Vector illustrations of the Cash For House

The boom in Gateway City development is undeniable – those completed have successfully attracted new residents in search of new, quality housing at more affordable rent than downtown Boston. However, keeping these residents has been a more difficult challenge. Residents cite crime, a lack of shopping and restaurant options and unreliable transportation as some of the reasons they move on after the first year.

An effort to address these concerns has helped fuel the trend of building out and operating an astonishing level of amenities and services within each new development that has followed – the so-called “amenity arms race.” As developers and designers, we figure that if we can provide everything a resident could ever need for free within a curated, controlled environment, then they’ll be more inclined to ignore concerns about the broader neighborhood and stay. However, this strategy hurts retailers, reduces interaction among neighbors beyond the building, and drives up operating costs, with no apparent improvement in retention rates.

The Haverhill Experience

When planning for J.M. Lofts in Haverhill, 18 new market-rate lofts with 4,500 square feet of ground floor retail in Haverhill’s historic Washington Street district, we decided to address resident retention in a different way: invest more in the individual living spaces, encourage vibrant retail along Washington Street, one of Haverhill’s great main streets, and support the important initiatives undertaken by the city and commonwealth on bigger issues such as jobs, economic development and education.

Working with tall ceilings, large windows and exposed beam and brick as the backdrop, J.M. Lofts’ design, fixtures and materials bring a new level of luxury finish and modern aesthetic. Each loft, with views of the historic surrounding buildings and Merrimack River, is designed to balance the requirements of a comfortable home with the vibrancy of a commercial street below.

When future residents ask us what the building amenity package is, we point out the door. Haverhill is known for its fantastic restaurants and bars – The Peddler’s Daughter, Artist Café, Krueger Flatbreads. Wicked Big Café, serving up great sandwiches and lattes, is around the corner. Our website’s headline is “Check Out Downtown Haverhill” and the map shows where yoga, library, theater and dry cleaning can be found within a short walk. We’re partnering with the existing local garage to provide covered resident parking, and looking to establish more partnerships with existing yoga and fitness studios as we open.

Supporting retail also means more than just encouraging your residents to get out the door. On the retail floor we invested more in the build-out to make it easier for a retailer or restaurateur to overcome capital requirements. We also added density on the residential floors, which relieved some of the pressure on the retail floor. The result is more flexibility in selecting tenants that we thought would complement our building and the neighborhood.

Finally, real sustainability requires long-term local planning and initiatives that support jobs, education and economic development on a scale far larger than J.M. Lofts alone. We’re active participants in MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative, which is bringing additional planning and resource capacity to the city. We’re big supporters of Haverhill’s Harborplace project, which will bring a UMass-Lowell satellite campus downtown along with a mix of residential, retail and office. And we’re thrilled to see further investment by the city in the nearby Bradford Rail Trail.

As Gateway Cities and developers plan future projects, we must recognize that each building can’t and shouldn’t attempt to provide everything for residents. Instead, like the efforts now happening in Haverhill, we should make every effort to invest in and promote the city as the amenity, and maybe then we’ll start to see more fitness studios, coffee shops, doggie daycares, movie theatres and co-working spaces open up along our Main Streets again, with residents settling in to stay for a while.

David Traggorth is president of Boston-based Traggorth Cos.