Haverhill's historic downtown buildings will get a facelift this summer.
The Community Development and Planning Office has begun seeking engineering firms interested in improving or touching up the numerous building facades downtown for the city's forthcoming "streetscapes" improvement project and new five-story parking garage.
More than simply "powdering the nose" of downtown storefronts, the city expects to allocate $100,000 in matching community development block grants to help business and building owners along these streets increase their energy efficiency, fix aging masonry and even develop new awnings.
Building owners on Washington Street, Wingate Street and Essex Street alone will have the opportunity to apply for the grants and all improvements would need to abide by the historical district's standards.
William Pillsbury, director of community development, said the city hasn't attempted any facade improvements in at least two decades, but the forthcoming influx of new commuters and customers means the city should try once again to keep up appearances.
"We're trying to move on a variety of fronts in the downtown," Pillsbury said.
Other fronts Pillsbury mentioned included installing LED lights downtown and potentially increasing lighting throughout alleyways connecting pedestrians to the bars and restaurants.
Christopher D'Aveta, division director for community development, will assist the city in hiring an engineering firm to oversee the projects and to ensure the firm's work meets city standards. An employee with the city since 2007, D'Aveta's no stranger to facade improvement projects as he oversaw a similar restoration in Somerville a decade ago.
D'Aveta said he'd hope to see the city fund about five projects for about $20,000 each for the upcoming year with additional businesses joining down the line.
In his preliminary observations of the downtown facades, D'Aveta said he wants projects to help differentiate businesses sharing a uniform building through slight alterations in masonry or windows, noting the downtown's uniformity is an unfortunate side effect of similar projects in the 1980s.
"A lot of units [businesses] are not distinguished enough from another," D'Aveta said.
Haverhill Chief of Staff Andrew Herlihy said the city hopes to time the completion of these improvements to coincide with downtown streetscape program taking place this summer. While certain the program will make use of matching grants, he noted the city wouldn't rule out making the grants into long-term loans for businesses. He added that such loans would require investments from businesses dedicated to staying within Haverhill rather than ones which could shutter their doors overnight and leave the city short.
"In this economy, [businesses] may not have the wherewithal to do [these improvements]," Herlihy said. "This is to provide some seed money. We're confident this could be a successful program."
Building and business owners expressed an interest in the grants, but did have reservations about how much they could actually benefit from about $20,000.
Sharon Cohen, general manager of The Tap restaurant, said the restaurant has wanted to restore their windows and install better awning lights, but felt the project was far too cost prohibitive. Though grants could help, she noted, the project might still cost them too much.
"Even though we'd love to see them restored, it's a very expensive project," she said.
Joel Rosen, an attorney who owns the building from 38 to 42 Washington St., said such grants have helped to maintain the character of Washington Street in the past.
"It's the reason the Washington Street district looks as good as it does now," he said.
Despite his praise of the program, he hopes the city avoids temporary fixes like new awnings and focuses on improving brick work.
The $356,000 streetscape improvement plan, approved in a federal earmark written by D-Senator John Kerry, will be paid for through a combination of federal money and Mass Highway funds. The plan calls for planting new trees, fixing broken sidewalks and improving existing parking spaces. MacGyver Construction Services, headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., has been selected for the project by the state.
Herlihy added that the city hopes to simultaneously start up its own smaller-scale streetscape project that would focus on Moulton Way, Essex Street and Washington Square. Herlihy said these side-projects will create a visual uniformity, such as standardizing the brick "fringe" of the sidewalks and installing a carved slate chessboard in Washington Square, and feel inviting to rail commuters or city visitors, luring them to explore the downtown.
"The garage will look really nice and we want the surrounding areas to look like that as well," he said. "We're going to try and keep as much uniformity as we can."
