NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — More than a year after they first proposed investing $2 million into Western Heritage State Park, Bay State Hospitality Group was back before the Redevelopment Authority with a slightly less ambitious plan. 

 

Siblings Colleen and Sean Taylor had proposed to rehabilitate Buildings 1, 2 and 3 in the park. Their restaurant Freight Yard Pub occupies Building 3. 

 

They'd hoped to begin work last fall but the city had been uncomfortable with the 60- to 90-year lease they requested and the scale of the project.

 

On Wednesday, Mayor Jennifer Macksey asked for the authority's guidance on the latest proposal: reducing rent for Freight Yard to a nominal fee for 25 years against the Taylors putting nearly $800,000 into Building 3.

 

"We have been working with the Taylors since our last meeting about coming up with a plan that was doable for the city as well as their business plan throughout all of their restaurants and their investment in North Adams," said the mayor. "I think it's important because this is a big investment over a long period of time that I seek input from the governing body. I want to get this deal going so we can start seeing improvements."

 

Macksey noted the lease on Freight Yard is expiring soon and she wanted to come to some agreement to keep the park's anchor in place. 

 

Colleen Taylor said they had been discussing a loan with lenders and had begun lining up contractors to begin some needed work. As with the original proposal, the lender required a lease before agreeing to a loan, she said, so they were asking for 30 years.

 

"So the rents that we would be paying over the next 25 years would be offset by the $770,000," said Colleen Taylor. "The risk would then take it off of the city and put the risk of doing everything on us. ...

 

"It enables the whole park to rise up, look better and the building to be better."

 

The Taylors said the project would roll out in phases with the first being some immediate aesthetic repairs and then more significant repairs and replacements over about a five-year period. Macksey said any agreement would have target dates to ensure work was  being completed to protect the city.

 

The mayor said the city has been chasing some redevelopment dollars but not soon enough to repair the restaurant's Building 3. And the city "doesn't have the horsepower" to invest the amount of money needed to rehabilitate the park, she said.

 

Building 3 alone needs paint and windows, an HVAC system, electrical upgrade, plumbing, a roof and a possibly an elevator. 

 

Building 6, now occupied by Berkshire Academy for Advanced Musical Studies, is in OK condition but the former local history building has been damaged by water and the long building needs a roof. Conditions overall have worsened in the largely vacant park over the past 10-15 years, said the mayor. (Two private investment projects in the park came to naught during this period, as well.)

 

"I will say outwardly I want a long-term commitment," said Macksey. "And I think of the Freight Yard as an anchor for us and if they can invest in their building others will come."

 

She said she and Community Development Director Michael Nuvallie have been working on some type of commercial condominium option but there was a lot of red tape, noting the park has to take into the state and railroad. 

 

The board members queried the proposal, with Ross Vivori thinking a reduction of 10 to 15 years more palatable and Jesse Lee Eagan Poirer calculating out the costs of how much Bay State would be paying in loans. 

 

The restaurant is currently paying $2,625 a month, slightly up from an agreement to reduce the rent in 2017 over the poor condition of the building. The Taylors were looking at around $200 in rent but the mayor said she'd be more comfortable with $500 to $800. The rent would rise again after 25 years for the final five years of the 30-year lease.

 

The Taylors pointed out that they could buy a whole new building and own it forever but they wanted to stay in the park — if the building could be fixed.

 

"There's pieces of wood falling off of the building, and actually really hurts our business when somebody walks up," Colleen Taylor said. "And not only is our building in not  good condition, but it doesn't look good. So it hurts us and if we can get this building, especially aesthetically, up and looking better quickly, that will be one of the first things that help us."

 

Sean Taylor said other potential tenants may see this as an option, adding there wasn't a lot of commercial space left in North Adams.

 

"For us to put the investment in your building it would strengthen the entire park," he said.

 

Chair Kyle Hanlon asked for current lease and a report that was done on building by an engineer hired by the Taylors and submitted to the city for the board to review, and that a preliminary agreement be drawn up.

 

The authority is tentatively scheduled to meet again on Aug. 5.

 

In other business, the board voted to request a 10-year extension of Western Gateway Heritage State Park urban renewal plan set to expire on Sept. 30 because the park "continues to contain blighted, decadent and or substandard properties that remain detrimental to the safety, health and well being or sound growth of the surrounding community.". The park's 30-year plan had initially been extended to 2023 in 2012. It was approved in September 1981.