A $24M development, 111 years in the making
PHOTOS/COURTESY WINNDEVELOPMENT
The old Fitchburg Yarn building (top) on the Nashua River has been reborn with 96 apartments, with a sample unit (bottom).
Stephen DiNatale, mayor, Fitchburg
Larry Curtis, president, WinnDevelopment
PHOTOS/FITCHBURG HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Fitchburg Yarn mill soon after it was built in 1906 (above) and the interior in the 1960s (right).
The brick mill building at the edge of the Nashua River in Fitchburg was once one of a series of textile makers in the city and said to be the first mill to make spun rayon.
Now, the 111-year-old building will have a very different but important task: bringing more residents back downtown to energize an area just over a mile from the MBTA commuter rail stop and Fitchburg State University.
“They've just transformed that whole area, and we couldn't be happier,” Fitchburg Mayor Stephen DiNatale said. “It's just a magnificent building.”
After a $24-million renovation over a year and a half, Yarn Works at 1428 Main St. is now open with 96 units of mixed-income housing. It stands in a stretch of downtown Fitchburg near Caldwell and Gateway parks, and half a mile from the Fitchburg Art Museum.
The Yarn Works project, by Boston-based WinnDevelopment, the development arm of WinnCompanies, was completed with help from $3 million in state funding to improve street infrastructure in the area, particularly remaking Main and River streets. The Massachusetts Housing Partnership provided a $2.8-million long-term loan, and the project relied on a mix of federal and state historic tax credits and low-income housing tax credits.
The building, which opened in June, is about 50-percent leased.
Mill building revitalizations
Yarn Works joins several other former mill buildings in Fitchburg converted into housing, including the 187-unit Riverside Commons at 245 River St. and the 86-unit Anwelt Heritage Apartments senior development off Oak Hill Road.
“We're repurposing a number of our old mill buildings, and that was a prominent one,” DiNatale said of Yarn Works. The mayor has also directed the city to spend $1.5 million on demolishing blighted buildings in the neighborhood.
Larry Curtis, the president and managing partner for WinnDevelopment, said the company often looks at historic developments to renovate into mixed-income developments. The Yarn Works building fit that mold, and the company had experience working in Fitchburg, having taken over the nearby Fitchburg Place, a 96-unit senior community on Pritchard Street.
“Fitchburg is a great community to work in,” Curtis said. “We hope we can do more in Fitchburg.”
Winn has already remade several other historical buildings in Central Massachusetts.
Voke Lofts, at the former Worcester Technical High School in Lincoln Square, opened in 2014 with 84 apartment units. In Worcester's Canal District, Canal Lofts opened in the long-vacant former Chevalier Furniture building with 64 units, half of which are condominiums.
Yarn Works, old and new
The Yarn Works building has a long history in Fitchburg's manufacturing heyday. Built for Fitchburg Yarn Co. in just five months, the building once had 95,000 spindles making more than 3.5 million miles of yarn each week, according to the Fitchburg Historical Society. About 14 million pounds of raw material was used annually.
In July of 1926, Fitchburg Yarn created the world's first rayon fiber, made from trees instead of cotton, according to a 1993 obituary for Fred Thoma, the company's president at the time.
Fitchburg Yarn made it through the Great Depression while operating at full capacity and full employment thanks to its dedication to developing new products, said Susan Navarre, the executive director of the Fitchburg Historical Society.
“At a time when many textile factories were moving south from Massachusetts, the successful introduction of rayon to the United States in 1926 kept the Fitchburg Yarn business strong for an additional five decades,” Navarre said. “For over 70 years, Fitchburg Yarn was an important employer and center for generations of activity in its Fitchburg neighborhood.”
The new 190,000-square-foot Fitchburg development includes a gym and laundry area and onsite parking. Yarn Works includes 57 market-rate units and 39 affordable units, of which 29 will be reserved for those earning 60 percent or less of the area median income. Another 10 will be set aside for those earning 30 percent or less of the area median income.
Market-rate units, with between one and three bedrooms, are listed at between $1,165 and $1,800 a month.
Colantonio Inc. of Holliston was the general contractor.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments