Lawyer Says 'Ciao' To Boston, Buys TiNovo
Embattled site gets another chance as an Italian eatery
After nearly a year of sitting vacant, the embattled Grand Army of the Republic Hall in Worcester at 55 Pearl St. has a new owner.
Fifty-Five Pearl Street Development LLC bought the former home of the restaurant TiNovo for $755,000 plus about $26,000 in back city taxes and fees last Wednesday. Boston bankruptcy attorney Frank D. Kirby is listed as the manager of 55 Pearl Street Development. The new owner reportedly wants to open an Italian restaurant at the site.
The sale comes after the city made several revisions to restrictions on the property's deed, apparently to make it a more palatable investment for the buyer.
The city originally stipulated on the property's deed that it house "a relocated Tiano's" restaurant. Tiano's was the name of a restaurant run by the building's former owner, Mitchell Terricciano, on Grove Street in Worcester. At the same time, a preservation deed required the property to house a "first-rate restaurant and gathering place."
The former GAR Hall in Worcester has a new owner.Revised Restrictions
But to facilitate the sale, the deed restriction was amended once again last Wednesday, requiring only that the property have a "full service restaurant and banquet facility."
Digital Federal Credit Union foreclosed on Terricciano last April.
In July 2005, Terricciano bought and began renovating the property on DCU mortgages of $1 million and $800,000, with the intention of moving his Tiano's restaurant there, according to city land records. In July of 2006, Terricciano borrowed another $150,000 from DCU.
Terricciano ran a restaurant called TiNovo there for only about a year. It closed last January.
Business broker Christopher George of George & Co. in Worcester worked on the sale on behalf of DCU. He said the transaction was complex and uncertain right up until it closed last Wednesday.
"I've been doing this for 27 years, and it's been an eye-opener to me," George said. The deed restrictions made selling the building difficult, not because they stipulated that 55 Pearl St. must include a restaurant, but because they vaguely required that restaurant to be either Tiano's or "first-rate."
A number of local restaurateurs and a group from New York at least expressed interest in buying the property, according to George and Tim McGourthy, the city's economic development director, but in the end 55 Pearl Street Development was the only one with the desire and wherewithal to pull it off.
Owning and running a restaurant is a notoriously risky and fickle business.
So, why would the city force owners of the GAR hall, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, to include a restaurant in their plans?
McGourthy said the deed restriction was meant to help the city fill a longstanding need for quality restaurants downtown, but said the city also realized that the requirement was too specific.
However, McGourthy noted that the hall is already completely fitted out as a restaurant and banquet facility with all the equipment necessary, and that may make a restaurant the easiest business to establish there. "The key is to create a vital economic use, to draw people to the building," McGourthy said.
The new deed restriction still requires that 55 Pearl St. be home to a "full service restaurant and banquet facility," for three years, but acknowledges that the previous restriction was "so restrictive that the property is difficult to convey," and that "other uses may be necessary to make the property economically viable." If Kirby's consortium can't make a go of it as a restaurant, the new deed restriction lists secondary uses the city finds acceptable. They include: a bank, dance/entertainment hall, retail food sales, retail, a service shop, a theater or concert hall, offices or an auction house. The building's owners must submit a proposal in writing in order to move ahead with any of those alternatives.
Kirby posted to his firm's web site Jan. 13 that his office was moving from W. 8th St. in South Boston to 5 Pleasant St. in Worcester, which is listed as 55 Pearl Street Development LLC's office in the certificate of organization, as of Feb. 1. 5 Pleaseant St. is around the corner from 55 Pearl. Kirby did not return calls for comment.
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