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N.Y.-based group buys former Nicetown-Tioga factory site that Trump had eyed for Philly casino

The Plymouth Group paid $6.5 million for a 25-acre swath of industrial land that makes up the remaining unredeveloped section of the former plant.

The former Budd Co. manufacturing plant in the city's Nicetown-Tioga section.
The former Budd Co. manufacturing plant in the city's Nicetown-Tioga section.Read moreMax Spann

A New York-based private equity and real estate investment firm has acquired the former Budd Co. manufacturing complex in the city’s Nicetown-Tioga section, where Donald Trump once sought to build a Philadelphia casino.

The Plymouth Group paid $6.5 million for a 25-acre swath of industrial land that makes up the remaining unredeveloped section of the former plant, which was constructed starting in 1917, commercial real estate firm Colliers International, which helped broker the sale, said Friday.

Workers at the Budd complex, located north of Hunting Park Avenue between Wissahickon Avenue and Fox Street, manufactured heavy industrial products including auto parts, airplane bodies, and rail cars.

A few years after the plant closed in 2003, an investment group involving Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. proposed a $350 million casino, called TrumpStreet, on a section of the complex, but the project failed to win a state gaming license.

A section of the former plant property has since been redeveloped into the Salvation Army’s Kroc Center, which serves the surrounding area with fitness classes and other community programming. Another building at the site serves as headquarters for the Temple University Health System.

The unredeveloped portion acquired by Plymouth comprises six vacant buildings totaling 1.87 million square feet of space, Colliers said. It had been owned most recently by an affiliate of Norristown-based automobile dealer Dean T. Cafiero’s Car Vision Inc., according to records filed with the city.

Rich Weitzman, a Colliers senior vice president in Philadelphia, brokered the sale to Plymouth in conjunction with Max Spann Real Estate & Auction Co. of Annandale, N.J.

Plymouth’s plans for the site likely include “commercial and industrial repurposing, as well as potential institutional, educational and residential components,” Colliers said.