Old paper mill no longer an outlier; architecture firm plans renovation

For many years, the redbrick mill at 161 Exchange St. in Pawtucket was an outlier in the city’s attempts to build an arts and entertainment district. Despite four stories and a prominent location around the corner from City Hall, the empty building did nothing to spur life downtown.
That is scheduled to change in late April. It’s then that the architecture firm Lerner Ladds + Bartels Inc. plans to complete a renovation of the building near the Blackstone River. The firm will move its Providence offices and 19 employees to the top floor and offer the two middle floors to companies with a creative spin. The first floor, under the control of the building’s former owner, will likely become retail space and a coffee shop.
The $2.7 million project promises to breathe life into the last vacant building in the area wedged between the Blackstone River and Interstate 95.
“It sends a strong message that this is the place to be, especially with this company in downtown,” said Herb Weiss, the city’s economic and cultural affairs officer. “It’s a home run for the city’s effort to attract a creative-sector economy.”
The building’s previous owner, the Nathanson family, spent years seeking a buyer who would complement the arts-infused neighborhood, Phyllis Nathanson said. Her husband, Morris Nathanson, knew principal Christian Ladds from their days as classmates at the Rhode Island School of Design and encouraged him to tour the building.
“Basically we knew that Chris would be a good neighbor, and he would do an excellent job,” Phyllis Nathanson said.
At the time, Lerner Ladds was searching for a replacement for its cramped Providence headquarters in a converted, four-story Victorian house. Christian Ladds said he gravitated to the former Pawtucket paper mill because the layout allows an office that fosters collaboration. The price, $320,001 – financed by the Nathanson family – was also a key selling point. So too was a $120,000 loan from the Pawtucket Business Development Corporation that helped pay for the purchase. The architects also appreciated the easy access to Interstate 95, which puts Boston within an hour’s drive. But perhaps more than anything, the architecture firm found the setting just right. The mill sits within the city’s arts district, which is simultaneously a state-recognized arts zone. The Pawtucket Armory, the Sandra Feinstein Gamm Theatre and the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts are all across the street. Artists, graphic designers and the nationally renowned interior design firm Morris Nathanson Design fill the connected Blackstone Studios building, still owned by the Nathanson family.
The concentration of creative minds should provide a boon for any architecture firm nearby, Ladds said. Lerner Ladds hopes to entice creative companies that offer services complementary to architecture to its own building. It also wants to work jointly on projects with Morris Nathanson Design.
“We really want to be engaged in that, and we like the idea of bringing into the same area a variety of disciplines,” Ladds said.
That mission clinched the sale, Phyllis Nathanson said.
“We felt this is really true to what we wanted and what was going to be best for the community overall,” she said. “We wanted the building to be done right.”
Contractors for Lerner Ladds started renovations shortly after the sale closed in June. Workers have been installing red-framed, double-hung windows, fixing the wood-truss ceilings that will be left exposed and cleaning the inside of the exterior brick walls that will also be left bare. Other amenities include an elevator, new central stairwell and all-new electrical and safety systems. Lerner Ladds is also installing a shower on every floor in an effort to accommodate and encourage workers that trade polluting cars for bicycles or their own two feet.
Jim DeRentis, the building’s real estate agent, said he already has received inquiries from potential tenants excited about the relatively inexpensive rents – $12 a square foot plus utilities – and the historic characteristics.
“This is a reuse project,” said DeRentis, from Residential Properties. “You can’t replace it. In other parts of the country people try to build this.”
For Lerner Ladds itself, the project offers a real-life lesson in rehabilitation projects. Lerner Ladds principal Kathleen Bartels said the project has had the company serving as a developer and architect at the same time. And the company is doing it in the midst of a down economy.
“For us to go and buy a building, renovate it for tenants – it’s a way for us to go the next step ourselves in terms of architects,” Bartels said.
Just assembling the financing took years. Bartels and Ladds said that $920,000 of state and federal historic preservation tax credits were keys to the project. The Nathanson family had secured state tax credits before Rhode Island eliminated the program in 2008.
The project has also benefited in some ways from the troubled economy that has dried up construction projects and pushed prices down as contractors fight over scarce jobs. On a recent visit a handful of workers were braving frigid weather to install the stairwell and windows.
When the work wraps up later this year, Nathanson said that they will have completed more than installing wood, brick and steel.
“It isn’t just another rehab building,” she said. “It’s been a vision long-awaited.” •