Lowell’s last abandoned mill has found its future with developer Dave Piscatelli, who is turning it into high-end housing.
As the bright summer light reflected off their gleaming helmets, construction crews filed through the tall, arched doorway on Lowell’s Lawrence Street last week. Tramping up an ancient, winding steel staircase, they emerged high above the city’s Flats neighborhood. Slowly, 100-year-old windows were eased out of their brick sockets, and shabby drop ceilings were pulled away to reveal massive wooden beams.
After years of neglect, Lowell’s last free-standing, abandoned mill is finally being rehabbed.
Perhaps more remarkable, though, is the man behind Lowell’s latest high-profile project. Dave Piscatelli may have been pulling permits at Lowell City Hall on Thursday, but by the weekend he was camped out in a fire station in Medford, waiting for the alarm that would send him and his fellow firefighters racing to their rig and out into the gathering dusk.
The Highland Mill building Piscatelli’s crews are working on is his largest project yet; Piscatelli hopes to turn the former mill into 50 high-end apartment units. Conveniently, the towering old mill building is within walking distance of the former Prince Spaghetti factory that the Markley Group is planning to transform into a data center manned by 200 employees.
It’s not his first project in Lowell, though – Piscatelli is responsible for the lauded redevelopment of the former Sacred Heart parish property. Piscatelli’s childhood friend, Kenny Leva, a prominent Realtor in the city, first clued him into development opportunities there.
“He was doing some developing in the Somerville area, and the costs just took off starting in mid-2005, as you could imagine,” Leva said. “In Lowell, the buy-in was a third the cost and you had all these university students wanting to live off-campus, professors wanting to live close to campus.”
In addition, he said, investment from UMass Lowell was beginning to pour into the city, creating an optimistic climate for investment.
Jim Lichoulas III, the developer behind Lowell’s much-lauded Mill No. 5 project, said the city also has an intangible quality that is critical to attracting new residents, particularly young professionals.
“There’s a real, authentic urban thing here. It’s not contrived,” Lichoulas said. “Economic development is all about culture. You can make all the zoning changes you want but nothing will work unless you have a great cultural environment.”
For Piscatelli, construction runs in his blood. His father ran a home remodeling business for years, often bringing his son along on jobs as he learned different aspects of the trade. After graduating from UMass Lowell in the mid-1990s and casting about for a fulfilling job, he joined the Medford fire department on the suggestion of a childhood friend. Like many firefighters, he took advantage of the job’s extremely flexible schedule – 24 hours on, two to three days off – to follow the trade he learned at his father’s knee.
Sometimes, though, that schedule isn’t nearly flexible enough.
“It happens almost all the time when I’m in the fire station. When I’m stuck there that is usually one of the busiest days where something goes wrong,” Piscatelli said with a laugh. “Not being able to put eyes on a problem is tough, but having a few good people I trust to be my eyes and hands when I’m not there helps. I just have to put the problem out of my mind until my shift is over.”
That same kind of perseverance has stood him in good stead as a developer, Leva said. “Failure’s not an option for him.”
When the housing market turned south in 2006, followed by the 2008 crash, many developers saddled with properties waiting for development panicked and left the business.
“A lot of people just gave up. That was not in his vocabulary,” Leva said.
While developing the Sacred Heart property, that same marathon-like mentality helped him work through the myriad challenges and custom design questions inherent in renovating an old church.
“I just got to kept tackling the problems one at a time. I don’t allow myself to get overwhelmed by that. I pick it apart,” Piscatelli said.
That level-headed approach helped him preserve numerous architectural details in the church and the rectory building, which in turn won praise from city leaders and area residents who fondly remembered attending mass beneath its soaring rafters.
“Sacred Heart turned out incredible. The craftsmanship was incredible,” said Lowell’s Assistant City Manager Michael McGovern. “I can’t tell you how many people have told us that.”
“Some of the old parishioners and clergy from Sacred Heart were tickled pink when they walked through the finished building,” according to Leva.
Condos For A Song
To McGovern, the work Piscatelli, Lichoulas and other developers have been doing in Lowell has helped build momentum generated by UMass Lowell and by the Boston area’s tight housing market.
“The reality here in the city is that you can get a very nice one- or two-bedroom condo for between $150,000 and $400,000 in some of these mill complexes,” McGovern said.
“Lowell is a hustling, bustling city with a lot of great cultural attractions,” he added, that make the city as lively and attractive to both Millennials and downsizing Baby Boomers as more expensive communities like Somerville.
When combined with the nearby data center project, Piscatelli’s Highland Mill project, McGovern said, will help extend that boom out from downtown Lowell and into its neighborhoods.
“It would mean a huge jumpstart for the area,” he said.
