Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co - Hunting Park Plant

 

There is a certain irony to the story of the Budd Company, a tale often told online. They built things to last, from automobile bodies to stainless steel train cars. Their craftsmanship was their badge of honor, and in a strange twist of fate, a contributor to their decline. When you make a product that never needs replacing, you eventually run out of customers. It’s a paradox of quality over capitalism, but that’s a story for another day.

This story begins on the road, with my friend Peppa and me cruising toward Philadelphia. We were on a pilgrimage of sorts, seeking to document the beautiful decay of the city's forgotten industrial giants. The list was a who's who of fallen titans: the C.H. Wheeler Manufacturing Company, International Harvester, Freihofers Wholesale and Retail Bakery, Steel-Heddle Manufacturing Company, Uptown Theatre, a Sears Roebuck Warehouse, and Steel Units Manufacturing. But the Budd Company plant was our grand prize.

From the street, the complex was a fortress. It stretched for what felt like miles, a sprawling titan of brick and rust. We circled its perimeter, scanning for an opening, a sign of welcome for the unwelcome. But the ground floor was sealed tight, a stone-faced rejection of the world that had moved on without it. Then, tucked away from prying eyes, we found it: a steep concrete embankment, leading to a series of shattered windows one story up. It was a creative climb, a gritty scramble up the incline, but it was our way in.

Swinging through the broken pane of glass felt like crossing a threshold into another time. The air inside was thick, still, and smelled of damp concrete and rust. We moved with a hushed reverence, exploring every corner from the ground floor to the roof. Two sights, however, have stayed with me.

The first was the rail spur that pierced the building’s side. It was a cavernous opening, a steel artery designed to feed the factory. You could almost hear the ghosts of trains groaning under the weight of raw materials coming in and the triumphant screech of cars shipping finished products out. It was the lifeblood of this place, a direct link to the sprawling network of American commerce, now silenced.

Rail spur bed inside factory floor.

The second moment came later, on an upper floor. We stood before a wall of massive, grime-caked windows. I found a clearer spot and peered out, and the view simply took my breath away. It was a panorama of the complex itself, a seemingly endless sea of rooftops and interconnected buildings. Was it north or south? In that moment, I couldn’t tell you, and it hardly mattered. I was looking out over the sheer scale of a former empire.

Those vast, empty floors told a story of ambition. You could feel the hum of machinery that once filled the space and see the ghosts of a thousand workers moving in a synchronized dance of production. Each floor was a testament to the incredible investment and vision required to house such an operation. Today, it stands as a cathedral of silence, a monument to an era when we built things, and perhaps, we built them a little too well.

To the world, it was the Budd Company. But to the generations of workers who walked its floors, it had another name: "Blood Co." The nickname speaks to the sweat, grit, and perhaps the very real dangers of turning raw steel into the backbone of American transportation.

The company's story began in Philadelphia in 1912 with a revolutionary, almost radical, idea from its founder, Edward G. Budd. In an era of wood-framed automobiles, he pioneered the all-steel car body. It was stronger, safer, and perfect for the assembly line. By the 1920s, Budd was an industrial titan, forging contracts with nearly every major automaker, from Ford, Buick, Garford Motors, Packard, General Motors, Hupp, Oakland Motors, and the Dodge Brothers.

The Hunting Park plant, which opened in 1915, was the company’s heart. It was here that the first stamped steel car bodies were made. This is where the iconic, silver-skinned Zephyr trains, symbols of streamlined modern travel, were born. But the plant’s output wasn’t limited to the ground. As the decades passed, its production lines churned out everything from missile components to parts for space vehicles.

When the nation called, Budd answered. During World War I, the factory’s immense power was harnessed for the war effort, producing an astonishing 25,000 M1917 “doughboy” helmets each day. By the end of World War II, the company’s workforce had swelled to 20,000 people across its three plants.

But the world changed. As foreign auto imports challenged American dominance, Budd pivoted, focusing more on its railcar and aeronautics divisions. The end of the historic Hunting Park plant came quietly in 2003. Its German parent company, Thyssen AG, decided to consolidate production in Detroit. By then, only 600 employees were left to hear the news.

Ever since, the 26-acre campus and its six buildings have remained empty. The largest structure, a cavernous hall of nearly 700,000 square feet, stands as a silent monument to the rise of the automobile, the defense of a nation, and the thousands of "Blood Co." workers who built it all.

Where is Peppa?

