Rust Belt Turns to Munis to Breathe Life Into Old Factories
- Fort Wayne is spending $65 million on an old GE facility
- Renovations create mixed-use districts in forgotten campuses
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In the center of Fort Wayne, Indiana, sits an abandoned General Electric Co. complex built more than a century ago, a space that once employed about 40 percent of the city’s workforce but now serves as a constant reminder that the downtown isn’t what it used to be.
That’s poised to change through a revitalization project, financed by $45 million of local-government bonds, that will turn the 39-acre site into apartments, shops and offices scattered among the 18 buildings occupied by GE during the town’s manufacturing heyday.