'A lot of people pulling on the same oar'
Teamwork, rent and zoning breaks for businesses transformed
Newburyport from boarded-up port city to jewel on Merrimack
By CHRISTOPHER SCOTT
Sun Staff
NEWBURYPORT -- On weekends, the sidewalks along this riverfront city's
main avenue, State Street, come alive with tourists as they browse in stores with
intriguing names like Kaya, The Monkey's Fist and Dragon's Nest.
When the tourists -- always an eclectic mingling of young and old, singles on
skateboards and families with strollers -- finish shopping, they eat at restaurants
called Scandia, The Bayou and Nasturtiums, Ciro's or The Grog.
The after-meal latte or hot chocolate for the kids is purchased at the venerable Fowle's, the cozy Caffe di Siena -- where there's live music on Saturday nights -- or the ubiquitous Starbucks.
The bustling scene stands in stark contrast to the Newburyport of 25 years ago, when seagulls
outnumbered downtown patrons and splintered plywood, not glass, fronted vacant storefronts.
"I remember those days well," recalled Chuck Lagasse, a downtown landlord. "The downtown? Well, it was pretty boarded up."
In the days since, however, Newburyport's downtown has been transformed into a neighborhood of
upscale shops, restaurants and various other commercial enterprises which teem with life day in and day out.
Mayor Lisa Mead stresses that the transformation didn't happen overnight; it took decades, persistence and a lot of hard work.
But Mead, with city business leaders in agreement, attribute the city's success to several key ingredients.
Mead, a former aide to U.S Sen. John Kerry who is very familiar with Lowell's renaissance and
continuing effort to mold its downtown after cities like Newburyport, added those ingredients aren't endangered or indigenous.
"Government can't make these things happen by itself," said Mead. "A key ingredient is the whole
community -- not just government, but private business, too."
A terrific example, Mead said, is Lagasse.
Lagasse, a Haverhill native who holds a 1977 degree in industrial engineering from the University of Lowell, owns more than two dozen downtown commercial properties.
Many are occupied by various retail operations people flock to Newburyport to patronize.
Despite his impressive portfolio, Lagasse is quick to cut a startup retailer a deal on their rent until the business is up and running.
The attractive financing, Lagasse explained, often provides the incentive a retailer considering the Port City needs to set up shop.
Although Lagasse declined to publicly name any retailers who have capitalized on such arrangements, often times early rents will be based on a percentage of gross sales.
"It's pretty simple," Lagasse said. "If they don't sell, there's no rent. If they sell, there's rent.
"We're in it for the long term," Lagasse added. "We're willing to take the risk. We are not out to make a buck from day one."
Besides special rents, Lagasse has focused much of his effort on attracting a mix of retailers that complement each other.
For example, his holdings are home to restaurants, clothing stores, shoe stores, an upscale gift shop -- and the famous business where the aromas of fresh perked coffee, roasted cashews and newspapers mix gloriously -- Fowle's on State Street.
"The city is well-rounded, with all the businesses complementing each other," said Lagasse. "We've really tried to create that mix."
As further evidence of that, Lagasse recruited a Montessori school behind the Stride Rite shoe store that occupies one of his Pleasant Street properties.
"That's 120 kids in grades 1-5 being dropped off in the downtown everyday," Lagasse said. "That's a lot of parents going for coffee."
Another of Lagasse's ventures is a refurbished commercial building closer to the Merrimack River. Its anchor tenant is John Farley Clothiers, a tony men's clothing store whose window displays look like something from Newbury Street in Boston.
"What Newburyport has is a lot of people pulling on the same oar," said the store's owner, John Allison, in a statement that reflects on the cooperative spirit among downtown business owners. "Chuck (Lagasse) is just one of them."
Allison, as was Mead, was especially complimentary of the Greater Newburyport Chamber of
Commerce and Industry.
Allison described the organization as aggressive in working for the interests of local businessmen.
"It has an especially strong board of directors, whose members tend to be local businessmen
themselves," said Allison. "When it comes to representing the interests of businessmen like myself, there couldn't be a better mix."
Mead said the chamber should be applauded for its primary organization of summer festivals, which
nearly once a month do for downtown Newburyport what the Lowell Folk Festival does for downtown
Lowell once every July.
When local residents complained to city officials that the festivals clogged their access to the downtown, everyone got together and decided to hold the festivals on Sundays, and on Mondays of holiday weekends. That way, at least Saturdays were free of the maelstrom of cars and people that invade on festival weekends.
