By Kathleen Pierce, kpierce@lowellsun.com
Developer John DeAngelis said a couple from Rhode island is interested in transforming the former press area inside the old Lowell Sun building into a dinner and club. He says the building and its canal-side exterior is "the last great place in the city to develop." SUN/TORY GERMANN
LOWELL -- In an alley where The Sun delivery trucks once idled, developer John DeAngelis sees a slice of Seattle.
"Can't you imagine this: Vegetables, fish, flowers all under one roof?" asks the owner of Chelmsford-based Earth Realty, gesturing toward the rambling brick building skirting the Eastern Canal.
Turning the neglected waterway, once the power source for a network of mills, into a pedestrian-friendly waterfront zone, is his latest lofty goal.
"Once I felt the sun, I knew it was right," said DeAngelis looking out over the canal flecked with morning sun.
After buying the Kearney Square buildings that housed The Sun last March, the developer shifted his focus from residential to commercial.
"If the economy continues to swing our way, this could be the new Palmer Street," he said.
Among the "ifs" include funding and the right businesses. DeAngelis is looking for independent retailers to hawk fresh meat, fruit and just-baked cookies in an indoor open market space. Spaces at the Eastern Canal Marketplace will start at 700 square feet. DeAngelis estimates the project will cost between $5 million and $8 million and create 125 jobs.
Although a similar indoor farmer's market opened years ago downtown and eventually failed, an optimistic DeAngelis says it peaked too early.
"No one was living downtown then," he said. "Now look around. It's a very different city."
Like many canals that snake behind the industrial buildings downtown, Eastern Canal is a neglected corridor.
"They made $8 million in improvements and no one's used it," said DeAngelis, who doesn't plan to stop with an indoor market.
Next to the Blue Taleh, a dessert cafe and cigar bar are expected to open along the canal soon. Last week, DeAngelis met with a couple from Rhode Island who want to open a restaurant and club where the paper's press once roared to life on Prescott Street.
Stephanie Zoidis and Richard Roarke plan to open a wine and cheese business alongside the waterfront in the old Lowell Sun building. SUN/BILL BRIDGEFORD
"This is the last great place in the city to develop. We are surrounded by the theater, the hotel, the locks... and the way the sun hits the building is perfect," said DeAngelis. "It's an island, a little oasis in the city."
Turning this wayward waterfront, flanked by Middlesex Community College and the DoubleTree Hotel, into a new business sector would be a "pioneering plan," says the city's chief planner, and one worth supporting.
"The canals are the most significant resource in the city. To be able to have that kind of activity again ... We are very excited about it," said Adam Baacke, Lowell's assistant city manager/director of planning and development.
Fueling the excitement is entrepreneur Richard Rourke, who lives in a condominium in the Claflin Block overlooking this civic hodgepodge heralded by the late Paul Tsongas.
Rourke, who is opening a wine and cheese shop called Tuttobene, which means "everything is great" in Italian, next to the proposed marketplace, planted the seed for the indoor market.
"When I visited Seattle and went to the Pike Place Market, I just felt it was a very, very unique experience to have many small businesses invest in stalls," said Rourke, who owns Ricardo's Trattoria on Gorham Street.
When Rourke saw the vacant building where sections of this paper were once assembled on a conveyor belt, he thought of the market.
"It's not on the Seattle Harbor, but it's on the Eastern Canal. There's a walkway, it's just a great area that has so much to offer to the city," said Rourke.
This article appeared in the Lowell Sun on Sunday, May 18, 2008