Who knew that the new millennium would revive this historical “steel town” and elevate the oozing, nasty Blob to cultural icon?

Investment in the arts provided the impetus to refurbish the heart of Phoenixville and attract new generations of nightlife creatures into the city. The local Main Street Community Development Corporation, Phoenixville Area Business Association and other players helped transform a dreary stretch into a vibrant, compact town center. Artists and artisans took root. Banks anted up development money. Phoenixville Hospital not only stayed put but expanded.

Like the resilient, winged phoenix of Greek mythology, the town had risen from the ashes. Residential Phoenixville, however, had stood tall all along.

“The neighborhoods never suffered the decline [of downtown],” says council president Richard Kirkner. “With the business district’s vitality improved significantly in the past 10 years, even more people are taking an interest in purchasing property here.” 

Incorporated in 1849, the borough of Phoenixville boasted Phoenix Iron Works, which furnished armament during the Civil War, helped build the infrastructure of the Industrial Revolution, and lasted until the 1980s. The original foundry, a multi-gabled work of art, has been restored as part of the historic district. 

Art-in-the-flesh is on display along Bridge Street, where Steel City Coffee House hosts live musicians and audiences, and Phoenix Village Art Center educates and showcases artists in a former hardware store, while the brightly lit Colonial Theatre has been restored and expanded. The hub of new-look Phoenixville, the Colonial mixes screenings with live performance and celebrates an annual BlobFest in July. The festivities include creative (read: bizarre) blob costumes and a reenactment of the frenzied exit scene from the campy horror movie. Thanks to the architects of Phoenixville’s redevelopment, though, everyone is eager to return. 

The next target for Phoenixville futurists is the vacant 80 acres of the old Phoenix Steel site (a successor name to Phoenix Iron Works) along French Creek in the middle of town. The master plan calls for a mixed-use complex of retail shops, offices, housing, and a continuation of the Schuylkill Trail from Philadelphia.

“We need the right developer with the right vision,” says Kirkner.