Developer Leon Charkoudian of 122 Chestnut and Birnie Building, LLC, and real estate broker Fred Rowe of Atlantic Realty Advisors, have been trying for some years to lease out an 11,000 square-foot space in the Birnie Building at 11 Pearl Street, at Apremont Triangle downtown. Their current vision is for a small- to medium-size neighborhood grocer, but they haven’t been able to find an occupant or a developer, in spite of the occasional bite also reported here.
Interior of the Birnie Building, a potential urban grocery at 11,000 square feet
I sat down with Charkoudian, Rowe, and their property manager, Dianne Little, to discuss their years of work, their hopes and goals, and their recent bid to the city (of two) for the disposition of an adjacent parking lot at 33 Pearl Street, which they think will help clinch the potential for an urban food market. This is the first part of a series sharing some of their story.
Leon Charkoudian: Our involvement [at 122 Chestnut] started in 1983. The building was kind of abandoned. It was the old YMCA, and had been sold off. There were plans to essentially demolish this building and put up a parking garage. We had done, up to that point, upwards of two to three thousand units of government-assisted housing for elderly and low-income families. While we hadn’t done market-rate—the original plan was an elderly housing program—when the city people said that we had enough subsidized housing in downtown Springfield, we agreed. My group decided to do a gut-rehab here, a historic rehabilitation, which then gave us a 25 percent tax credit, which today is only 20 percent, in the same program.
Interior 122 Chestnut, back in the day
When we did this, we also worked on Kimball Towers, which had been the grand hotel in Springfield. I must have done more development plans on the Kimball than I did on any other property. We never ended up getting it. Unfortunately, it went into a very bad condo development a few years after we completed our work here. We completed 122 Chestnut (pictured) in ’85, and started renting in ’85. We were here for about 20 years, we suffered, and were starting to enjoy a little bit of a better situation with the Kimball.
In 2000, Fred [Rowe] and I found that the buildings at the "base" of Apremont Triangle were in fairly decent financial and physical condition, but the Harris Green building and the Birnie Building, two-story buildings, were the pretty buildings in the neighborhood. And when the pretty buildings in the neighborhood are blighted, it blights the whole neighborhood.
I used to oversee a renewal program for the Commonwealth [in its early-1970s-era Department of Community Affairs]. We’d walk into an old neighborhood and say, hey, look how awful this looks. We would notice that when historically significant buildings [are blighted]—and these two buildings are historically significant—you end up blighted. Building on the strength here, the fact that Mattoon Street had gentrified over the past ten to 15 years, the fact that Armory Commons was in fairly good shape at that time—it’s slipped a little bit today—and you know, overall, other apartment complexes were not the best, but they were slowly being improved. We decided in 2000 that the thing to do is make the Apremont Triangle area essentially the front door of the neighborhood. That was the whole objective.
We ended up going into a purchase and sale agreement in 2000 with the owner of [the Harris Green Building]. It’s now two buildings; it always appeared as if it was two buildings. Actually it was built as one. The architect that built the wonderful sandstone and limestone facades was Samuel Green.
Leon Charkoudian looking at site elevation plans for the Harris Green and Birnie Buildings
He built both of them, essentially, for the automobile industry. This was the Rolls Royce showroom. Rolls Royce was manufactured in East Springfield. This was a Pontiac showroom, later moved across the street, because it had a bigger back area, their shop area. The Birnie Building was all showroom, and shop area [on the first floor]. The second floor, and the great Kimball Hotel, at that time, literally were all pulled together to serve the motoring public of the ’20s.
The assumption is that wealthy people from Long Island would stay here, look at their Rolls Royce, get it tailored up in East Springfield, and then tool back after two or three days. This is what the historical record shows. I can’t document a wealthy person from Longmeadow that came in here. The assumption is that there was a tie across all this.
The information I’m giving you was put together by a consultant. When we were [rehabbing 122 Chestnut], we realized that in order to get the historic tax credits, this building was not historically significant enough based on the federal regulations. But what we did realize is that we had a district. In ’84, ’85, we created the Apremont Triangle Historic District, which included the three buildings at the base of the triangle, the Harris Green Building, and the Birnie Building. So all five are on the National Register of Historic [Places].
Our early plans, based on my work with the government—you ask very little from the government, just so you get at least one quarter of what you ask for—was to get the old-fashioned facade grant to clean up the stonework, repair it on both buildings. That’s what I did. Many times, I sat down with the mayor of the previous administration. He said, well, what else do you want? What else can I do for you?
A site plan for potential changes to Apremont Triangle, redirecting traffic flow
It ended up that the city recommended moving—the city accepted the site plan I did—extending the little triangle right up against [the Birnie Building]. Some plans have it up against [the Harris Green building]. It turned out, at that time, the DPW thought it was a great idea, because there was less asphalt, and they only had one particular surface area here to deal with. So they actually blessed it at the time.
Fred Rowe: That would just about double the size of the triangle, and make it more of a walk mall than just a park.
LC: Right. Our plans show an outdoor cafe [on the triangle]. We had a 20-year history here—at the time it was 15 years. In 2000, Fred and I felt that it would not take too much effort, a little bit of government assistance, and we could spruce these buildings up, and make it the front door for the overall neighborhood, with coffee shops, specialty foods, vendors, restaurants, and above all, we wanted to put—to serve the neighborhood—a market here.
