Perched on scaffolding atop one of the two 9-story towers that rise above the Ponemah Mill in the Taftville section of Norwich last Tuesday, I was reminded why it’s a good idea for an editorial writer to get out of the office.

Ponemah has fascinated me since moving to the area in 1980, often contemplating why industrialist Edward P. Taft, when construction began in 1866, approved so many ornate touches, such as the dormers decorating its fifth-floor windows and the twin towers with their belfries and cupolas. He could have built a simpler, cheaper yet functional mill.

The exterior stair towers had a practical purpose, providing access to all floors but keeping the space in the mill open to accommodate the massive spindles and looms used in textile production. However, making them decorative, topping them with large weather vanes, and building the towers to a height roughly twice that of the mill was pure showmanship. Taft and his mill demanded attention.

Gazing up at those towers all these years, and imagining its history and the stories of my fellow French-Canadians who were for generations its primary workforce, I would never have guessed I would one day be standing atop one.

The opportunity came during a tour provided by Finbar O’Neill, director of operations for Onekey LLC, which has taken on the formidable project of converting the mill into apartments. It’s a family affair. Fin’s wife, Paula O’Neill, is company president.

“We joke that we get the newlyweds and the nearly deads,” said O’Neill, a laugh interrupting his Irish brogue. “Young people just startin’ out, maybe one child, and more senior folk tired a cuttin’ the lawn and patchin’ the house.”

I now fall in the latter category, I imagine.

This will be a cool place to live. Replicas of the original mill windows provide ample light, necessary in the pre-electricity era when the mill opened, the machinery powered by the rushing Shetucket River behind it. Beams and trusses remain exposed in the apartments, along with duct work and sprinklers. The mill’s large vacant spaces provided a canvas that allowed the designers to carve the apartments into different shapes and sizes.

Marketed as The Lofts at Ponemah Mills, the branding fits.

What struck me as we moved through mill — Day Staff Writer Claire Bessette and Photographer Sarah Gordon along for the tour — was what a tremendous undertaking is this project and how well the 313,000-square-foot building had to be constructed to make it possible.

Onekey expects to sink $30 million into phase one, developing 116 apartments involving roughly half the main building. Once those apartments are filling up, the $32 million phase two work begins on another 121 units. A third phase would create 77 apartments in a secondary mill building along the river.

Creative and complex financing make it possible, including federal and state historic preservation tax credits, tax-exempt bonds from the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, and loans through the state Department of Housing. About six out of 10 units must be priced as affordable for those making median pay.

Norwich Mayor Deberey Hinchey, who is not seeking re-election this year when her four-year term ends, deserves credit for her work in convincing the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to support the Ponemah project. These apartments, along with other new housing in the area, should prove transformative for the Taftville village, with services and eateries opening to serve the new population.

“I don’t feel comfortable talking about legacy achievements,” Hinchey said when I asked if this would be among her administration’s crowning successes. “But I think it will be critical to revitalization in that end of town. And having Ponemah historically preserved is such a tribute to the history of Norwich.”

O’Neill topped off our tour, literally, with that trip to the bell tower. Out a fifth-floor exit we went, and up a fire-escape type iron ladder to the roof. Moving past the roof-top air conditioners, the river a couple of hundred feet below us, we headed to the tower. Inside, O’Neill rang the thunderous bell that once summoned the villagers to work.

Then up several more stories, circling the tower as we climbed the scaffolding stairs. The empty spaces between each step and the sparse framing vividly revealed our ascending height. Our group emerged on a platform at the tower’s pinnacle.

But for the roads, village houses and the Shetucket River, I was struck by how green and tree covered was the vista from that height; perhaps not unlike the view the workers saw when they installed the weather vane about 150 years earlier.

It sure beat a day behind the desk.

Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.