The roof view and window views were just chef's kiss. 😘

A building that large, a monument to a bygone era, doesn't just fade away. It becomes a canvas for big dreams, some more unusual than others. Back in 2005, an eclectic group that included a pre-presidential Donald Trump, former 76ers owner Pat Croce, and Nathan Morris of Boyz II Men fame, pitched a dazzling second act for a piece of the old plant. They envisioned the original railway assembly shop reborn as a bustling slots casino. The dice, however, never rolled on that idea; the plans fizzled out before the state’s gaming board and fierce nimby opposition.

Since then, the site has been a ghost of possibilities, with proposals for commercial, industrial, and even residential use floating through the city’s imagination. A more recent vision, however, swaps the jangle of slot machines for the quiet hum of scientific discovery. In 2019, The Plymouth Group, a developer, purchased the property for $6.5 million. Their proposal, named Budd Bioworks, aimed to convert the industrial shell into a state-of-the-art life sciences campus. The plan was ambitious: 300,000 square feet for drug manufacturing and an additional 150,000 square feet for laboratories and offices.

The logic was sound. Philadelphia has become a powerhouse in medical research, particularly in the revolutionary field of cell and gene therapy, where a person’s own cells are re-engineered to fight disease. The city’s institutions were behind the very first FDA-approved therapies of this kind. Yet, even this promising future remains in flux. Development has been slow, as the firm waits to secure tenants before committing to a full build-out, leaving the giant to dream a little longer.

While these grand plans came and went, the old factory has lived a strange and patchwork life. It has never been fully empty. Over the years, various entities have claimed small corners of its two million-plus square feet. The Salvation Army was here for a time. A church came and went. In 2012, the site played a starring role as a fittingly dystopian backdrop for the M. Night Shyamalan film “After Earth,” starring Will Smith. A dialysis center operated in one building while a roller derby track brought a different kind of thunder to another. Temple University Hospital still maintains an administrative office and a large parking lot on a section that was sold off long ago.


It's a different story for another of Budd’s old properties. The former Red Lion plant in Northeast Philadelphia is undergoing a more definitive, if less glamorous, transformation. Developer Commercial Development Corp., specializing in reimagining old industrial sites, is erecting three massive warehouse buildings on the land. It was originally 572 acres of farmland owned by the federal government before the developer bought the remaining 138 acres years later. The project will create more than 1.6 million square feet of space, an area larger than the city’s tallest skyscrapers. It's a future built not on manufacturing, but on logistics, designed to serve the seemingly endless demand from big box store giants and shippers like Amazon, Walmart, QVC, and Urban Outfitters.

For the main plant, the one we explored, the wait continues. City officials and developers have been trying to write its next chapter since the last railcar rolled out in 1987. The plant remains a testament to the city's past, its future still a story waiting to be written.

Source(s):

1. Tanenbaum, M. (2019, March 28). Former Budd Co. plant in North Philadelphia poised for massive redevelopment. PhillyVoice. https://www.phillyvoice.com/budd-company-plant-north-philadelphia-tioga-colliers-plymouth-group/

2. Budd Bio. (2021, August 26). Budd plant to be redeveloped as life sciences hub. https://www.buddbio.com/post/budd-plant-to-be-redeveloped-as-life-sciences-hub

3. Briggs, R. (2018, September 29). A Nicetown factory goes to auction. WHYY. https://whyy.org/articles/a-nicetown-factory-goes-to-auction/

4. DiStefano, J. (2018, March 8). N.E. Phila. ex-Budd site sold for $18m to CDC for warehouses. The Philadelphia Inquirer. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/ne-phila-ex-budd-site-sold-for-18m-to-cdc-for-warehouses-20180308.html

5. Wolfman-Arent, A. (2023, October 11). Remembering the Budd Co., a Philly-made steel giant that built everything from trains to missile parts. Billy Penn. https://billypenn.com/2023/10/11/philadelphia-history-steel-budd-company-transit/

6. Toussaint, J. (2023, November 7). Potential Tenants in Talks as Budd Bioworks Prepares to Transform Philadelphia’s Life Sciences Landscape. Philadelphia Today. https://philadelphia.today/2023/11/budd-bioworks-philadelphia/

7. FOX 2 Detroit. (2017, June 24). Historic Budd factory imploded in Detroit [Video]. YouTube.     https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/historic-budd-factory-imploded-in-detroit

8. Kostelni, N. (2022, March 30). Developer of former Budd Co. site pays $15M for neighboring building. Philadelphia Business Journal. https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2022/03/30/plymouth-group-buys-2450-w-hunting-park-ave.html