Developer serves art, function

WORK SPACE: One of the six 2,000-square-foot live-work spaces at Archers Mill in Central Falls, the first property purchased. / COURTESY KYLA COBURN DESIGNS
WORK SPACE: One of the six 2,000-square-foot live-work spaces at Archers Mill in Central Falls, the first property purchased. / COURTESY KYLA COBURN DESIGNS

If it’s an old, vacant, deteriorating building with a certain appeal of style or structure, it’s likely to catch the eye of artist, designer and now-developer Kyla Coburn.
If a vision for redeveloping the building sweeps in front of her internal, artistic eye, she will put her team at Central Falls-based Kyla Coburn Designs on finding what might be thought of as the new spirit of the building.
While she continues her extensive work in designing interiors, mostly restaurants, with unusual, hand-picked, discovered furniture or artifacts, Coburn’s company has edged neck-deep into buying properties and slogging through the intricacies of planning, zoning, funding and renovation.
Take the previously vacant mill at 763 High St. in Central Falls, for instance, the company’s first purchase of property for design-build in 2008.
“It was brutal. We had to clean up the soil. The electric was sketchy,” said Coburn, whose company office and woodshop, with an adjoining apartment, constitute one of the six live-work spaces in the building. “There was some kind of running water, but it was not going into the sewer. We found out it was never connected to a sewer, so just the process of getting the building prepared and connected to city sewer cost $19,000.”
The Kyla Coburn Designs team, which includes her business partner and husband, Andy Trench, who is a carpenter and general contractor, named the project Archers Mill. The project took about three years and the six spaces in the renovated building are all occupied.
The leap from years of designing restaurant interiors – including The Grange at the corner of Dean Street and Broadway in Providence – into the purchase of the Central Falls mill didn’t seem to her as big a step as might be expected, considering the investment.
“If I see an exciting building, I want to fix it up,” said Coburn, a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design.
The creative urge to see the space as it eventually came to be, including replicas of historic windows, walls of bookshelves that allow for modular rooms, a common deck for residents overlooking the Blackstone River and kayaks at the edge of the water, made it easier to work through the extensive details required for any development project. Finances were also a factor in the decision to buy the mill.
“We were paying $2,400 a month to rent warehouse space in Providence,” said Coburn. “We’re creative people and it’s hard to rent space. We want to invest in it and shape it. We’re always making improvements like replacement windows or new vents for better washers and dryers.”
For a while, some members of the creative community have been moving from Providence to Pawtucket and Central Falls to find useable, more affordable space, said Coburn.
“Central Falls is a great city to work with,” said Coburn. “They were really interested in cutting through the bureaucracy. They really wanted to see new money and energy come into the city.”
Kyla Coburn Designs’ first venture as owner, designer and developer appears to have set a solid foundation for future projects.
“When I first visited Kyla in her studio in the mill building, I said, ‘This is amazing, what you’ve done. How can we get other people to do the same thing?’ It’s beautiful,” said Central Falls Director of Planning and Economic Development Steve Larrick.
“It looks like you’re somewhere in Brooklyn,” said Larrick, relating to the artistic and cultural renaissance in the New York borough. “The work she’s done here in Central Falls is not something commonly seen in Rhode Island.”
Central Falls has about 100 residential units, including 70 apartments and 30 condos, created in rehabbed mills, as well as other mills renovated as spaces for artists’ workshops, but Coburn’s development is the first true live-work space in the city, said Larrick.
In addition to creatively designed spaces with interesting nooks and crannies and reused objects, Larrick said the redeveloped mill has a deeper significance.
“What’s interesting about the mill Kyla redeveloped is that it’s still being used to produce something,” said Larrick. “It’s not textiles, it’s art, but it preserves the heritage of making things in Central Falls.”
From an economic-development standpoint, tiny Central Falls considers Archers Mill a positive step, he said. “We’re only one-square-mile, so each of these projects is unique and very important to us,” said Larrick. “While Kyla’s project is just a few live-work spaces, it has a big, psychological impact to have it redeveloped as an adaptive reuse of a mill.
Coburn has extended her company’s projects across the Central Falls line into Pawtucket with the purchase of a vacant church at 222 High St. during the summer.
“We had to take the leap. We’re definitely saving a piece of history,” said Coburn, who now has to work through zoning, parking and other development details for what she plans as live-work space.
“That church has been vacant for about eight to 10 years and I heard it might be torn down to make a parking lot,” said Pawtucket Economic Development and Cultural Affairs Officer Herb Weiss. “Kyla Coburn loves old buildings and she saved that one from the wrecking ball.”
Before the church became vacant, it housed a store for modestly priced furniture, Weiss said.
“Kyla’s vision fits in nicely with what the city would like to see in its historic downtown – creative-sector companies filling space with artists, galleries and restaurants,” said Weiss, who said the benefits of Coburn’s renovated mill in Central Falls spill over into Pawtucket.
“In addition to new taxpayers in the cities, we have more people eating in local restaurants and shopping in local stores,” he said.
While Coburn is glad her projects can have a positive economic impact on the cities, she is inspired by the vision that compels her to buy, design and build, more than the basic role of developer.
“I think if we were to call ourselves developers, we would only be interested in developing the building,” said Coburn.
“What I like is seeing the potential in something that’s raw, something people have been underestimating, like that church that’s been vacant for eight years,” said Coburn. “The church is a pretty exciting space. We have plans to create a live-work space with rooftop gardens and maybe a gallery for the artists’ work and a tea shop. It means a lot of money and hard work, but we’re willing to take that on for the satisfaction and joy of having made that creation.” •

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