Jeanne D'Arc Credit Union announced yesterday that it will be the major office tenant once the now-dilapidated Tremont Yards site is redeveloped to look like this. This rendering was done by Gavin & Sullivan, a Lowell-based architectural firm.
By Michael Lafleur, mlafleur@lowellsun.com
Jeanne D'Arc Credit Union announced yesterday that it will be the major office tenant once the now-dilapidated Tremont Yards site is redeveloped to look like this. This rendering was done by Gavin & Sullivan, a Lowell-based architectural firm.
LOWELL -- Jeanne D'Arc Credit Union will be the major office tenant that occupies most of the Tremont Yards building, the first new commercial tower to be built in the Mill City since the early 1990s.
Developer Will Soucy, president of Pelham-based Soucy Industries Inc., plans to build the five-story, 53,000-square-foot building next to the city-owned Tsongas Arena on Father Morissette Boulevard, on the site of the crumbling remnants of the former Tremont Mills Power House.
Mark S. Cochran, Jeanne D'Arc's president and CEO, said his bank has agreed to lease 49,000 square feet of the building -- including the upper stories.
He said the expansion will provide "elbow room now and then growth for the future."
Today, the 96-year-old credit union, which has nearly 50,000 members and about $600 million in assets, is spread across three locations in Lowell, including the administrative and corporate headquarters at 630 Merrimack St., all of which comprise about 25,000 square feet of office space.
Cochran said credit union officials hope to be able to move into the new Tremont Yards building by the summer of 2009, pending some state and local approvals.
Jeanne D'Arc's downtown retail banking office will remain at 658 Merrimack St., next door to the current corporate headquarters.
"We're excited," Cochran said. "This is the next phase, almost like moving into the next 100 years of our growth. It was important for us to stay in Lowell and, almost more importantly, to stay in the Acre. That's where our roots are. That's where we're headquartered. That's where we wanted to stay."
Soucy, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, has said he hopes to attract a restaurant for the building's ground floor. No groundbreaking date has yet to be set by developers.
The historic site is owned by the state Division of Capital Asset Management, with which Soucy has negotiated a 105-year lease. Under the terms of his deal, the
developer must preserve the turbine pits that once housed the water wheels responsible for powering the Tremont and Suffolk mill complexes. The rest can be razed.
Soucy's building design, done by Lowell-based Gavin & Sullivan Architects Inc., blends the original brick of the old power house's crumbling walls on the first floor with a gleaming tower of green glass. It will be the first commercial office complex constructed in Lowell since the Gateway II Plaza opened on Church Street in the mid-1990s.
This article appeared in the Lowell Sun on Friday, April 18, 2008