A historic brick office building on Franklin Street that houses a recording studio affiliated with the Goo Goo Dolls has a new owner.
Nicholas J. Castine, owner of a local technology company, paid $2.47 million to buy the Franklin North Medical Complex, located at 529, 556, 558 and 564 Franklin St., according to the deed filed in the Erie County Clerk's office. The seller, Franklin North Group LLC, is registered to developer Nick Sinatra's Sinatra & Co. Real Estate.
Located on nearly an acre of land at the corner of North Street in Allentown, the property features a two-story building at 556 Franklin and two three-story buildings at 558 and 564. They were constructed in 1890, 1900 and 1936, respectively, according to a real estate listing from Ronald "Gunner" Tronolone, the broker at Hunt Commercial Real Estate who represented Sinatra.
Those three buildings make up the office complex, with a total of 32,000 square feet of building space.
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About 8,000 square feet of "raw space" is available for rent in on the second floor the complex, for complete redesign. It's been vacant "for some time," but Castine would like to find a medical user, said Michael Santa Maria, the agent at Arista Real Estate who handled the deal for Castine.
An additional 4,700-square-foot house at 529 Franklin, built in 1890, is also included in the purchase but is empty and available for rehab to offices, apartments or even a single-family residence, Santa Maria said. He added that it "needs some work" and could be a good subject for a historic tax-credit renovation.
The current tenants are mostly medical in nature, including Allentown Pediatrics, Child and Adolescent Services, and Wood Dental Associates, as well as Chameleon Communications West. The occupants also include GCR Audio Recording Studios – originally Trackmaster Audio – which is owned by the Goo Goo Dolls' Robby Takac.
Originally opened in 1980, it was designed by studio architect John Storyk and was used by performers such as Rick James, Spyro Gyra, Yes, Man O War, Richie Havens, the Barenaked Ladies, Ani Difranco, Yo Yo Ma and the Dolls, according to the studio's website. It closed in the late 1990s and remained vacant for about a decade before Takac and John Rzeznik of the Dolls took over in 2007 and turned it into Inner Machine Studios. Takac opened it to the public in 2010.
Castine, a Harvard University graduate, owns Corvo Technologies LLC. He bought the property as an investment, Santa Maria said.
