Date:  July 31, 2024  |   Story: Rebekah Hall Scott  |   Art Direction: Bailey Dougan  |  

The Paint Factory building in Little Rock’s East Village sits at a bustling intersection of the city’s past and future. Built on East 6th Street in 1947, the 50,000-square-foot, post-war commercial and industrial warehouse was first home to Stebbins & Roberts, a paint manufacturing company that began as a small sign painting business in Little Rock in 1914. After World War II, the company grew rapidly and constructed the building to accommodate their success, expanding the original structure with an east wing addition in 1971. The company changed its name to Sterling Paint in 1995 and occupied the building until 2003, when it was acquired by Iowa Paint. It sat empty for a few years until Cromwell Architects Engineers purchased the building in 2015 to create a new office space for their company.

“When we began looking for a new property, we wanted to do something that would have a positive influence on a part of our community that really needed it,” says Dan Fowler, president of Cromwell Architects Engineers. “This amazing empty warehouse was the right size, it was a beautiful piece of architecture from the late 40s, and it just really spoke to us.”

In 2017, The Paint Factory reopened as a mixed-use building that now houses Cromwell’s office, Sterling Market restaurant, a communal meeting space known as The Mixing Room, and 12 Star Flats, which offers one- and two-bedroom loft apartments on the second floor. Dan says it was important to Cromwell to bring a “variety of life” to the area by developing the building for multiple tenants. “It creates a community here in our little corner of the city,” he says. 

He also notes that bringing new life to an existing structure in a historic area was a priority for the firm. “We believe as a company that a community’s heart and soul can be traced back to its history, and that a significant part of the historical record of a city lies in its architecture,” he says. “This was a manufacturing, industrial part of the city all the way back in the late 1800s. That heritage and history is strong, and we hope it continues.”

Illustration by Bailey Dougan