We are thrilled to share that Pioneer Valley Regional Ventures Center’s (PVRVC) has been awarded the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant to support the creation of the Preservation Works in Western Mass subgrant program.
This is the fifth year of the program, honoring the late Paul Bruhn, beloved executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont for nearly 40 years. This also marks the fifth year that AHF has actively tracked the grant, working behind the scenes to bring it to Massachusetts’s rural communities that so acutely need this type of support. In our experience, successful historic preservation requires vision, patience, creativity, collaborative partnerships – and importantly, financial resources.
Time and time again, we find that in our rural communities, historic properties are typically smaller in scale, which is a challenge when paired against high construction costs. The small communities in Western Massachusetts have a limited ability to raise a grant match, placing most state grant opportunities out of reach. With limited grant and philanthropic assistance, investing in the town’s historic assets places an extraordinary financial burden on these small communities, disincentivizing them from utilizing their historic properties as a tool for cultural and economic growth.
The $750,000 grant will allow the state-designated regional planning agency to work with the Ventures Center to develop a subgrant program and select individual projects in rural communities for physical preservation projects that will contribute to economic vitality.
PVRVC’s new program will begin to close the funding gap for historic properties in rural communities and produce examples of the opportunity that exists to galvanize economic development by restoring and re-using National Register-listed community anchor buildings. The idea is to support economic development through the preservation of historic buildings in towns with fewer than 12,500 residents in Hampshire County, as well as small communities in Hampden and west central and southwest central Worcester counties.
It is the first time a Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant has been awarded to a Massachusetts organization. We look forward to supporting this endeavor across the western part of our state!
With summer just around the corner, it’s time for an update on the Charles River Speedway!
It can be tough to point to anything anniversary-related around the Speedway, because we never had a “grand opening” moment. (Actually, we had several “grand openings”!) Part of that is because construction schedules are always tricky, but also because COVID brought big delays. The realities of small businesses going through a global pandemic translated to a very staggered start. Notch Brewing opened in July of 2021, Bellwether Salon and House of Art & Craft opened that fall, Koji Club opened in February of 2022, Super Bien in August and so on…
So, instead of focusing on one particular day, let’s say this: we are approaching a new summer season at the Charles River Speedway and we have a lot of really interesting things going on here. With a few new small businesses joining our community this spring, there is a feeling around these parts that we are entering into a new, exciting phase of vitality and creativity here at the Speedway.
Named Boston’s Best Brewery in 2022 by Boston Magazine, Notch Brewing’s Brighton taproom and biergarten is their take on a traditional Czech and German-style beer hall. Notch Brewing is well known for their classic session style beers from the Czech Republic, Germany, England, and Belgium. Notch Provisions has its own storefront facing the courtyard, and provides beer-friendly foods like sausages, cheese plates, pretzels and more.
The Speedway is lucky to be home to Master Stylist Melinda Brandt. This inclusive one-chair salon studio provides a one-on-one experience in a welcoming environment, amidst the backdrop of all the buzzing Speedway central courtyard.
Just opened! Long-time Speedway friend, collaborator, and maker of delicious things, Dan and Allie Spinale have just opened their first brick and mortar location here at The Speedway. The focus of their menu here will be on Sicilian slices and sandwiches, with inventive salads and specials coming soon.
Filled with soothing scents, beautiful hand-poured soy wax candles and aromatherapy products, this is the first permanent brick + mortar location for Steysy Clark. As well as being a resource for sustainable goods, Steysy also hosts regular workshops where participants learn to craft their own candles and soap.
THE place in Boston to enjoy all things sake. At award-winning Koji Club, guests can enjoy sake while also learning about its culture and history from industry leader and tastemaker Alyssa Mikkiko Dipasquale. A beautiful jewel box of a space, the experience here is immersive and intimate. The Koji Club was recently named to Conde Nast Traveler’s Hot List – Top 20 restaurants in the world and Esquire’s Best Bars in America, 2023.
This sparkling gem of a Latin American grocery store-meets-wine bar from the Buenas team features empanadas, sauces, and snacks galore. The food is fun and incredibly tasty, the South American natural wine list is one of a kind, and there are a ton of great food finds to bring home to keep the party going.
From Ran Duan and the award-winning team behind Blossom Bar, Baldwin Bar and Ivory Pearl, Birds of Paradise features thoughtfully-made cocktails and “airline snacks” inspired by the golden age of travel.
BWM is bringing a new concept to The Speedway this summer – an incubator shop with a rotating slate of local women-founded small businesses, makers, and artists. The Incubator Shop is open Thursday-Sunday.
