The Armstrong Cork Factory was designed by the masterful Pittsburgh architect, Frederick Osterling in 1901 with an addition added in 1913. The factory has three sections all constructed in red brick in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, a popular style for industrial buildings during the early 1900s. It stands as the physical legacy of Thomas Armstrong who purchased a small cork-cutting operation in 1860 on Smithfield and Diamond streets, in Downtown Pittsburgh. Forty years later, he built the massive factory, one of the largest cork processing facilities in the world in the early 1900s. By 1930, it employed 1,300 people. Armstrong Cork Factory left Pittsburgh in 1974, when employment at the factory had dwindled to about 300.

In 2005, the CORK FACTORY was converted into URBAN LOFT APARTMENTS