Pawtucket has gained a reputation of late for welcoming artists, with the idea that the creative economy can serve as a seed to growing a revitalized downtown. Now it is putting another approach in play by encouraging antiques dealers to renovate and locate in many of the historic buildings in the city’s core.
With the coming opening of an antiques mall with room for about 150 vendors, officials and antiques dealers in Pawtucket are hoping collecting aficionados will flock to the city, helping to turn downtown into a cultural center.
The idea that antiques dealing will transform Pawtucket is based on the experience of Hudson, N.Y., an upstate city that undertook a similar cultural transformation in the 1990s.
“It’s an old town that reinvigorated itself through antiques. And we want to be the Hudson, N.Y., of Rhode Island,” said Herb Weiss, Pawtucket’s economic and cultural affairs officer.
Many of the storefronts on that city’s mile-long main street, Warren Street, were empty in the late 1980s, said Lynn Sloneker, aide to the Hudson mayor. But antiques dealers began filling the spaces because historic buildings offered low-cost, beautiful and roomy spaces for their wares.
But that was only the beginning.
Now, Warren Street is a spread of antiques stores mixed with restaurants and theaters. Because of the influx of shoppers, it’s become a destination for the culturally aware, said Sloneker.
“Everything we have sort of followed the antique stores,” said Sloneker. “You have a variety of people coming in during the summer. They’ll come in on the weekend and go to the shops and then to the restaurants and to see a show.”
Weekend traffic into the city has increased so much that Tuesday and Wednesday have turned into unofficial weekend days for many residents, she said. But if the same trend is going to push Pawtucket into a new cultural era, it must be on a larger scale. Hudson’s population is only about one-tenth of the nearly 73,000 Pawtucket residents.
Weiss said the population difference isn’t a concern.
“Even though it’s a tenth of the size of our population, I think having the buildings is the important part of accommodating these establishments,” said Weiss.
Along with loans – up to $30,000 from the Pawtucket Business Development Corporation – for restoration of historic buildings, Pawtucket’s location gives it access to many potential visitors. The city is bisected by Interstate 95, on which about 200,000 cars drive through the city each day, Weiss said.
And that’s exactly why Scott and Rae Davis decided to locate their Rhode Island Antiques Mall on the 1.18-acre property at 345 Fountain St. The 20,000-square-foot building was erected in 1975 and housed Jabbour Electronics until earlier this year. It will reopen in September as the largest antiques mall in Rhode Island.
The Davises have been dealing in antiques part-time for more than 25 years, but they see the new store as a gateway to the downtown area, Scott Davis said. Shoppers will come for the mall, directly off I-95, and then they will trickle into the smaller shops. After they shop, Weiss said, maybe they will see a show at the Gamm Theatre.
The start of the antiques movement in Pawtucket is credited to Richard Kazarian, who operates 9 Montgomery St., a by-appointment antiques shop in the 4,000-square-foot former U-Pic Shoe store. Kazarian, a Pawtucket native, has been dealing antiques in Boston, Providence and Newport for 20 years and returned five years ago to Pawtucket. Since then, he’s attracted more big-name dealers to the city.
“What we’re trying to do as individuals is what, in a way, a government can’t do. We’re trying to gather like-minded individuals to one place,” said Kazarian.
He’s brought in dealers David Bell – who runs David Bell Antiques in Washington, D.C., and intends to relocate that store to 238 Main Street, the former Morse Shoe Store – and Paul Burke, of Salem, Mass., whose shop, Antiques and Fine Art on Exchange Street, will be in the former Elks Lodge at 27 Exchange Street, a building Kazarian renovated. Four other stores, including Angelo Masaracchio’s Amidec, will also occupy storefronts in that building. Above those shops, Burke and his partners, Guinevere Antiques of London, will likely open an auction house, which is a big draw for high-quality antiques dealers from around the world, Kazarian said.“Some of the best Italian dealers travel this country now, to buy back those Italian pieces that have been here for hundreds of years,” he said.
Pawtucket isn’t yet a global or even a regional hub for antiques, though the city is working on the first phase, Kazarian said.
“I would say that it’s not just the buildings that have fallen into disrepair, it’s the confidence of the whole city,” said Kazarian, who acknowledged it will take a while to turn the city into what he sees it being in the future. “This intellectual process is really what happens first. That’s where we are right now, just laying out the groundwork.”