Opening soon: Rite Tea & Espresso (opening June 2023)
The first dedicated bricks and mortar location for the Wicked Thrawl, which has been popping up inside The Koji Club for the past six months. Rite will feature a very special tea program, espresso drinks, pour over coffee and a really exciting rotating slate of seasonal drinks.
A former Garage building, today it is the flexible events space located within The Speedway complex. Garage B hosts weddings, corporate events and meetings, family celebrations, and frequent markets and community events.
ABOUT THE SPEEDWAY
The Speedway is a vibrant, dynamic marketplace in Brighton. Once the headquarters for the Charles River Reservation parkland, today the revitalized historic buildings and central courtyard are home to a unique collection of small businesses – including bars, restaurants, shops, a hair salon and a flexible event space.
Built between 1899 and 1940, the Charles River Speedway is considered one of DCR’s “origin properties.” Arranged around an interior courtyard, the buildings once served as police headquarters, Superintendent’s residence, horse stables, and maintenance garages for the Charles River Reservation, formerly under the authority of the Metropolitan District Commission. The complex was also a companion facility for the Speedway trotting park, a horse and bicycle racecourse that curved for a mile along present-day Soldiers Field Road.
Long underutilized, and then vacant for over a decade, the buildings fell into disrepair.
Through a unique public/private partnership called the Historic Curatorship Program, Architectural Heritage Foundation and DCR set forth on the redevelopment of the historic property in 2019, with the first tenant, Notch Brewing, opening their doors in July of 2021.
HISTORIC BOSTON GETS $250K AHF LOAN FOR UPHAM’S CORNER REHABILITATION PROJECT
Abandoned Trolley System Building Now Houses ‘Comfort Kitchen’
BOSTON — Historic Boston Inc., the active nonprofit preservation organization, has secured a $250,000 loan from the Architectural Heritage Foundation for the Upham’s Corner Comfort Station in Dorchester, home to the new Comfort Kitchen restaurant.
The loan is to support the rehabilitation of the historic building, furthering an objective of Historic Boston, which is to help support local businesses in the neighborhood.
Historic Boston, which purchased, re-envisioned, and oversaw redevelopment of the abandoned structure at 611 Columbia Rd. in Dorchester into a restaurant, secured the loan from the Brighton-based lender.
Comfort Kitchen, serving customers since it opened for breakfast and lunch and dinner in January, is one of several Boston-based projects benefiting from proceeds of AHF’s sale of Boston’s Old City Hall.
“Historic Boston’s objective was to preserve and reuse a local historic building, support an entrepreneur, and help to strengthen the Upham’s Corner commercial district,” said Tony Lopes, Director of Real Estate of HBI. “This project checks all those boxes besides just being a great new place to eat.”
The loan from AHF was secured at a below-market fixed rate, refinancing a construction loan following the successful completion of work on the building earlier this year.
“When we sold Old City Hall, we knew we wanted to use a portion of the proceeds to fund the historic preservation projects in Boston’s neighborhoods,” said AHF President Sean McDonnell. “The chance to support community-based development made it an even more attractive opportunity for AHF’s board of directors and staff. We are proud to play a role in this exciting project and thrilled to support the good work of Historic Boston and Comfort Kitchen.”
Since 1966, AHF has been at the forefront of preserving and reactivating historic properties to stimulate community growth. AHF partners with public entities, nonprofit organizations, and private developers to find solutions for complicated historic preservation projects.
Cameron S. Merrill of the law firm Merrill & McGeary of Boston and Jason A. Panos of The Panos Law Group of Peabody were legal advisors on the transaction.
UPHAM’S CORNER COMFORT STATION
The former trolley system comfort station, a stucco 940-square-foot facility with full basement, underwent a $1.9 million historic rehabilitation with improvements that created Comfort Kitchen, a full-service café with dinner operations. The architect for Phase One of the development was Utile, Inc. Architecture + Planning of Boston. Phase Two, including the restaurant design, was by Supernormal of Cambridge. The contractor was MJ Mawn, Inc.
The Upham’s Corner Comfort Station served Boston’s streetcar system and is near the MBTA’s Fairmount commuter rail line, as well as being within the City of Boston’s Upham’s Corner Main Street District. The building is a one-story stucco and tile “mission style” building built as a convenience station in 1912 to support the expanding streetcar system in Boston. It was designed by Dorchester architect William H. Besarick, who also designed the nearby municipal building at the corner of Columbia Road and Bird Street, as well as many triple-decker residences in the area.
The building is located on what was once part of the Dorchester North Burying Ground, which is listed in the State and National Register of Historic Places and within the cemetery’s Boston Landmark designation.
HBI is a nonprofit preservation and real estate organization that rehabilitates historic and culturally significant properties in Boston’s neighborhoods so they are a usable part of the city’s present and future.
