Leominster's Spruce Street Gets Extreme Makeover
Three mill renovations aim to draw commercial tenants
The building owners – James Whitney of J. Whitney Development, Robert Bolio of Bolio Red & White Moving and Storage and Anthony Mazzaferro of Cardinal Comb & Brush – hope their collective efforts will aid Leominster’s revitalization.
Three’s Company
Whitney recently purchased 40 Spruce St., a 43,000-square-foot factory that has gone through several industrial uses but is currently only occupied by two small cabinet-making companies.
With the help of a $1,180,000 “new markets” loan from MassDevelopment, the state’s economic development financing arm, Whitney has stripped the property’s walls and ceilings down to bricks and wooden beams, and he is now dividing up the wide open interior to make spaces for new tenants. He expects to attract office tenants, retailers and other small commercial operations. Whitney said a similar project that he completed on Lancaster Street now houses a dance studio, a pasta company and a “self-serve pet wash,” among other things.
Across the street is 39 Spruce St., a 14,000-square-foot building that Bolio, president of Bolio Red & White Moving and Storage, recently purchased. The company uses much of the space itself, but Bolio is now rehabilitating the whole building in the hopes of renting five smaller sections to building-trades tenants like plumbers and electricians. He said that over the past 10 years, he’s already occupied, rehabilitated and then sold two other buildings.
A third, smaller project, is in the works nearby at 26 Spruce St., a 6,000 square foot building. Mazzaferro said he has owned the building for about 12 years and has rented portions of it for uses including office space and a massage studio. He said he’s now replacing windows, improving the roof and doing new landscaping. The new, large windows in particular should allow him to attract retail tenants, he said. Eventually, he said, he may add solar panels to the roof.
Strength In Numbers
The redevelopment of old mill buildings for modern uses is something that cheerleaders for smart growth in industrial cities love to promote. But developers from other former industrial cities shouldn’t go looking to the Leominster building owners for the secret of how it’s done. The key, the three men say, is the same one as in any real estate venture: location.
Whitney said that five or six years ago he would have had no interest in 40 Spruce St. What makes it attractive now is the way that other neighborhoods close to the center of Leominster have improved.
Bolio said Spruce Street’s proximity to Route 2 and Route 190, as well as the Mall at Whitney Field and the downtown shopping district, is key to attracting tenants. Both building owners said their projects would simply not have been worth it in locations farther from highways and commercial centers.
“You don’t want to spend all the money and then have the building sitting there for years and years and years,” Whitney said.
For Whitney, the event that turned the area around 40 Spruce St., in what is known as the Comb and Carriage District, into an attractive place to set up shop was a Habitat for Humanity project. With support from the city and the help of students from Leominster High School’s Center for Technical Education, the group built a house at 157 Whitney Street for a local family. Whitney said the modern home going up within eyesight of the three Spruce Street mill buildings greatly improved the look of the neighborhood.
Megan Foley, executive director of Habitat for Humanity North Central Massachusetts, said that’s part of the reasons for the group’s efforts.
“When we talk about all the work we do, we talk about building hope, building homes and building community,” she said. “We always hope it will have repercussions.”
The three mill rehabilitation projects have reinforced each other, the owners say. No one wants to pour money into a building while the neighboring properties go downhill, they say, but everyone wants to be part of a revitalizing neighborhood.
Still, Bolio said, fixing up an old building for new uses is complicated, and it requires a firm grasp on details like local zoning laws.
“A guy really has to sit down and work everything out before you buy the building,” he said.
The owners say they are now talking with city officials about improvements to sidewalks and street lights in the area. With those kinds of improvements, Mazzaferro said, the area could be a big asset for Leominster.
“It’s like an entrance to Leominster coming up Mechanic Street,” he said. “So I hope it blends with and joins the downtown area, allows the downtown area to expand a little bit.”
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