Massive, 8-story live/work makerspace planned for South Philly

A local developer has big plans to turn the former Bok Technical School in South Philadelphia into a massive, eight-story makerspace complete with apartments and a retail on the ground floor, according to reports on Next City and Passyunk Post.

Developer Lindsey Scannapieco wants to turn the 340,000-square-foot space into a “a creative anchor for the burgeoning East Passyunk neighborhood featuring studios and live-work space for the maker community,” according to a release. It would be the biggest space of its kind in the city, dwarfing Impact Hub’s 27,000 square feet and Oxford Mills’ 160,000 square feet.

While she gave nods to spaces like Impact Hub and NextFab, Scannapieco noted that the East Passyunk neighborhood didn’t have anything of the sort, NextCity reported.

Her company Scout Ltd. was chosen to redevelop the former school by the city’s Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation and the School Reform Commission. The sale price was $2.1 million, according to the Inquirer. Bok Technical School was one of 11 school buildings that the SRC voted to sell late last week.

Construction is slated to start in the summer of 2015, according to Next City.

The project is reminiscent of the now-shuttered Manayunk Transfer Station, which aimed to mix retail, artist studios and educational programming.