A balance between commercial and residential
When it comes to further development of Worcester's Gateway Park, only a couple of things are certain.
First, there are several vacant lots waiting for new buildings.
Second, some of the city's ugliest old institutional buildings are slated for demolition to make way for still more new buildings.
But who will fill those buildings, and whether they'll be built primarily for housing or commercial uses is unknown, according to David Forsberg, president of the Worcester Business Development Corp., which with the Worcester Polytechnic Institute is spearheading the development of Gateway Park.
City real estate brokers said Worcester's moribund downtown is counting on Gateway Park, the city's fastest moving and most successful development project, to help in its revitalization. It would be easier, brokers said, to attract people to live in Worcester if Gateway developed commercial and retail space at the park first.
Wrecking ball
The next building to come down will be the old, low Worcester vocational school building at 1 Concord St. Forsberg said that building would be demolished within two months, and would be replaced by either 120,000 square feet of market-rate condominiums or an 80,000-square-foot commercial building.
"That's a swing parcel," Forsberg said. "I think the city would be happy with either."
Forsberg said plans are also in place for the demolition of the main vocational school building and a small collection of others just across Concord Street from the single-story school building currently undergoing pre-demolition asbestos removal.
Forsberg said as long as Gateway Park sticks to its plan of including 45 to 65 percent life sciences uses, how much housing or retail is developed at the park doesn't really matter.
"If the demand is there, we'll do commercial," Forsberg said. "I think we have a niche, and we're also not looking at a huge amount of housing, just enough to make it mixed use."
Laws of attraction
Mixed in with market rate housing will be student housing, Forsberg said. WPI is in the process of buying 75 Grove St. from Gateway Park LLC, and plans 93 units of graduate student housing and 13,000 square feet of retail space there.
What becomes of the parcels that could be developed as either housing or commercial space depends on how successful WPI and the WBDC are at attracting tenants to commercial space.
Peter Kovago, principle with Worcester commercial real estate broker Glickman Kovago & Co., said how much housing Gateway Park could bear "is a crystal ball question."
"The market right now is such that you're not going to see a lot of condos or other residential development going off right now," Kovago said.
Even though Gateway Park is rather self-contained, "it will get pulled into that downtown area," Kovago said. And the amount and success of any housing at Gateway depends on "what kind of commercial, and especially what kind of retail is down there."
There's space for 80,000 square feet of commercial space off Prescott Street, directly in front of the existing Gateway Park facility. The WBDC is in discussions with a developer and one possible anchor tenant interested in putting a 140,000-square-foot building at 1 Washburn Way, Forsberg said.
Another developer is interested in an option on the property at Prescott and Concord Streets, where an additional 100,000 square feet of commercial space is planned, Forsberg said.
All of these developments strain the park neighborhood's streets and the patience of people who have to drive there. To that end, Gateway's plans include doing away with Concord Street and renaming it Salisbury Street, which it turns into after just a few feet, anyway.
Also, plans call for the closure of Lexington Street and Purinton Street and the reopening of Faraday Street with new traffic signals at Prescott Street.
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