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January 6, 2010

Fate of Woolworth Building hangs on Thursday inspection

By Cara Spilsbury

The Woolworth building, on the corner of Merrimack and Main streets in downtown Haverhill has been sitting vacant for decades as an eye-sore, albeit harmless.

That is, until a concrete chunk from the front facade came crashing down onto the sidewalk last Monday.

The accident, which has left the corner of the Woolworth building roped off and with scaffolding, prompted Mayor James Fiorentini to order an inspection of the building, which is owned by the Greater Haverhill Foundation. The inspection is planned for Thursday morning, Jan. 7 (after The Haverhill Gazette's press deadline), and the results won't be available for several days.

The mayor hopes the inspection will show that the building can stand safely for the time being to buy more time to get itf sold.

"I'm opposed to knocking it down," said the mayor. "I think we need to give it one last serious marketing attempt. Knocking it down is a very expensive proposition, but after the inspection, if it is an imminent hazard, we will knock it down."

The crumbling facade also caused for some discussion on the matter at Tuesday night's City Council meeting.

Councilor William Ryan had already planned to discuss the building at the meeting before the concrete fell.

Although Ryan supports tearing down the building and perhaps putting trees, a lawn and benches in its place before the land is sold, he shares the mayor's urgency to find a resolution.

"We as a community need to dig in and resolve this once and for all," he said.

Ryan said his ideas for the spot would allow the zoning to remain the same in the hopes that a business could retake the location in the future. However, he believes something needs to be done in the interim, so "we at least have a pleasant place to look at."

"There's no market out there," Ryan said. "The commercial market is down and we need to find something in the mean time. The building is of no use. There's no parking. It doesn't meet today's standards."

The building, which the city has tried to rehabilitate for years, was purchased for $1.4 million from its longtime private owner about four years ago by the Greater Haverhill Foundation, an economic development corporation that works closely with the Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce. Members of the Greater Haverhill Foundation were on hand at the council meeting to discuss the building.

Ronald Trombley, an officer of GHF, also agreed that something needs to be done and said the GHF will gladly work with the city to resolve the issue of the building, but shared concerns about demolishing the building and warned of "knocking a tooth out of the street."

"What would be involved in filling that site, then re-excavating the site (if it were sold)?" he said.

At the end of the discussion, all involved parties decided to revisit the issue in three to four weeks, likely on Feb. 2, pending the results of the building inspection.

The Greater Haverhill Foundation has retained engineer Paul Bergman to examine the structure's integrity, including its walls, foundation and roof.

"We'll go in and evaluate the best plan of action," Trombley said.

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