Leon Charkoudian points out the entrance to an interior courtyard at the Birnie Building
We went to every single national chain, mid-market chain, wholesalers, retailers, small shops, big shops, all around the Berkshires, out through Worcester and Boston, just talking to people. No one would take this. Some would get very excited: they would say, okay, okay. And then, of course, what they would do, as some pizza people have done that we’ve tried to attract from other places—they would walk the area, shop the area, and then I’d never hear. They wouldn’t return my calls.
Finally, in many cases, I would go and visit them again, and they didn’t want to see me. They’d kind of put their head down. When I forced them, they’d say, we don’t have anyone that’s interested at this time. We don’t want to do that now.
We had renderings done of what the building might have looked like originally, and what we could bring it back to. One particular opening goes back to a wonderful back space where automobiles were brought to show. There’s a space that would be at least—at the risk of exaggerating—a $20 million condo in New York City. It has the most incredible lighting. It has huge windows on one side, and four major skylights.
[The Birnie Building] has nine skylights on one side, and I think four on the other, to lend itself to green building rehabilitation. I met with people, for instance, at the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust: "Well, we’re only going to do new buildings, we’re not going to do rehab." I said, "But you need to come down and at least look at it." "Oh, no, I don’t think we can."
Heather Brandon: How long ago was that?
LC: Probably in 2001 or 2002. I’m not blaming them; I’m just trying to explain the conditions under which we’re working. Since then, I’ve tracked their program, and they’ve put a lot of effort into brand new green schools, and greening some existing schools. This just didn’t seem to fit their needs. We tried to get investors, on that basis, along with historic tax credits. We’ve taken it out to many real estate investors. It was the location, the place, the Springfield.
The Harris Green Building, featuring a barbershop and adult entertainment
FR: A lot of the neighborhood people are rightfully frustrated that not much has happened with the building. When we took it over, the significant problems with the tenancy in the building—the people who had been busted for dealing drugs out of one of the storefronts, and an illegal late-night social club on the second floor. We kind of cleaned all that up, and we replaced some of the tenants, but it remains mostly vacant throughout. We’re trying to retenant it with things that are really going to add to the neighborhood. Not the traditional things you see around—we’re trying to really reinvigorate it with some exciting stuff. The [potential grocery] market is really the key, we think, to the whole building. The people that come, the market operator—their issue is number one, the Video Expo [Amazing.net] across the street, and the crowd that you see around it. And the fact that there is no designated parking. Even though there is a municipal lot there, it’s not really designated parking for the building.
The parking lot at 33 Pearl Street, adjacent to the Birnie Building
HB: Who uses that lot right now?
FR: It’s really underutilized right now. It’s monthly parking through the city. Some of the businesses that don’t have as much parking around here have people that pay $35 or $40 a month for parking. That’s primarily it. In our RFP, we have different plans for that lot, to help all the storefronts. Even if we’re not allowed to relocate, we’re still going to change the use of that parking lot. So you’re going to see a lot more retail parkers there during the day. We’re hoping to tie in with the Mattoon Street parking at night, because it’s very tight parking—I mean, I lived on that street. That lot was never opened up, and you’d get towed if you parked there at night. The city didn’t allow it. Back then, it was metered parking. It’s since been changed, but you can’t get up in the middle of the night to feed a meter.
LC: When Fred referred to the issues of tenancy, yes, we’ve cleaned up the tenancy a lot. We’ve also, at great expense to us, and I don’t mind saying it—Buffalo Joe’s, you remember Buffalo Joe’s used to be right at [Pearl and Chestnut]?
FR: The pizza place, yeah.
LC: Sandwich place, pizza place. Joe left. We probably could have rented that, at least two times if not three times, to people who were really just interested in using it as a drug location. Particularly, people came from Kennedy.
FR: Kennedy Fried Chicken.
LC: Came two different ways to it: "Oh, we’ll give you so much money." In a sense, we have a negative achievement: warehousing the property to prevent it from going… At least we’re going to stop the transition backwards, or the other way; that’s the most important point I can make. Now, is that appreciated by all the people in the neighborhood?
FR: No. They haven’t been through what we have. It’s always, why can’t you put a Starbucks in there, or why can’t you put this in there, or that in there?
Property Manager Dianne Little: I go to neighborhood meetings, and they say, a little market would be—and I said, I got so annoyed. I said, Leon has been to every, and I mean every, market in a 50-mile radius of this place. Even when Longmeadow Community Market was closing. Leon heard it, I mean he was down there saying I got a spot. And I said, I don’t think there’s anybody who sells a head of lettuce—
LC: That’s right, that we haven’t gone to.
DL: —in this area that he has not talked to. You know? And they don’t want it.
FR: Union Market, in the Northgate Plaza, when they went out, we offered it to them. And… it’s been difficult.
DL: It’s not like they’re sitting there, waiting for a market to come and say, hey, may I please rent your space? And I’m talking about years, Leon’s been doing this.
LC: I think it’s more frustrating for you, in a way!
DL: Well, it is, because you don’t hear it, and I do. And I have said at a couple meetings, Kennedy Fried Chicken wanted to move in there. This was before the shooting, but everybody knew Kennedy Fried Chicken was just a magnet for drug deals, and beatings, and the whole nine yards, but the police won’t work there part-time. And I said, Leon turned them down—a paying tenant—to protect this neighborhood. You know, if he were in this for just the money, he’d rent it to anybody who came down the street and collect his money. That’s not the whole premise of the plan.
FR: We have no shortage of tattoo parlors, nail salons, barbershops that want to go in there, but that’s not our vision.
DL: There’s a barbershop across the way that’s open at one o’clock in the morning.
LC: Does that tell you something?
DL: When was the last time you know any man who had his hair cut at one o’clock in the morning, right?