HBI works with local partners to identify and invest in historic buildings and cultural resources whose reuse will catalyze neighborhood renewal. HBI acquires and redevelops historic structures and provides technical expertise, planning services and financing for rehabilitation projects. HBI projects demonstrate that preserving historic properties is economically viable and that they can be usable and functioning assets in a community.
Earlier this month, the Baker-Polito Administration and state and local officials gathered in Pittsfield to announce more than $143 million in grant awards supporting 337 local economic development projects in 169 communities.
The grant awards were made through the Community One Stop for Growth, a single application portal that provides a streamlined, collaborative review process for 12 state grant programs that fund economic development projects related to community capacity building, planning and zoning, site preparation, building construction and infrastructure.
Here at AHF, we are most focused on the Underutilized Property Program (UPP). Since the program’s inception two years ago, we have worked with project partners to apply for UPP grant funding to support a range of development activity at their respective sites. This year was a big year for the program with $21,683,685 awarded to 49 projects. A big congratulations to all the awardees! See the full list here.
We are thrilled to learn that the following projects will be awarded UPP funding.
Photo by Jason Baker.
North Brookfield Townhouse, North Brookfield MA
Quick overview: The Friends of the North Brookfield Town House have been working for over a decade to preserve and repurpose the historic Town House in the center of North Brookfield, a 4,600 person rural community in Central Massachusetts. The Friends’ goal is to transform the Town House into a regional community and art center, returning it to “the center of everything.”
Funding: The town will use UPP funding to prepare advanced construction documents to address ADA accessibility and code compliance for this vacant, underutilized historic Town House property.
AHF involvement: Brainstorming sessions and support to build most competitive application possible; letter of support
Wright Building, Pittsfield MA
Quick overview: Allegrone Companies will renovate the National Register listed Wright Building, preserving and restoring its historic facade while updating its infrastructure, systems, and finishes to support new residential and retail uses. The redevelopment additionally will address a blighted adjacent property and will create a pedestrian corridor behind both buildingsThe full project will transform almost an entire city block in downtown Pittsfield.
Funding will be used for accessibility and fire/life safety, closing the gap between supportable debt, developer equity, and construction costs for this blighted and vacant block.
AHF involvement: Brainstorming sessions to determine the most competitive approach, compiling developer’s data and budgets into a compelling story and timely grant application.
Photo by Lisa Vollmer Photography
343 Main Street, Great Barrington MA
Quick overview: 343 Main Street is a historic, underutilized, and substantially vacant building owned by Alander Construction, a local full-service development company. The project is the adaptive re-use of a mostly vacant, historic, two-story, 22,000-square-foot former auto dealership,transforming it into much needed mixed income housing and two retail storefronts.
Funding will be used for Phase 2 of interior fit and finishes for tenant spaces.
AHF involvement: Strategic planning and drafting and compilation of grant application.
It’s been an exciting ride for the Charles River Speedway these past few months – first, receiving the Kuehn Award from Preservation Massachusetts, and then a Preservation Achievement Award from the Boston Preservation Alliance. The BPA has done an incredible job pulling together special films for each of the award winners this year – you can see them all here – and we absolutely love what they did to showcase The Speedway. Please take a watch, and see how far this place has come! (Plus, we adore the cameos by Kevin Martin of Notch Brewing, Alyssa DiPasquale of The Koji Club, and lots of SuperBien goodness.)
One of the best parts of the BPA Awards this year was welcoming the historic preservation community to Garage B, the events space at The Charles River Speedway. We had such a great time connecting with friends and colleagues once again – here are some of our favorites images from the night!
Photos by Hannah Spicher for the Boston Preservation Alliance.
The Boston Preservation Alliance has named six outstanding preservation projects for their 34th annual Preservation Awards – and the Charles River Speedway is one of them! AHF is incredibly honored to be part of this group of award winners.
As the BPA so eloquently described this class of award-winning projects:
The best way to preserve a space is by making it useful. This collection of six outstanding preservation projects does just that. Each one brings life to tired corners allowing a new generation of Bostonians to create memories of these historic places and spaces. Crumbling parking lots host neighborhood events. Old utility buildings foster entrepreneurship. A gutted neighborhood home is reimagined to serve as a dwelling of the 21st-century. These projects are not only useful spaces but are useful in telling the story of Boston.
Along with the Department of Conservation and Recreation, we are immensely proud to have made the Charles River Speedway useful again. We believe that the line about old utility buildings fostering entrepreneurship is about The Speedway, and it could not be more true. The Speedway’s tenants are all entrepreneurs – they are brewing beer, styling hair, making empanadas, churning ice cream, fostering community art, hand-crafting candles, perfecting hummus, and taking over the world with sake education. It is heartening to see all this creative energy taking place in the midst of a revitalized historic complex that sat vacant and unused for so many years.
