New lease of life for former lamp holder factory
An artistic rendering unveils future look of Shanghai International Health Industry Park.
The former site of the Guangming Lamp Holder Factory in Malu Town is becoming the Shanghai International Health Industrial Park — a smart, high-tech and green biomedicine park.
As the city is replacing its old growth impetus with new ones as part of the renewal of its industrial sectors, old industrial sites are embracing their transformation.
The lamp holder factory-turned international health industrial park has already seen the structural topping-out of three factory buildings, which are estimated to be put into use by 2025.
Guangming Lamp Holder Factory on Jiajian Highway was built by two cooperatives in April 1971. It produced civil and industrial lamp holders of different sizes.
According to statistics in 1989, Jiading manufactured 640 million lamp holders a year, accounting for a third of the national total. Its annual turnout of light bulbs was 163 million and that of florescent lamps was 3.2 million at that time, or 8.2 percent of the national total.
“I had worked in the factory since 1985 and worked till it closed,” said Malu resident Zhu Genkui. “At that time we had punch, glass, inspection and metal processing workshops. I was a worker from the glass workshop. When the factory was in its peak years, it had more than 3,000 workers. Our products were exported to countries like Iraq.”
Through asset reconstruction, the industrial park is now being reinvigorated by Jiading District State-Owned Assets Management Group.
“We’re relying on our geographical advantages of being near Ruijin Hospital’s north campus and the Jiading branch of Shanghai Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, and leveraging the integrated development plan for the East Malu industrial-city demonstration zone to build the park into a model one in the Yangtze River Delta region,” said Fan Zhu, general manager of the group.
Starting in 2022, the group has been modifying the soil condition to suit construction.
The factory renovation project started last year and covers an area of 28,000 square meters. When completed, it will have both factory houses and talent apartments.
