Salem is planning to construct a new courthouse alongside the North River, next to the city’s commuter rail station. The project would augment revitalization of the city’s downtown spurred by a surge of residential redevelopment and expansion of the Peabody Essex Museum.
The century-old police station is being restored and converted into condominiums. The former Parker Bros. building has been transformed into 266 high-end apartments. And the abandoned Essex County jail, with its three-story Federal-period house, awaits investment and imagination.
Innovative development is preserving Salem’s historical face while changing the composition of its downtown from retail to residential. And various ongoing projects are providing not only an economic boost, but a psychological lift to a city that had been stuck in memories of its past role as a regional retail hub.
“We’re working on changing the perception of Salem, from inside and outside,” said Joseph Walsh, director of the city of Salem’s Department of Planning and Community Development. “The downtown is permanently changing.”
Salem was a regional shopping center until [a mall in Peabody] was built around 1955. Salem never really recovered, according to Walsh, and suffered another blow in the 1970s when Interstate 95, originally meant to go through Salem and Lynn into Boston, stopped short of the city. Route 128 also bypasses the city.
So in recent years, under Mayor Stanley J. Usovicz Jr., the city has decided to take advantage of its historic architecture and building stock, as well as the downtown commuter rail station, Salem Depot, to draw two markets: smaller commercial offices and residential development.
The city boasts a large number of lawyers and architects, Walsh said. Salem hopes to nurture those niche commercial users as well as residents with more active, relevant downtown retail businesses.
“Residential [development] was fairly controversial when the mayor suggested it a few years ago, because the downtown was never residential,” said Walsh.
But that’s changing. One of the more significant new residential projects is the just-completed redevelopment of the Parker Bros. building downtown. The structure, which had been abandoned for a decade, is now known as Jefferson at Salem Station, featuring 266 high-end rental units by the commuter rail station. The apartments were developed by national real estate firm JPI.
The marketing strategy for the apartments includes mention of the 26-minute train commute to Boston and 12-minute proximity to I-95, as well as nearby restaurants and shopping.
Another important project is the conversion and historic restoration of the abandoned former police station. Now the Salem Redevelopment Authority has designated developer Charing Cross Realty to convert the station into 14 residential units. With the city’s emphasis on first-floor life, the two ground-level condominiums will be offered as artist live/work space.
According to Bill Luster, part of the Charing Cross development team, the company is now “expectantly awaiting” construction bids. The development team, comprised of Luster, Phil Singleton and architect and developer Jack French, has been working on the project for nearly a year and is in talks with several banks looking to finance the project. Construction is planned for August. Charing has already received calls about the units, even before any formal marketing, said Luster.
Each condo will sell for $279,000 to $379,000, depending on size and location, and will feature two on-site parking spaces. Six units with have roof decks with some water views.
“This is the right place to do this development. The building has tremendous curb appeal. Salem is pretty hot,” Luster said.
Luster noted that in 1985, the city made a change in the zoning ordinance pertaining to parking requirements, allowing residential project to be developed more easily. Since then, hundreds of new residential units have been built.
“It’s become a little neighborhood,” said Luster, praising the new downtown mix of retail, office and residential space. He noted an additional advantage, that the project is in close proximity to the Peabody Essex Museum, which is undergoing a $150 million expansion slated to open in May 2003.
Peabody Essex is the oldest continuously operating museum in America. Looking to take advantage of the museum’s expansion, Walsh is meeting with Mayor John Barrett III of North Adams to discuss how that town prepared for the opening of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
“We don’t want the museum to be a place people only go to once. We want to use it as an opportunity to bring new people to Salem,” Walsh said.
“Everyone is trying to be better for when it opens,” said Mark Meshe, president of the city’s Main Streets program and principal of Winter Street Architects, located in a restored downtown building.
“Retailers are trying to improve their storefronts … we’re riding on the wave of economic development and the Peabody Essex Museum expansion,” Meshe said.
The city’s Main Streets program has been part of that wave, helping to bring in 20 new businesses and 150 new jobs to the downtown in the past two years.
City ‘Vision’
Another economic impetus is a new courthouse to be built on the North River, next to the train station. The state’s oldest courts are in Salem, Walsh pointed out, and the court is the largest downtown employer. The city is currently working with state agencies and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on the project.
A 99-room hotel is also in the works. Pickering Wharf Hotel, which is being developed by wharf owner Rockett Management & Realty Co. of Marblehead, received its building permits this year, and has just resolved litigation issues.
The city recently received a grant from the state’s Seaport Advisory Council for a commercial pier and ferry terminal to feature ferries to downtown Boston and Logan International Airport, as well as some water taxis to places like Marblehead and Gloucester.
“We haven’t taken advantage of the waterfront in 150 years,” Walsh said. Doing so will open up tourism, job and transportation opportunities, he added.
“One of the things we think about all the time is that we have huge access problems,” Walsh said. Though the city does have access to the commuter rail, a rapid transit extension of the MBTA’s Blue Line subway has been proposed.
“We’re not looking for a superhighway, but we do need to take advantage of the water and [commuter] rail to connect back to the Hub and to sustain what we’ve accomplished,” Walsh said.
Another goal for the future is “letting folks know about opportunities here,” said Walsh.
One of those opportunities is the old Essex County jail, encompassing the 30,000-square-foot prison built in 1818 and the adjacent three-story jailkeeper’s house. The structures were slated for demolition by the state in 1991, but the city intervened and purchased the property for $1.
The property needs millions of dollars of work and imagination, Walsh said, but is located across from the train station in the heart of the downtown.
“It’s the next project we’re looking for folks to take on,” said Walsh. “We’ve heard some amazing ideas, everything from a performing arts center … to a hotel and a restaurant.”
“All the work over the years – the benefits are really starting to show,” said William F. Howard, president of Beverly Cooperative Bank, which has funded several downtown projects. The bank has bought two downtown buildings and plans to turn one, an old car dealership, into a new bank branch; the bank will be landlord to the other.
The bank conducted three market studies, which confirmed the great potential in Salem, said Howard. That potential is also confirmed by the fact that the museum expansion is being funded by mostly private investment, and that MassDevelopment has financed more than $32 million worth of projects in Salem in the past four years, Walsh pointed out.
“The city’s been terrific. They have a lot of vision as to what should be happening there,” Howard said. “We looked around, and Salem was where we wanted to be.”