We look forward to celebrating historic preservation, usefulness, and the city of Boston this fall with the rest of the awardees – and welcoming them to The Speedway and Garage B for the big event. For more information about the award winners and the Boston Preservation Awards to be held on October 22, 2022 – please visit bostonpreservation.org.
Take a look at each winner below, each project tells a great preservation story. Congratulations to all!
This Preservation Month, we want to put the spotlight on a particularly exciting project: 2 Ionic Avenue, the future home of Creative Hub Worcester.
The former Worcester Boys Club, now vacant and desperately in need of rehabilitation, is preparing for a complete transformation into the Creative Hub Community Arts Center—a dynamic space for artists, creative entrepreneurs, and community members to work, make, collaborate, perform, and attend events in a vibrant, multi-purpose environment. This project will preserve an architecturally significant building while also preserving its core use: to provide a safe place for the city’s children to grow, learn, and thrive.
Tapping into the expertise of architects from Studio Enée and Studio G, the complete restoration of the 30,000-square-foot building will include artist studios, an art gallery, a performing arts space, youth arts education programs, and two event spaces. When complete, the Creative Hub Community Arts Center will provide arts education for 250 to 350 individuals each day. The project will also include a new infant toddler and childcare facility for the Guild of St. Agnes, a longtime provider serving greater Worcester County.
AHF is providing development and project management services alongside development partner Arts & Business Council of Boston and their Creative Campus initiative. We are thrilled to support Creative Hub Worcester’s mission to provide affordable and accessible opportunities in the arts for all Worcester community members through the restoration and re-use of this historic property.
Creative Hub Worcester recently launched a new website filled with incredible historic images they found with the help of the Worcester Historical Museum. We just had to share a few here! Visit their new site to see more.
AHF is so pleased to share that Preservation Massachusetts has named The Charles River Speedway a 2022 Robert H. Kuehn award winner. This award is particularly meaningful as it recognizes extraordinary projects that meld collaborative partnerships with creative and cutting-edge ideas for the rehabilitation and active reuse of historic buildings. We could not be more thankful for our partnership with DCR and the Commonwealth, and Bob Kuehn’s legacy in historic preservation and creative adaptive reuse projects continue to inspire us today.
We are honored to be award winners this year, and we are in great company – other award winners include extraordinary examples of great historic preservation projects like the Roslindale Branch of the Boston Public Library, the Courthouse Lofts in Worcester, the Knitting Mill Apartments in Fall River, and Swartz Hall at the Harvard Divinity School. We look forward to celebrating them all on May 11 at the annual Preservation Massachusetts Preservation Awards.
But that’s not all! The Charles River Speedway has also been nominated as a People’s Preservation Choice award, and we are asking for the support of the community to help us get to the top of the list. If you know and love the revitalized Speedway, we’d love to get your vote – click here to support The Speedway today!
Among a really great list of fellow nominees (this is going to be TOUGH), we put forth that the Charles River Speedway project has connected the public to historic preservation in a truly impactful and tangible way. Anchored by a biergarten and taproom (Notch Brewing) and a host of incredibly creative and talented vendors and retailers, including Boston’s first sake bar (The Koji Club) and a new location for mixologist Ran Duan of Blossom Bar (Birds of Paradise), the Speedway welcomes all to eat, drink, shop, and connect with neighbors every day. It is a place that invites you to practice yoga in the courtyard, buy local art, catch a concert in the flexible events space in Garage B (or perhaps hold your teen’s bar mitzvah?!), get the perfect haircut, and to grab a beer with your co-worker after work – all in the midst of a redeveloped historic complex that was once home to park administration offices, horse stables, snow removal equipment, and a police station.
Built in 1899 as the headquarters for a mile-long racetrack along the Charles River, the Speedway complex is a fascinating mix of building types across a 2-acre campus in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood. Designed by William D. Austin in the Shingle Style with Colonial Revival influences, the architecture mimics the styles often found in luxurious seaside escapes like Newport, used here to reinforce the premise that outdoor recreation and the enjoyment of leisure time is meant for all. Over time, the rise of the popularity of automobiles affected the complex in various ways, ultimately the racetrack was razed mid-century to make way for Soldiers Field Road. The Speedway Headquarters buildings were used for different purposes until the 1990s, slowly falling into disuse.
Owned by the Commonwealth and part of DCR’s Historic Curatorship Program, the redevelopment of the Speedway was made possible through a public and private partnership between DCR and the nonprofit Architectural Heritage Foundation. But the successful redevelopment of the Speedway was not accomplished by AHF and DCR alone.
