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By Robert O'Malley
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| View
of the Coffin building.
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By January 2006, the five-building Union Street Lofts development
in downtown New Bedford was nearing completion. Residents had started
to move into the new apartments and the ground-floor commercial
space was in the final stage of construction.
The opening of the housing marks a turning point in the city's ongoing
effort to revive a once-thriving downtown by developing housing
and commercial space in the district's vacant commercial buildings.
Developed by the Waterfront Historic Area League (WHALE), a nonprofit
dedicated to preserving historic properties, and HallKeen LLC, a
real estate-investment company, the five-building, mixed-income
Union Street Lofts consists of three historic buildings in the Coffin
Lofts initiative and two historic buildings in the Lawton's Corner initiative.
Financing for the Coffin Lofts initiative included a $307,709 grant
and $1.45 million subsidized advance
from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston's (the Bank) Affordable
Housing Program (AHP), $647,116 in New Markets and Historic Tax
Credits, state and local HOME funds, and a $70,000 Massachusetts
Preservation Projects Grant. Member Compass Bank also took a $600,000
Community Development advance from the Bank to finance expenses
associated with the project's commercial space. The Lawton's Corner
initiative received a $1.17 million reduced-rate advance supported
by funds from the Bank's former Massachusetts Community Building
Program.
Mark Hess, senior project manager for HallKeen, says residents
have moved into eight of the 18 Coffin Lofts apartments and 10 of
the 17 Lawton's Corner apartments. "The leasing has gone well,"
says Mr. Hess. "We're basically creating a new residential
neighborhood in the downtown. You can do all the homework you want,
but you won't know exactly what is going to happen until you've
built it and put up a 'For Rent' sign."
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Union
Street Lofts resident M-C Lamarre in her apartment.
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With construction of the residential component complete and residents
living in some of the apartments, the developers are turning their
attention to the completion and leasing of the commercial space.
The Lawton's Corner commercial space had tenants prior to the redevelopment
— and most will be returning — but the developers still
need to find tenants for the Coffin Lofts commercial space.
"We always thought that the commercial space would be the piece
that took the most patience," says Mr. Hess. "There have
been some strong bites, but we haven't leased any of the space on
the Coffin side yet."
In the construction phase, the developers encountered a number of
structural challenges - including a severely deteriorated roof in
the Coffin Building - that led to cost overruns and an extended
construction schedule. "There were major cost implications
to the changes," says Mr. Hess. "But our partners have
really stepped up to the plate in this regard."
The Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation (MHIC) was able
to acquire additional Historic and New Markets Tax Credits to help
plug the project's funding gap, says Mr. Hess. The development also
benefited from an infusion of state Historic Tax Credits and additional
city HOME funds.
"There's still the whole process of working with the contractor
to come up with resolutions to the cost overruns that are fair and
reasonable for both parties," says Mr. Hess. "Our contractor
has certainly helped us through some of these jams along the way,
but there's a lot of "i" dotting and "t" crossing
that still needs to be done.
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Lisa Sughrue,
executive director of Waterfront Historic Area League, and Mark
Hess, senior project manager at HallKeen LLC, visit a Union
Street Lofts apartment.
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Mr. Hess notes that Union Street Lofts is part of a broader downtown
revival sparked in part by the conversion of a former department
store into the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Arts Center.
"I think most people who are familiar with New Bedford would
agree that Union Street Lofts is part of a major downtown renaissance,"
says Mr. Hess. "These were five blighted buildings in a downtown
that is not that big."
"We're creating a 24-7 neighborhood where none existed,"
says Lisa Sughrue, executive director of WHALE. "The downtown
has typically been a commercial district that shut down at 5 o'clock.
The opening of UMass Dartmouth brought students downtown and started
to change that. We're hoping that developing this new neighborhood
will continue that change. The downtown is the hub of our city,
so it's important for it to be strong and vibrant."
Jim Gouveia, the owner of Jimmy's Hotdogs, which has been operating
in a Lawton's Corner commercial space for about 25 years, is confident
that the opening of the new developments will give a much-needed
boost to the downtown business community. "You have to be positive,"
he says. "It's been negative down here for so long. We'll have
more young people down here. A mix of young, old, and middle-aged
people is what will make it work."
"I believe that downtown New Bedford is on the cusp of something
great," adds Mr. Gouveia's son Jim, a musician who works in
the restaurant and recently moved into a Coffin Lofts apartment.
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| Lawton's
Corner.
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M-C Lamarre, a resident of an affordable unit in the Lawton's Corner
development, lived in New Hampshire and Boston before arriving in
New Bedford in November. She says she came to the city because she
wanted to be in a community that supported artists and couldn't
afford the high rents of Boston.
"I am really enjoying living here," says Ms. Lamarre,
a mural painter who works part-time at an arts organization two
blocks from her downtown apartment. "It has allowed me to pursue
my art and develop my business, which is painting murals for children's
rooms and nurseries."
"It's exciting to be part of the community that is developing
here," she adds. "I've made a point to introduce myself
to everyone who is living here. Having a sense of community in a
city is something you have to work for; it's not something that's
going to just happen."
"Without the financing provided by the AHP, downtown New
Bedford would have been deprived of a mix of affordable and market-rate
housing that is both socially and economically desirable,"
says Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA-4). "For cities like New Bedford,
public-private partnerships are essential. The AHP — especially
as administered by the Boston Bank — is one of the best vehicles
we have for such work."
This is the third in a series of articles on the development
of Union Street Lofts in downtown New Bedford, Massachusetts.
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