See the latest downtown multistory building likely to request financial incentives from the city

Courtesy: Hernly Associates

It is becoming a familiar issue for city commissioners to consider: Should a new multistory building in downtown Lawrence be offered some sort of financial incentive from the city?

It looks like the next project commissioners will be asked to consider is a proposed five-story commercial/residential building along Vermont Street that former City Commissioner Bob Schumm hopes to build.

Back in June, we reported that Schumm had plans for a major building on the vacant lot that is just south of the old Headmasters salon building in the 800 block of Vermont Street. Well, the proposal has changed a bit since then — we reported on some changes in August — and Schumm said he is getting closer to moving ahead with the project.

But Schumm told me he has decided he’s going to need a city incentive to make the project work as planned. Schumm said he plans to file this month an application for a property tax rebate through the Neighborhood Revitalization Act. No word yet on exactly how large of a rebate the project may seek. The city has given out rebates in the 50 percent range to 85 percent.

Schumm said there is one particular part of the project that makes the incentive needed.

“The project is going to have 22 underground parking spaces that are very expensive,” Schumm said.

That is becoming a theme with projects in the downtown area: Developers need help paying for parking.

Downtown is an interesting area when it comes to parking. For decades, the city’s code for parking in downtown has been different than it is in other areas of town. (My wife’s code for parking in downtown is different too, which is why you sometimes have to walk around a Ford Taurus on a sidewalk.) Along the key stretches of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, buildings can be constructed without having to provide any off-street parking for customers or tenants. The city long ago decided the downtown area would be served by public parking.

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One thing that has changed in recent years, though, is the city is urging more development of a residential nature in downtown. As more people live in downtown, more of a strain gets put on the public parking supply. Developers — I’m specifically thinking of the development at Ninth and New Hampshire — have said they’re willing to put in their own private, below-ground parking garages to accommodate some of the new parking demand they are creating. But they often say they can’t put in the parking and still have a financially viable project without some assistance from the city.

The previous City Commission was pretty amenable to providing that assistance. Schumm’s project, though, is really the first such test for the new commission, so it should be interesting to watch.

I’ve heard some people say the city needs to just start requiring new construction in downtown to provide its own parking. I’ve heard others say that would be a momentum-killing strategy for downtown. It would create a two-tiered system in downtown: Hundreds of businesses get to take advantage of a code that doesn’t require them to provide for parking, while businesses that have come to the scene more lately have to take on the private expense of providing parking. And I have heard others, yet, say that instead of subsidizing developers to build private parking in downtown, the city simply needs to build more public parking. That, though, will take some new city resources, and perhaps some adjustments of parking rates. So, a lot to keep an ear open for on parking issues.

As for Schumm’s project, see below for some renderings from Lawrence-based architects Hernly Associates. The project is proposed to have a bank — the specific bank hasn’t been identified yet — on the ground floor, and 32 single offices of about 200 square feet each on the second floor, and 11 condos that will be for sale on the third and fourth floors. The fifth floor also will have a large condo, but don’t expect it to be for sale anytime soon. Schumm — who spent most of his career downtown as a restaurant owner — said he and his wife plan to sell their west Lawrence home and move into the top floor condo.

“When they take my keys away, I can walk to the senior center and everything else that is in downtown,” he said.

Courtesy: Hernly Associates

Courtesy: Hernly Associates

Courtesy: Hernly Associates

Any incentive request for the downtown project — which is being called Vermont Place — would first go to the city’s Public Incentives Review Commission for a recommendation and then to the City Commission for a final vote. The building’s design already has won approval from the city’s Historic Resources Commission, Schumm said.

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