Factory property may house new business

Company in talks with city to quickly snatch up Nichols & Stone location

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — The city lost more than residents’ jobs and revenue, it lost a piece of Gardner history when the oldest continually functioning furniture company in the country — Nichols & Stone — announced recently that it was closing its doors forever. In an attempt to turn something negative into a positive, the Public Welfare Committee held a special meeting at City Hall Thursday to discuss plans to sell the property to the Atlantic Development Corp., which submitted plans to use the 120,000-square-foot property as a retail establishment. Robert Hubbard, the city’s director of planning and development, presented councilors Josh Cormier, James Minns and Scott Graves with information regarding the sale of the location so they could better inform City Council members at their next meeting July 7. Although the plans are far from finalized, and the business that will exist on the property in the future remains unknown, Mr. Hubbard said that preliminary efforts have been very successful. “The Planning Board’s board of directors has recommended the approval of this site as a development overlay district, and we have a lot of support,” said Mr. Hubbard. “We have been in discussions with the Atlantic Development Corp. for some time, and they submitted a preliminary plan that says they would like to designate the location to facilitate the use of the property for retail.” According to Mr. Hubbard, the effort to quickly utilize the location is a pre-emptive way of avoiding the dilapidation of the factory, which has happened with closed locations in the past. “We cannot allow this Nichols and Stone building to turn into a headache like the S. Bent property has been,” said Mr. Hubbard. A public forum was recently held so that homeowners near the property could voice concerns regarding construction and traffic issues, and Mr. Hubbard said he considered the meeting a success. “We held a public forum, there was a strong turnout from people that live along the road, and they voiced a lot of legitimate concerns about traffic and lights and things like that,” said Mr. Hubbard. “For the most part, I think most of them went away from the meeting pretty happy.” The project would generate 200 full- and part-time jobs at the retail location and 100 construction jobs for the building itself. During the discussion, Mr. Graves inquired as to whether or not language could be included in the contract that would require the retail location show special consideration to local residents when staffing the store. In response, Mr. Hubbard said similar arrangements have been made in the past. “What we would do is offer someone a tax break and when they sign an agreement that they would spend a certain amount of money, we can put a condition in that says that they will give preference to local hires and they will demonstrate that preference by advertising in The Gardner News and using the local unemployment office as a way of recruiting people.” It is still unknown as to which or how many businesses will take over the location, and Mr. Hubbard said it could be one larger store utilizing the entire 120,000 square feet, or it could end up being at most three different businesses. oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 1 on 6/27/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 152)