Worcester Infill and Developments

Politics and the City: Success literally building at industrial park

By Nick Kotsopoulos
Telegram & Gazette Staff

Posted May. 29, 2016 at 6:00 AM

Within a matter of months, the South Worcester Industrial Park has gone from being the butt of many jokes to a virtual success story.

Situated north of Southbridge Street and including properties along Canterbury, Southgate and Armory streets, SWIP is an 11-acre brownfield in an urban setting that the city has been trying to develop for more than 20 years.

The city had absolutely no luck in drumming up interest to get companies to buy any of the six parcels it owned in the industrial park.

People at City Hall were completely perplexed and totally frustrated by the lack of progress at SWIP, especially given its prime location to railroad lines and the highway system.

It's no wonder because $6.5 million in public money had been spent on cleaning up the properties and preparing them for development for light-industrial uses.

There were some nibbles here and there, but nothing ever came of them.

That was until this past January when City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. announced the sale of the first city-owned parcel in the industrial park to a company that has been a property owner in that area for nearly 10 years.
O&S Realty LLC, a wholly-owned real estate holding company of Absolute Machinery Corp., purchased a 28,266-square-foot parcel at 33 Southgate St. in the industrial park for $10,000.

The acquisition will facility Absolute Machinery's planned $725,000 expansion of its existing operations.

When he announced the sale of the first city-owned parcel in the industrial park, Mr. Augustus said he was cautiously optimistic that it would the beginning of many good things in SWIP and spur greater interest there.
His optimism proved prophetic.

Earlier this month, the city reached an agreement on the sale of 49 Canterbury St., a 75,700-square-foot parcel.

Armory Business Center LLC intends to construct a sustainable 16,800-square-foot commercial/light-industrial center there that consists of nine leasable units divided among three buildings.

Then last week, the City Council approved the sale of three more vacant lots in SWIP, consisting of a total of about 5.22 acres at 25 Southgate St., 17 Southgate Place and 65 Armory St.

The three parcels will be sold for a total of $417,600, making it the largest sale of city-owned land in SWIP.

Chacharone Properties LLC, which reached agreement with the city on the purchase of the properties, plans to construct at least two buildings on the three parcels, totaling no less than 65,000 square feet of modern industrial space.

For those keeping score, the sale of those three parcels means that five of the six city-owned parcels in SWIP have been sold, or agreements are in place for their sale, just within the first five months of this year.

Meanwhile, Mr. Augustus said his administration is in negotiations with someone for the sale of the sixth and final parcel – a 32,251-square-foot vacant parcel at 26 Southgate Place. And it could only be a matter of time before an agreement is reached on that.

Pretty remarkable when you consider that between 1994, when SWIP was first conceived, to 2015, the city was unable to sell one parcel. Yet, within the first five months of this year, five of the six parcels have been sold and the city is close to selling the last one.

What’s been the difference this time around?

A couple of factors came into play.

First, Mr. Augustus came out with a new strategy in 2014 that was hailed as a “new concept” and “fresh start” for SWIP.

The comprehensive economic development plan for the industrial park gives the city greater flexibility in the disposition and development of the six parcels it owns.

Instead of having to go through the often lengthy and cumbersome public bidding process to sell the parcels, the city is now able to negotiate directly with prospective buyers.

In addition, the city hired a commercial broker to assist it in marketing and selling the properties.

Michael E. Traynor, the city’s chief development officer, said another key factor that has been instrumental in attracting developers to SWIP is the innovative tax-increment financing that the City Council adopted for it a few years ago.

The policy offers an exemption percentage of between 40 percent and 100 percent, over a period of 10 to 20 years, on property taxes generated by new construction in the industrial park.

The tax exemptions are based on the size of the building constructed and the number of jobs created and retained in the process.

With those tools now available to the city, things finally began falling into place for SWIP.

Persistence on the part of past and present city administrations and city councils was also key, because without it this project could have easily fallen by the wayside.

It’s important to note that most, if not all, of the city-owned parcels that have been sold to date have been at prices far below their assessed value.
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FULL ARTICLE
 
City of Worcester officially releasing a Request for Interest (RFI) on the Worcester Memorial Auditorium.

