Historic Preservation · Multifamily
Broadway Lofts
Macon, Georgia
The 1916 Happ Brothers overalls factory — a National Register industrial building saved from demolition — became roughly ninety lofts around two interior courtyards, an early anchor of downtown Macon's loft-living revival.
- Original construction
- 1916
- Original use
- Happ Brothers sewing factory
- Residences
- Approx. 90 lofts
- Converted
- 2002
The project
The Happ Brothers Company built its four-story factory on Broadway — today's Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard — in 1916 and made work clothing there until production ceased in the late 1980s. The building sat as a demolition candidate before its conversion proved that downtown Macon's industrial shells could hold housing.
The rehabilitation organized roughly ninety loft apartments around two interior courtyards, with a rooftop deck above. Exposed brick, heavy timber, hardwood floors, and oversized industrial windows carry the factory's character into the residences; a preserved barn-style freight door still opens onto one courtyard.
Completed in 2002, Broadway Lofts came early in the sequence of National Register conversions — before Dannenberg, Sterchi's & Kessler, and the rest of the loft wave it helped make plausible. The building remains fully residential today.
Research record
Sources and provenance
Project facts and photography were archived from the firm’s public portfolio and cross-checked against the supplementary sources below.
Project photography from the firm's 2026 qualification submittal.