Marlborough Development Offers Buyers Custom Condos | Prices range from $239,000 to $358,000
Photo/Eileen Kennedy
Deborah Fairbanks is standing in the kitchen of the finished model of the Renaissance Lofts in Marlborough.
Photo/Courtesy
The inner courtyard of the Renaissance Lofts at 406 Lincoln St. in Marlborough allows natural light into the condo units.
Individual expression has always been important to Deborah Fairbanks and her latest project, the Renaissance Lofts on Lincoln Street in Marlborough, is no exception.
As a teenager she made her own clothes, as a young mother she made her daughter’s clothes and as she built her construction company, she zeroed in on restoring individual Victorian homes to their previous luster.
On and off for 15 years, Fairbanks looked for just the right industrial property to turn into loft space for condominiums.
“When I saw this building I got really excited because it was on as street like this and in a residential neighborhood,” Fairbanks said of the former industrial building at 406 Lincoln St. It was the former location of Marlborough Wire Goods, and more recently Space Age Electronics.
Homey Feel
New England is awash is in large, renovated mills space and former schools that have been turned into condominiums and artists’ lofts. “So many of the buildings I saw were in industrial areas where there is nothing but an industrial wasteland,” she said.
Lincoln Street has large, older houses on one end and a number of residential streets nearby, and it is only a few blocks from Main Street. Fairbanks said another attraction was the city’s focus on Lincoln Street through grants for fixing up store fronts and signs. She also bought a property with a bar that caused trouble off and on in the neighborhood, which she razed for a parking lot.
But much more interesting than the building, which is a former factory of plain brick, are the possibilities that the condos hold for individual owners. They are mostly unfinished, although there is one finished model for sale, and the spaces range from 1,300 to 3,000 square feet. The prices, based on size, range from $239,000 to $358,000.
Fairbanks gave an example of two similarly-sized units whose owners have chosen much different space arrangements. One owner had it made into one bedroom and the rest as workspace, while the other owner had three bedrooms made from the same space.
“The people who are here really appreciate it and they think it’s a cool thing to make their own space,” she said. If people are unsure about what they want, she will finish it off for them. Owners choose their own kitchen cabinets and appliances, as well as flooring and paint for each room and there are many energy efficient aspects to each unit and the building.
She customizes the polished concrete floors for people, including a compass for one world traveler. Another owner, Brian Stone and his partner Scott, wanted something a little more extensive for their floor. Fairbanks brought in a concrete artist from Maine who scored the floors into blocks and stained them. The artist also incorporated black ribbons into the floor, at the request of the owners, so the unit’s open space could be more delineated into different areas.
“We fell in love with it when we saw it because it was clean slate, and Deb has been really flexible with things,” Stone said. “It is exactly how we had envisioned it.”
Of course, not having set layouts in the units makes it a little harder to market and many real estate agents are baffled by the lack definitive unit layouts, she said. Of the 29 units, 10 were sold since she put them on the market last June. She has had to carry the project longer than she had planned, but she knows that is part of the risk taking.
She’s the owner, developer, architect and builder of the project, which initially made her bank a bit nervous, but since they’ve seen her work they’ve relaxed a bit, she said.
The inner core of the building was turned into a courtyard, allowing more natural light to the condos, which all have windows to the courtyard as well outer windows.
There is also 3,900 square feet of commercial space, which the city allowed her to break up into two spaces. Fairbanks hoped it would become an art gallery and restaurant, but that hasn’t materialized although she is talking to small companies who are interested in leasing the space.
Fairbanks also saw the neighborhood as a great area for her other business: restoring Victorians. “No matter which way you approach this property, you go by so many Victorians that are screaming out to be restored. I’ve seen as a home base of sorts.”
Her experience in selling the condos, no matter how individual, reflects condo sales in general. January marked a 17-year low in condo sales, according to The Warren Group.
There were 806 condos sold statewide, which was a 29 percent decrease from 1,136 condos sold in January 2007. The median condo price dropped 22.2 percent to $209,900 in January, compared to $259,950 in January 2007, according to The Warren Group.
The price drop is the steepest percentage drop in monthly median condo prices since The Warren Group began keeping statistics two decades ago.
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