Chamber Executive Director Bill Piercey said the organization is "involved in everything when it comes to the downtown."
For example, a retail committee meets weekly.
A hospitality committee, representing inns, bars and restaurants, meets less frequently but with as much enthusiasm.
"It's a real collaboration," Piercey said. "It's that way because we can't do it without them, and they can't do it without us."
In large part, Piercey said the chamber is successful because it's the only game in town.
"I've found in some other communities there's a lot of splinter groups with the same goal," said Piercey said. "That usually results in competition that doesn't do anyone any good."
Newburyport's zoning has also been a critical ingredient, Mead said.
Downtown zoning is such, that, the first couple of floors of downtown buildings are zoned retail and commercial, while top floors are zoned residential.
That way, commercial tenants provide businesses with traffic they need to survive during the daytime, while residential demand keeps some businesses open at night -- something Lowell's political and business leaders say must happen for the downtown succeed.
On a related note, according to state statistics, only 7 percent of Newburyport's housing stock is subsidized, while the figure in Lowell is nearly 14 percent.
According to Jack Bradshaw, who served as the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority director for
several years in the mid-1970s, a consultant told city officials to succeed the city must have a "24-hour look."
"It needs to look alive past 5 p.m.," said Bradshaw, who like Mead, is more than familiar with Lowell, having served in a number of high-level state community development jobs. "If it doesn't have that look, it simply won't succeed."
Jonathan Woodman, a local architect who lives and works in the city, echoed a similar sentiment.
"People just love to live downtown," he said. "It's a pleasant place to live. There is a lot of vitality to it."
Those residents, Woodman said, provide the critical mass businesses need to survive.
"People see the stores and restaurants," said Woodman. "But there's lots and lots of people who live downtown."
Ask just any about any Newburyport restaurateur and they'll say the traffic is steady, from lunch on.
"We get the professional clientele for lunch and families that are too busy to cook for dinner," said Mae Warren, who owns and operates a trendy take-out venture with her twin-sister Cae Leahy called Carrot Top & Blondie's. "It's perfect -- there's a steady crowd."
One person who's often part of that "steady crowd" is Emil Corrente, a builder and former public official from Salem N.H. who said he probably spends more time roaming State Street and its many offerings than he does his hometown.
"Newburyport is built on a scale for the human being," Corrente said. "You can walk from place to place and still be just minutes from where you parked."
Parking, by the way, is free -- in two large municipal lots.
Woodman, who was born in Newburyport and raised in Haverhill before coming back to the city, said
Newburyport broke the mold in the late 1960s debate pitting "urban removal" vs. "urban restoration."
"Newburyport turned around HUD (federal Department of Housing and Urban Development) policy,"
Woodman said, recalling one late 1960s proposal to demolish the entire downtown and build a mall.
"This city broke the mold."
Bradshaw acknowledged that Newburyport has a few alluring amenities that may give its downtown a
leg up over a downtown like Lowell's.
For example, throngs of tourists strolling the city's famed boardwalk see the fishing vessels and sailboats that bob majestically at their moorings in the Merrimack River.
And just 10 minutes out of town is Plum Island, home to a few more funky restaurants and the
wind-swept Parker River National Wildlife Refuge -- a seven-mile long barrier beach whose fresh-water ponds, wildlife habitat, and fragile dunes get shaped daily by the pounding North Atlantic.
But Lowell and Newburyport also share similarities that have contributed to each city's renaissance, Bradshaw said.
They include a strong local government; a vibrant and supportive banking community; and the Daily
News, the city's newspaper that has editorialized in support of key, high-profile development projects.
Mead, meanwhile, believes strongly that the vision many of Lowell's top political and business leaders have for the downtown, can be realized, and perhaps more quickly than anyone expects.
"You guys upriver already have a lot of the necessary ingredients," Mead said enthusiastically, noting the museums, professional sports teams, refurbished mills, and most-importantly -- a strong will.
But Mead pointed to one project that's key: The Riverwalk. Now under construction and scheduled to open in late spring, the $8.5 million project will connect the downtown, through the Boott Mills, to Tsongas Arena and LeLacheur Park using a scenic walkway along the Merrimack River.
"That will be huge," said Mead. "A key to Lowell's downtown is, without question, the Merrimack, just like here. There's just something about that water."
© 2000 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All rights to republication of special dispatches herein are reserved.
This story ran in The Sun on 3/12/2000.
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