... Learn more about New Bedford's history.
... Learn more about New Bedford's history.
By William Corey, Standard-Times staff writer
PORTLAND, Maine -- A regal downtown department store, once the retail anchor of a thriving business district, lies vacant as shoppers flock to a mall on the outskirts of town.
Nearby shops that once fed off the steady stream of consumers look elsewhere to survive. Storefronts that once boasted the newest fashions and latest gadgets instead display 'For Lease' signs.
Sound familiar?
The scenario could describe hundreds of America's urban centers and New Bedford is no exception. The Star Store, downtown's majestic landmark, where shoppers found everything from bed sheets to overcoats, has been vacant since 1987, when Stuarts Department Store ended a short tenancy there.
The scenario was also real in Portland, Maine, where the five-story Porteous, Mitchell & Braun Department Store, built in 1904, finally closed after clinging to its retail life for several years.
And New Bedford officials hope the experience in Portland can repeat itself with the Star Store.
Deborah McLean, spokeswoman for the Maine College of Art, formerly the Portland School of Art, recalled Portland's downtown dilemma.
"They put in a mall and the downtown goes to hell in a handbasket. If you had been here six years ago, this area was just in shambles," she said.
The small art school was looking to expand. Many of its five buildings and other rented space scattered throughout downtown were antiquated structures in need of renovation to meet safety and health codes. And its student body of about 300 had little room to grow.
School President Roger Gilmore called the Porteous store "a white elephant of a building," that was initially selling for close to $3 million -- far too much for the school's modest budget. But as months, then years, passed and the downtown district was dying a painful death, that price tag shrunk. In March of 1993, the school bought the former department store on Congress Street for $535,000 and found itself with hordes of new space and the ability to consolidate many of its programs under one roof.
"Eventually we got it for a real bargain-basement price," Mr. Gilmore said. "We kind of bought the whole campus of the college in one fell swoop."
The prospect of filling the old store with art students and bringing much needed foot traffic to the downtown area was music to city officials' ears.
"The city was jumping up and down with joy," Mr. Gilmore said. "They had kind of given up on the building ... It's not just students who spend thousands of dollars (downtown). More importantly, they bring life to the city."
Classes started in the new building in January after the top two floors were renovated and transformed into classrooms. And the turnaround of downtown soon followed suit. Empty stores were being leased again, such as the new L.L. Bean Factory Outlet Store opening next door.
Portland's success has served as a model to dozens of other cities that are looking for ways to jump-start their stalling downtowns. Newspapers across New England have profiled the Portland experience.
Michael Travers of the New Bedford Corp. hopes the story will replay itself here as well. Mr. Travers was among a group of local economic and legislative leaders who toured the Porteous building.
"The building is a carbon copy (of the Star Store). Not only physically, but also what's happening in the building... That's identical to what we want to do here," he said. "It brings with it not only the students and some faculty, it also plays well with the Zeiterion Theatre," he said. "It can spawn a lot of small boutique-type operations, cafes, art stores ... Where there's activity, you have attractions. You pump that to a national park. The benefits are enormous."
Mr. Travers noted that the building also could be used for continuing education classes to help train the local work force. However, unlike the Portland school, which purchased the building, pending legislation calls for a 20-year lease of the Star Store by UMass Dartmouth.
Despite recent tensions between the area's state representatives and Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny over the language of the lease agreement, Mr. Travers is hopeful that the deal will be approved, allowing local developer Paul C. Downey to renovate the building.
"I'm, sure that when all is said and done, they'll do the right thing."
MECA, close to finishing a $5.5 million capital campaign, was awarded a $1 million low-interest loan from the city and a $3.8 million state loan totaling about $10 million for renovation and design work.
The transformation has turned a once-dying retail district to Portland's "Downtown Arts District." To build a new facility from the ground up would cost an estimated $100 million, said Mr. Gilmore. Once the entire building is renovated, the school will have spent about $15 million.
The new facility, which is on the National Register of historic buildings, even helps in the recruiting process when prospective students and their families visit. The facilities and equipment are so compelling that the school expects to grow by 50 percent in the next four years. And the fact that the school offers its students 24-hour access brings an added sense of security to downtown, Mr. Gilmore said.
"There's a whole new sense for what Portland is," Mr. Gilmore said. "I think we turned around the psychology."
Oct. 8, 1898 at 7:30 a.m. -- The New Bedford Dry Goods Co. opens the Star Store downtown on the site of the former Knowles & Co. store with Asa A. Mills as its president. The store consists of one floor and a basement (15,000 square feet in all) and employs fewer than 20 clerks. Business booms from the get-go and the store steadily expands into adjoining buildings and new additions.
