Aimee Serafin

Photos by Jane Kortright Photography

With the rise of U.S. manufacturing in the 20th century, nearly every major American city spawned factory mills to compete in the Industrial Revolution. Textiles like wool or cotton were produced in large volumes by heavy machines inside expansive buildings. The advent of high-volume factory production restructured living in America to develop the modern era into one of abundance. Life — once steeped in small-scale farming communities — ascended to big-city industry, labor and family housing.

Positioned from this economic surge was a technology boom in the 1950s, which turned the manual labor force occupying brickyard boxes into suit wearers in high-rise, sterile offices. Big tech became king and factories across the U.S. echoed with the silence of a mass exodus. Vacated, boarded-up and broken-down, old mills became eye sores dotting the topography, their shells deteriorating daily among the elements.

These monuments of the past remained dormant, until recent years. The industrious spirit of business is now seizing the opportunity and rescuing the hollow structures. Commercial developers are repurposing the old mills — once meccas of America’s industrialized past — into stylish loft apartments attracting young professionals, married couples and retirees of all ages.

It was in the late 1990s that prominent businessman Clay Boardman converted one of Augusta’s most recognizable mills into loft apartments — Enterprise Mill. Today, the 60-unit building has 120,000 square feet of retail and office space and houses the Augusta Canal National Heritage Interpretive Center.

A more recent example of this brick-and-mortar metamorphosis can be seen on the banks of the Augusta Canal in the Harrisburg neighborhood. According to the Digital Library of Congress, The John P. King Cotton Mill was built in 1882, produced its first bobbin in 1883 and employed approximately 600 people at the turn of the century. But after closing in 2001, the mill fell into disrepair for more than 20 years as its last thread of life seemed past.

The pre-renovated site included thousands of boarded-up windows, leaky roofs and broken bricks, not to mention that all the buildings were not built in the same period. This created a unique challenge for the design and developer teams. Randy Moore, managing partner of Crossgate Partners LLC, King Mill’s project developer, explained that the loft apartments at King Mill were the united efforts of the careful design and construction teams from the onset.

“It was important for us to work with the design team to maintain the uniform aesthetic of the property. That meant we worked with masterful bricklayers to match the bricks and create a flow that worked visually and effectively for the overall vision. We also put all new plumbing, electrical, mechanical and flooring in the buildings,” he says.

Housing 245 individual units, Moore also explained how the size of the property allowed for different floor plans that “were intentional and based on existing dimensions.” Instead of forcing a handful of stereotypical stock floor plans, the teams created 22 different floor designs with unique details. “The wide hallways are another architectural component not found in the usual market,” explains Moore.