The main building №1 of the “Arsenal” manufactory is an nationally significant architectural monument — the New Kyiv-Pechersk Fortress, which was part of the complex of buildings of the Kyiv Arsenal. There were located different production workshops. This complex was built in 1850-1854 and designed by academician of architecture Alexander Gemilian.

Building №1 — the most famous building of the Arsenal, located at an angle to the street, has a complex plan in the form of a broken line. It became one of the largest and most complex structures in Kyiv in the mid-nineteenth century. For possibility to build workshops on bulk soil, the architect used the construction of foundations in the form of deep-lying pillars, the foundations of which are connected by inverted arches.

According to the plan, its ground two floors and basements were created as casemates, because the building was part of the fortress fence between tower number 6 and the barracks on the isthmus with Mykyl’sky Gates. They connected their walls with loopholes. Subsequently, the building was a warehouse of materials and finished products.

The original two-story brick building of production workshops and its cellars, about 300 m long, were partially rebuilt at the end of the 19th century.
In 1956-1959 two more floors with flat reinforced concrete floors were built on the building.

In second half of the twentieth century the building was used as administrative premises and a factory shop, was converted to the needs of production and overgrown with numerous outbuildings.

In 2019 the historical building of the plant was restored by the A Development team, turning it into a public space, opening a new page in its history.

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The Kyiv Arsenal manufactory was opened in the middle of the 18th century. First, small artillery equipment and parts for guns were repaired and manufactured here. The development of the enterprise had an important military-strategic role for the Empire, so when the scope of production increased, the capacities were transferred to Moskovskaya Street (now Ostrozhsky Princes Street) for the fortification of the Kyiv fortress.

Thanks to the presence of a military plant here, the fortress was modernized. So, in 1855, a centralized water supply appeared, and from there, the water supply system covered all of Kyiv. Since 1884 the manufacture was electrified.

In the early twentieth century, the Arsenal manufacture was the largest and most progressive enterprise in Kyiv. More than 800 workers worked here, who had a full social package. The trade union had its own kindergarten, a two-year school, now it is the Klovsky Lyceum, a theater, a library, and its own hospital.

After World War II, captured German equipment from Carl Zeiss Jena (a manufacturer of photographic equipment and optical devices) was brought to the manufacture. With its help, they began to produce popular cameras from Kyiv and Salyut series, optics, electronic orientation and targeting systems for fighters.

In the second half of the 1990s, created and mass-produced optical-electronic devices for medicine. Subsequently, the production of traffic lights on LEDs, bank metering equipment, high-precision gas metering devices was mastered.

Today, A Development is implementing an ambitious project to revitalize the old buildings of the Arsenal manufacture. A-Station is a space of unity of the past and the present, a place of meetings and acquaintance of guests with Kyiv.