FULL RFI PDF

1. INVITATION FOR INTEREST
The City of Worcester (“City”), through the Executive Office of Economic Development, is issuing this Request for Interest (“RFI”) for the Worcester Memorial Auditorium (“Auditorium”) located at 1 Lincoln Square in Downtown Worcester. The City seeks to determine if there are qualified purchasers/developers interesting in redeveloping the property in accordance with the North Main Economic Development Strategy, which can be found at
http://www.worcesterma.gov/development/ initiatives-master-plans/north-main-street

This is not a binding Request for Proposals (“RFP”), but an invitation for interested parties to submit a redevelopment plan to the City. The City will use the RFI submittals to gauge interest in the redevelopment of the Auditorium and the proposed re-use scenarios.

Following analysis of the RFI submittals the City may issue a formal RFP but reserves the right to engage in negotiations with one or more respondents to this RFI.

2. GENERAL PROPERTY DESCRIPTION

The Worcester Memorial Auditorium consists of 110,688 square feet of gross building area located on 2.42 acres in the North Main Street area of Downtown Worcester. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Institutional District (NRHP District No. 80000554).

The historic building was built in 1931 on land which had been an orchard on the Stephen Salisbury III Estate and is one of the city’s latest and most imposing Classical Revival buildings. Set on a base of “Deer Island granite,” the upper portion of the structure is faced with Indiana limestone with a variety of classical ornament, much of which is stylized as Art Deco. The building was designed jointly by Lucius W. Briggs of Worcester and F.C. Hirons of New York and was intended to serve as a memorial to the 9,000 Worcester residents who served in World War I. The building is figuratively comprised of three sections: Main Foyer/Memorial Hall, Main Auditorium and Little Theatre. In Memorial Hall, above the Main Foyer, are three murals honoring the men and women of Worcester who died in World War I. They were painted by Leon Kroll over a period of three years. The main mural (57’ x 30’) is based upon the idea of resurrection or rebirth and implies the renewal of a pledge to defend our way of life. Two smaller murals (25.5’ x 16’) symbolically depict defense on land, in the air and at sea. When completed,
Kroll’s main mural was one of the largest in New England.

The property is located in the recently designated Salisbury Cultural District
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A few photos of the Aud.

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Worcester Memorial Auditorium by Jonathan Haeber, on Flickr

Worcester Memorial Auditorium by Marc Belanger, on Flickr

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Apparently someone in recent years looked into redeveloping it:

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Source: http://masielloarchitect.com/selected-work/recreationalhospitality/worcester-memorial-auditorium/
 
Does anyone have any pictures of the Aud when it hosted basketball games? I would love to see this place renovated into a concert venue/music Hall.
 
If they refurbish it'll look amazing. I actually think the current set up is pretty good for different types of rock shows. You can have the standing down below with the seats above - almost like a much bigger Irving Plaza.
 
Seanflynn78 said:
Does anyone have any pictures of the Aud when it hosted basketball games? I would love to see this place renovated into a concert venue/music Hall.
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I wish I could find some on Google, but they're probably over at the historical museum in the archives somewhere.

A few more details - main hall seats a little over 3500, the "little theatre" in the back (entrance on Harvard St.) near 400.

Source (Side note - thank God they never converted it to courthouse space - the place would've been just a shell)

bolehboleh said:
If they refurbish it'll look amazing. I actually think the current set up is pretty good for different types of rock shows. You can have the standing down below with the seats above - almost like a much bigger Irving Plaza.
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But we have the Palladium down the street for that - even if it holds less people, that is a longstanding and well recognized place for hard rock and metal concerts within that music scene. The Aud is bigger, but I'm not sure if that's the best thing for it.

I can see it becoming a bigger Mechanic's Hall, or some other entertainment venue for sure. But gutting the thing out to the walls, I don't think that will fly. Not with the organ and everything else in there.

The city has entertained the thought to get this done over the past 18 years, but if the renderings I found earlier were something to go by, I'd bet more than a few are dusting those ones off and investigating the idea.
 
From what I have been told the Auditorium has terrible acoustics that would cost a ton of money to fix.
 
Does anyone know what year they took the floor seats out of the main auditorium? I saw those pics before of the CBA team. I also wonder if the place was ever renovated? The current seats in the Aud look like they might have been put in the 1960s. A side note I remember almost going to see the Foo Fighters there in the mid to late 90s. Now I wish I went....
 
Some more City Square.

Overview. 145 Front st shown above is going in the huge lot in the middle of this picture.

