1890s textile mill to modern apartments: A look inside the adaptive reuse of Converse Mill

The long-awaited transformation of the old Converse Mill was unveiled to the public on Friday.

Converse Mill Lofts Apartments, 4147 E. Main St. Ext, Spartanburg, held a ribbon cutting with OneSpartanburg, Inc. and an open house with tours to celebrate the completion of the project.

The project was first announced in 2017 and has been in the works for 18 years, according to owner Kathryn Macdonald, who found the property while browsing on LoopNet, a commercial real estate online site.

“I’m a fabriholic; I love sewing, and a textile mill was right up my alley,” Macdonald said. “We lived in California, my husband flew out, saw it and called me and said, ‘It’s like a cathedral. I think I want to buy it.’ And I said ok. You can’t say no to a cathedral.”

Macdonald and husband Scott purchased the mill in 2006 and moved to Spartanburg a year later. Together with partners Britt Weaver, Jim Troy, and Billy Hughes, they worked to transform the four-story textile mill into over 100 luxury apartments, an estimated $50 million undertaking.

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Seeing the project completed is a great feeling, Macdonald said.

"It's a confirmation that God's faithfulness endures. Every time it felt like we weren't going to make it, one miracle after another was waiting to bless us," Macdonald said. "What was an eyesore is now a boon to the economy."

County Councilman David Britt said the adaptive reuse of the mill was a testament to what makes Spartanburg County special.

"This is a repurposing of a really a tremendous, majestic building that served for so long — over 100 years — it served this community, it breathed life into this community. All these people that lived around this facility, worked here," Britt said. "I think what makes Spartanburg so unique is we don't just discard old things, we repurpose and rebirth."

Textile mill to luxury apartments

Converse Mill was founded in 1896 and is the last remaining mill of the three built and run by Dexter Edgar Converse. By 1973, all of the mills had ceased operations and Converse Mill was then used as a warehouse.

Owner Scott Macdonald said at the opening he hopes they have saved the mill for another 120 years, acknowledging the special place it holds in the community.

"There's still people walking amongst us who have a personal connection to history here and who hold it in their heart, that, wow, it's been saved," Macdonald said.

One of those people was in the audience for the ribbon cutting and open house. Pearl Ivey Byars, 100, worked in Converse Mill during World War II.

“It was during the war, during World War II, and we did men’s jobs. So I did the drawing job, they called it drawing-in, drawing in the threads,” Byars said.

Byars attended the grand opening with her daughter Kay Jowers and granddaughter Brooke Petty. She has many memories of her time at Converse Mill. Byars met her husband of 70 years, Talmadge while working at the mill. She saw President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s funerary train pass over the trestle by the mill and remembered the buses the mill would use to shuttle workers to work and back home.

The mill looks different than when Byars last saw it in 1948.

“I love it; I think it's wonderful. It looks so good. It looks new,” Byars said of the transformation.

The community room in the leasing office is particularly different as, Byars noted, there wasn’t a pool table when she worked there.

“We worked; we didn’t play pool,” Byars said.

What to know about Converse Mill Lofts

The new apartment building features 173 one- and two-bedroom apartments. There are 21 one-bedroom apartment floor plans and six two-bedroom floor plans.

Rents start at $1,125 for one-bedroom apartments and $1,400 for two-bedroom apartments before fees, according to Gerard Duran, assistant property manager.

The first residents moved in last month, and leasing is ongoing. They are about 20% leased.

Some of the amenities include a yoga room, gym, multiple community rooms, pool, mail room, dog park, and community-wide WiFi.

Samantha Swann covers city news, development and culture in Spartanburg. She is a University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College alumna. Contact her at sswann@shj.com or on Instagram at @sam_on_spartanburg.

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Look inside: Converse Mill Lofts, in the works for 18 years, now open