Cooper's Ferry plans to restore the Nipper building
Philadelphia Business Journal - by Thomas J. Walsh Staff Writer
CAMDEN -- The historic RCA "Nipper" building on the waterfront here, with its distinctive six-story tower featuring four stained glass versions of an icon as familiar to a generation of Americans as a Campbell's soup can, is being readied for renovation by the Cooper's Ferry Development Agency.
The brick structure, with the "His Master's Voice" depictions of a dog listening to a gramophone, was saved from the wrecking ball when the rest of the mammoth RCA plant was demolished earlier this year. Recently, the Cooper's Ferry group has gone inside the Nipper and cleaned it up, stripping out old wiring, identifying and containing asbestos, and installing a security system.
The group is currently "taking a look at restoring some of the exterior elements, primarily the stained glass," said John Grady, Cooper's Ferry's vice president. Some of the individual pieces of the windows have been vandalized in recent years.
The stabilization efforts are expected to take four to six months, Grady said. His agency received a $900,000 loan from the Delaware River Port Authority to make the site attractive to would-be developers.
"The loan would be repaid from the original development," Grady said. "We've had a number of people come and ask about the potential, but no firm proposals."
The building was built between 1908 and 1916 by the Victor Talking Machine Co., which was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America in 1929. RCA was absorbed by General Electric Co. in 1986, and GE's aerospace operations are now part of Lockheed Martin Corp.
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