Pine Street reopens to drivers

Head of housing company eager to see renovations done

By Owen Boss

GARDNER — The street that runs parallel to the former Heywood-Wakefield Co. factory building — Pine Street — was reopened to drivers Monday, offering signs of progress concerning renovations to the building which have been under way since February. Worcester Community Housing Resources Inc. has been working to renovate the building into an assisted living complex. The progress of the renovations encourages Matt Wally, executive director of Worcester Community Housing Resources Inc., and he is awaiting his opportunity to start remodeling the building once the appropriate renovations bring it back up to code. “When the building is finished, its going to be a 78-unit affordable assisted living facility,” said Mr. Wally. “The rooms available will be 100 percent affordable, and we here at Worcester Community Resources look at it as a true economic development opportunity for the city of Gardner.” According to Mr. Wally, the development of the building will attract a large number of temporary and permanent residents to the struggling downtown business district. “It will hopefully have a lot of economic spin-off in the immediate downtown area of Gardner,” said Mr. Wally, who thinks that the additional residents of the building would have a positive effect on the businesses in the downtown area. For now, the primary concern for Mr. Wally is getting the building back to a point where future tenants can safely inhabit it. In January, a large section of the mansard roof collapsed, leaving a sizable gap on the top level of the bulding, which became the primary focus of continued renovations. “Going in and stabilizing the property so that the deterioration wouldn’t continue is our primary concern,” said Mr. Wally, “Our No. 1 concern was the safety of the people and businesses in the immediate area.” Although recent progress has been made, Mayor Mark Hawke said that there is still a lot of work that has to be done and that the renovations have been “innately slow.” “Since the old roof was removed, they’ve put down a tarp, which makes the ground floor of the upper level a temporary new roof,” said Mr. Hawke, “From what I’ve been told, when they complete the necessary repairs to the upper floors, they are supposed to come back in the fall and rebuild the roof and start working on the interior.” Steve Bussiere, of the Bussiere Construction Co., said his company was contracted to make the necessary repairs to the building. “We are still progressing as planned,” said Mr. Bussiere. “It is going along well. It just takes time to get the building back to the point where it is safe.” According to Mr. Bussiere, most of the building is ready for construction and the roof of the building is the only section still concerning building inspectors. “It just seems to be just the roof that is compromising the rest of the building, that is where the majority of the repairs have been made,” said Mr. Bussiere. Currently there is no estimated date for the completion of the project, but according to Mr. Wally, when completed, the building will consist primarily of studio apartments, each with extensive common areas. Each one of these studio apartments will have a living room, a library, a country kitchen, a dining room and a functioning wellness center activity space located within the building. oboss@thegardnernews.com

Appeared on Page 1 on 4/16/2008 (Vol. 206 No. 91)