry and Will Smith. (Yes, that Will Smith.) Link to the full story below.