June reopening possible for revived Quackenbush building in Troy

Troy

A crane lifted drywall into the historic Quackenbush building on Tuesday, as workers were busy transforming the four-story structure into a high-tech workshop and office space.

Construction crews are working toward a June ribbon-cutting at the Third Street building, which will house the Tech Valley Center of Gravity and several other private tenants, building owner David Bryce said during a tour.

The 55,000-square-foot building, which had been vacant for more than a dozen years, is about 80 percent leased, Bryce said, pointing out the 1850s-era cast-iron columns from the building's beginning as Quackenbush Department Store.

Bryce said workers found a portrait of store founder Gerrit Van Schaick Quackenbush tucked inside a wall of a 1930s addition to the building, likely done as the store was being changed over to W.T. Grant. He said he has had the portrait restored at Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.

Another oddity surfaced during the renovation, Bryce said a U.S. flag with 39 stars, a version that never became an official flag. The banner was created by some flag makers in 1889 who gambled that the Dakota territory now the states of North and South Dakota would be admitted to the U.S. as a single state. That gamble failed: The territory was divided in two, and Montana, Washington and Idaho were granted statehood at the same time. Such flags are now collectors' items.

For all its history, the venerable building which Bryce said was the first steel-framed structure in the state north of Manhattan at the time is being reborn from its Victorian heyday as a 21st-century technology hub.

The building became, after it was a W.T. Grant store, a Rite Aid drugstore. But it has been vacant since 2001.

As workers put up framing for interior walls, Bryce showed off floors being rewired to carry high-speed Internet connections.

Views from the upper floors, which now have insulated 10-foot glass windows, are dramatic and look out on downtown, the Hudson River and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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June reopening possible for revived Quackenbush building in Troy