Making ‘historic’ mill windows<br> on an industrial scale

CHARLIE GOSS works in the Artiste Historic Windows shop, making wooden windows such as the ones overhead, about  1,500 of which will be needed just for the Hope Webbing mill. 'We're making windows that look historically accurate, using modern techniques,' says shop manager Dennis Lussier. /
CHARLIE GOSS works in the Artiste Historic Windows shop, making wooden windows such as the ones overhead, about 1,500 of which will be needed just for the Hope Webbing mill. 'We're making windows that look historically accurate, using modern techniques,' says shop manager Dennis Lussier. /

What do you do when you’re rehabbing a late-1800s/early 1900s mill and need to replace about 1,500 windows – yet keep them authentic, to comply with R.I. Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission guidelines?
The small shops that typically handle such work aren’t set up to work at that volume. So Urban Smart Growth, the California-based company that is redeveloping the 650,000-square-foot mill at 1005 Main St., Pawtucket, set up its own shop as a new venture.
The company, Artiste Historic Windows LLC, started three months ago and has taken over a 2,400-square-foot space in the mill, with a staff of five and specialized equipment.
The shop’s first task is to make windows for the Hope Webbing mill, for which roughly 2,000 original windows have also been restored by other workers. After that, the shop may make windows for other Urban Smart Growth projects, such as the 190,000-square-foot Eagle Street Factory in Providence, which has roughly 1,000 window openings.
In addition, Bloome said, the shop may take on contracts from other developers or individual customers in the area. “In the long term, that’s one potential we’re looking at,” he said. “I consider it a likely possibility.”
But first, the shop is focusing on finding the most timely and cost-effective production process for the windows, said Dennis Lussier, shop manager and master carpenter.
Lussier, who owned and operated his own woodworking shop for 17 years, most recently in Warren, said the shop’s goal is threefold: To save Urban Smart Growth the markup costs associated with buying custom wood windows, to accommodate the complicated schedule of the Hope Webbing project, and to make a better product in less time.
“Right now, we’re building [the windows] from scratch,” he said. “We’re using raw wood and milling it ourselves. … We’re making windows that look historically accurate using modern techniques.”
But that doesn’t mean the company won’t outsource some of the process or parts if that is cheaper, faster and of the necessary quality, Lussier said. He’s working on setting up spreadsheets to analyze the cost and time associated with each part of the window-making process and comparing it to the outsourcing options.
Some of the windows have decorative molding, for example.
“We might be able to purchase that,” Lussier said. “But by doing so we lose a level of control we get by doing it ourselves.”
Delayed shipments, for example, could slow the process.
“What we’re doing is pretty frugal,” Lussier said.
A machinist on the team is working to automate manual processes so they can save more time and money, Lussier said. So far, Artiste Historic Windows has made six prototypes of the three types of windows it will be making. One is on display in the shop.
Lussier said there is “absolutely” a market for these historic wood windows.
“We’ve already had people come in … they were looking for windows for their historic houses,” he said.
But that would be a whole new niche for the company. And one that would have to wait until its biggest project, Hope Artiste Village – as the Hope Webbing mill is now called – is complete. At this point, said Ron Wierks, senior project developer, work on the mixed-use complex is about 30 percent done.

Urban Smart Growth is hosting an open house at Hope Artiste Village, from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. on June 30, with a free concert and tours of the available spaces and of several tenants’ facilities.

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