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Before

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After

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Theater-District.jpg


city-square.jpg
 
I used to live right outside Worcester and its like a rundown forgotten about piece of shit city. It looks like its finally getting some much needed attention. When you walk/drive around downtown you cant help but think about how much potential the city has. Theres actually a lot of really beautiful very old buildings that are falling apart but with some TLC could really become something special. I hope all of this new development finally gets Worcester out of the slump its been in forever and it finally turns the next page. Its extremely cheap to live here and it has some very good schools/hospitals and I think people would love to live here if they cleaned it up a little bit. Time will tell but I have never seen this much happen here so its looking like its turning the page.

I tried to post this before ill try again and see if it works. There are talks about restoring the blackstone canal. Most likely will never happen but its an interesting concept to look at.

Click the link under the video to see it on youtube for some reason the youtube embed doesn't work. This concept looks really good.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1lMqoQ3e_c
https://youtu.be/L1lMqoQ3e_c
 
I always wonder what would have been had this been realized. Sometimes a single spark like this can change everything. Maybe the airport would have been linked to the highway, maybe Worcester would have blown up after, maybe it would have been worse off, well never know. This thing would have been visible from extremely far away because of Worcester's elevation. It kind of reminds me of the Fed in Boston and Citigroup Center in NYC. Either way it would have definitely been iconic and it would have been nice to have an icon outside of Boston.

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Worcester plaza: Iconic design announced in 1969 that was never realized. The original design was a 696 feet (212 m) tall, 50 story, slender tower with an angled crown and would have been the highest standing commercial building in New England.


This was built instead:

800px-446_Main_Street_January_2014.JPG


Completed in 1974, Worcester Plaza is currently tied with Sky Mark Tower as the tallest building in Worcester. It stands 289 feet (88 m) tall, is 24 stories high, and has 244,000 square feet (22,700 m2) of total floor space. Its facade is completely glass, similar to the 790-foot (240 m) John Hancock Tower in nearby Boston.
 
stick n move said:
I always wonder what would have been had this been realized. Sometimes a single spark like this can change everything. Maybe the airport would have been linked to the highway, maybe Worcester would have blown up after, maybe it would have been worse off, well never know. This thing would have been visible from extremely far away because of Worcester's elevation. It kind of reminds me of the Fed in Boston and Citigroup Center in NYC. Either way it would have definitely been iconic and it would have been nice to have an icon outside of Boston.

eef5b2c6cb3ea4979498ff802446bc14.jpg


Worcester plaza: Iconic design announced in 1969 that was never realized. The original design was a 696 feet (212 m) tall, 50 story, slender tower with an angled crown and would have been the highest standing commercial building in New England.


This was built instead:

800px-446_Main_Street_January_2014.JPG


Completed in 1974, Worcester Plaza is currently tied with Sky Mark Tower as the tallest building in Worcester. It stands 289 feet (88 m) tall, is 24 stories high, and has 244,000 square feet (22,700 m2) of total floor space. Its facade is completely glass, similar to the 790-foot (240 m) John Hancock Tower in nearby Boston.
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That tower probably would've killed Worcester more than anything - the rest of downtown's height is roughly 10x smaller.
 
Wouldn't be surprised if Stubbins' design of the Fed was inspired by Kevin Roche/John Dinkeloo's original Worcester Plaza tower.
 
The prudential was 10x times taller than anything around it also at the time, and after it was built an entire neighborhood filled in around it. Not saying it would or would not have happened in Worcester but nobody will ever know.

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Im going to post this in the Pru construction thread because I dont think this has been posted yet.
 
I'm not sure that Worcester would have ever become more prominent than Boston. It lacks the public transportation infrastructure that has helped Boston grow. I'm not sure that one tower would make much of a difference, Boston has always been the "hub" of the region.
 
Ive always wondered why the Art Museum hasnt bought the Aud. They could do some amazing large scale installation work ala Mass MOCA in the main hall and acquire the murals in the lobby as a new part of their collection.

EDIT: or even as a new wing for the higgins collection.
 
tysmith95 said:
I'm not sure that Worcester would have ever become more prominent than Boston. It lacks the public transportation infrastructure that has helped Boston grow. I'm not sure that one tower would make much of a difference, Boston has always been the "hub" of the region.
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Who said Worcester would be bigger than Boston if this 1 tower was built? Nobody

Anyways theres a ton of shit happening here, more than I've ever seen in my life, and I feel good about city center because its reconnecting the street grid.
 
stick n move said:
Anyways theres a ton of shit happening here, more than I've ever seen in my life, and I feel good about city center because its reconnecting the street grid.
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I agree. I'm getting off topic here but it's heartening that across America there is a renewed interest in older dense city centers. Worcester is definitively a city with lots of untapped potential.
 
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