Digital music killed Philly's Sigma studio; will be apartments

UPDATE: 210-214 N. 12th St. -- the former Sigma Sound Studios, where David Bowie recorded "Young Americans", where Billy Joel developed "Captain Jack," where Patti LaBelle and the many artists signed to Gamble and Huff and other classic labels recorded for years -- has been sold by Sine Partners LP/New Sigma LLC and Conestoga Bank, to a group of Philadelphia-based investors, says broker Jim Gorecki, of Fidelity Commercial, who represented the sellers. Joe Tarsia, whose family had long owned the studio and the gold records that decorated its walls, sold to Mario and Noemi Santoro in 2003; Sigma shut down last year and the current property loan fell behind, leading to the sale.

The buyers plan to convert the space into homes, offices and maybe retail space, after "extensive renovations," says Michael Barmash, broker at Colliers International's Philadelphia office, who represented the buyers. The studio may have been historic, but with digital tools "you don't have to go to a studio anymore," Barmash told me. The two-story former studio and adjoining space totalling 13,900 sf listed for $2.2 million but sold for $1.55 million.

Gorecki tells me Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus (corrected) and other artists recorded at the Sigma in Philadelphia as recently as last year. The firm had other locations, "but the main headquarters studio was on 12th St." Master tapes and historical items were shipped off to the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University, that increasingly well-known digital-music center, under Prof. Toby Seay.