Whoever purchases the former Worcester County Courthouse from the state has the potential to raze the structure – as long as the buyer receives approval from the commonwealth’s historical commission.
On top of that, a developer would need to weather a one-year demolition delay imposed by Worcester’s own historic agency.
And even if the buyer doesn’t seek to demo the building, they would need to petition the Massachusetts Historical Commission for written approval of any changes to the structure’s historically significant interior or exterior features.
That’s if anyone decides it’s worth it at all.
The 1899-era courthouse, located at the corner of Main and Highland Streets (Route 9), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It and another nearby building, at 2 Main St., are for sale through the state’s Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM).
An auction will be held Jan. 19, and bids start at a minimum of $100,000, on property assessed at about $4.1 million. Qualifications of bidding developers for the January auction were due Dec. 17. Bidders must be able to write a check for 10 percent of the purchase price or $50,000, whichever is greater, the day of the auction. Also, potential buyers must meet DCAM’s qualification requirements, including being willing to spend at least $10 million on the project. The auction is set to be handled by Worcester-based Berman Auctioneers.
Creative Space
Worcester officials, local brokers and historic preservation experts alike agree it will take a creative team of architects to devise a plan for effective reuse of the site, especially if the buyer takes advantage of state and federal historic tax credits. Utilizing those credits requires developers to follow various preservation recommendations found in the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings.
If the developer chooses not to take advantage of federal and state preservation tax credits, they can elect to reuse the property in any way approved by city and state historical commissions. That is, unless DCAM includes specific restrictions with the sale.
“If there are no tax credits, you can do whatever you want,” said Taya Dixon, who focuses on cultural resources and historic tax credits as a senior consultant v with Maynard-based Epsilon Assoc., an environmental and engineering firm. “You could subdivide spaces, and you’re not subject to the same restrictions. You could raze the building …but you would have to go through the Worcester Historical Commission, and [would] probably meet with some resistance.”
The properties sit on approximately 4.47 acres. The roughly 110,000-square-foot historic courthouse building includes several multi-story courtrooms and many offices. There is also ample unrentable space, according to Dixon, including the “monumental” lobby and staircase.
“There’s a lot of space that you might not be able to redevelop for sale or lease,” Dixon told Banker & Tradesman. “It’s a question of how much alteration is possible, and the quality of your architect, too. You have to have somebody really creative… Most of the spaces are fairly monumental.”
“It’s a property in an excellent location that may have its challenges, but for some uses may lend itself pretty well,” said James Glickman, principal at Worcester commercial brokerage Glickman Kovago & Co. “It’s a tough economy to get something speculative off the ground. [But] It’s a great property that might not be that much money.”
Glickman said one potential use could be for institutional administrative or classroom space, and cited Massachusetts College of Pharmacy’s recent purchase of the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel as a succesful example of that type of development.
Still, he stressed that unless a near-perfect end-user is found, it could be a hard project to move forward.
Historically Significant
The courthouse complex is an important piece of the city’s North Main Economic Development Strategy, said Timothy McGourthy, Worcester’s director of economic development. Its Lincoln Square location at a critical Route 9 crossroads is key, and it is in close proximity to ample commercial space currently under construction.
McGourthy said he envisions three possible themes for the site’s redevelopment.
The first is as a small business incubator, making the Lincoln Square area an innovation district building on work at the nearby life sciences and biotechnology campus at Gateway Park.
Another idea would be preserving the courthouse as a museum or other cultural site, especially if a college or university were to take it over for institutional use.
Finally, the city would also entertain redevelopment into housing as part of an urban village to connect Lincoln Square to other nearby residential space.
“It’s our hope that what we see [proposed] falls into one of the three main categories,” McGourthy said. “To us, the [older] front portion is the most impressive and the most deserving of preservation and revitalization, if possible. I don’t anticipate having anything that we might oppose.”
Ultimately, the city is simply hoping the end result justifies the means. Officials want vitality and foot traffic in the square.
“Downtown is the heart [of Worcester], and this building is an important part of that Main Street urban fabric,” McGourthy said.
The site is of great historical significance for the city and provides a dramatic gateway for visitors arriving from Route 9 or Interstate 290, according to Susan Ceccacci, education director for Preservation Worcester and an architectural historian. It would be a great loss, both architecturally and historically, if the courthouse were demolished, she said.
“I doubt the state or the historcial commission would find reason to allow someone to demolish it,” Ceccacci offered. “If that were the case, it would be a terrible loss to the city.”