March 17, 1915 -- After 17 years of growing business in a growing city, the "new" Star Store -- rebuilt, refurbished and updated -- re-opens with stock covering 150,000 square feet of floor space including four floors, with a roof garden and a basement. An elevator or a fire-proof stairway takes customers from top to bottom, where everything from men's suits to draperies and furniture is for sale.
"There is not a thing we know of in a modern store that we have omitted putting in here," store manager Michael J. Leahy told a reporter after touring the building.
State-of-the-art improvements include an air ventilation system to constantly circulate air throughout the store, 60 telephones, including a phone booth on each floor and what was termed "an auto-call" system, now known as an intercom.
1923 -- The Star Store celebrates its 25th anniversary as one of the city's most successful and grandest department stores. The store at this time carries 13,000 credit accounts on its books and employs some 300 people. It boasts a delivery fleet of six trucks, which take merchandise to customers within a 50-mile radius.
1952 -- A new "metal plate" charge account system is installed at the Star Store, providing regular customers small, wallet-size embossed "credit plates" allowing them to purchase items more quickly and giving the store a permanent record of the transaction.
1969 -- Gorin's, a Boston-based department store chain, buys the Star Store, passing out checks totaling $2 million to stockholders of the New Bedford Dry Goods Co. President William Gorin says he hopes to "make the store even better" with a planned renovation project over two years that costs more than $1.2 million. The opening of the North Dartmouth Mall in 1971 has an immediate affect on downtown New Bedford's retail sales, but the Star Store reports healthy earnings in 1972 and seems poised for an even better year in 1973.
December, 1976 -- The Star Store is one of three downtown stores to defy the state's Blue Laws, which prohibit retail sales on Sunday. Pressure from the North Dartmouth Mall, which had opened on Sundays, prompts the Star Store, S.S. Kresge Co. and Golub Furniture to open, breaking the 300-year-old state law. Then-Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti, in a letter to police chiefs, urges enforcement of the Blue Laws.
1983 -- Almy, which operated the Edgar Department Stores, purchases the Star Store from Gorin's. A Delaware-based investor group has controlling interest in the chain.
January 1985 -- An announcement is made that the Star Store will close after the Stop & Shop supermarket chain agrees to buy the Almy's company and shut down the New Bedford store. The closing, which put 144 people out of work, sends waves of shock and fear through the city center. The store, long the anchor of the downtown business district, having survived varying economies, officially closes on Jan. 12, but a liquidation sale lasts through March.
April 1985 -- Then-Mayor Brian J. Lawler announces that the Star Store building will be occupied by year's end, saying there's interest in operating another department store there. On Nov. 14, Stuarts Department Store opens its New Bedford store in the building after signing a lease agreement. Nearly 175 people are hired for full and part-time positions.
August 1987 -- A Rhode Island developer strikes a deal to purchase the Star Store building and open an $8.5 million hotel. Stuarts Department Store will close by year's end and later relocate to a new building in the city's North End. It is said the Bristol Hotel will employ 100 people and developer Richard Johnson says he will restore the exterior "into a real flashy condition."
September 1988 -- The hotel plan crumbles in a dispute between business partners over property rights and proceeds allocations. Star Associates, limited partners in the deal, lose $6 million in tax-free bonds financed by the city's Industrial Development Finance Authority. The following month a lawsuit among the partners blocks any sale of the building and freezes plans to turn it into a hotel.
October 1989 -- The hotel project resurfaces under new ownership, Hotel Properties, which paid more than $2 million for the building and planned to spend $8 million to transform it into a 117-room hotel. A tentative agreement with the Bristol County Commissioners seems to fill the last financial gap and the new project is heralded as the cornerstone for revamping the decaying downtown block into a thriving entertainment quarter with the nearby Zeiterion Theatre and a proposed cinema and civic center.
April 1990 -- An announcement is made that construction will soon begin to turn the former Star Store building into a Sheraton hotel, with 14,000 square feet of retail space. Three months later, a key investor backs out of the deal after the state's bond rating drops. In 1992, New England Federal Savings Bank forecloses on the developers and soon goes bankrupt.
July 1993 -- The building is fenced off as pieces of the terra-cotta facade start to crumble and fall to the street. The copper flashing that lines the perimeter of the roof, preventing water damage, is stolen. The Waterfront Historic Area League and a Boston architectural foundation each pledge $1,000 to save the facade. A safety tunnel made of plywood is later constructed to protect pedestrians.
1994 -- ArtWorks!, a local nonprofit organization, eyes the building as a downtown arts center featuring studios, a gallery, a performing arts stage and a cafe. UMass Dartmouth grows interested and looks at the possibility of becoming involved. Some grants are secured for the effort while ArtWorks! looks at other sites as well; namely, the former Standard-Times building on Pleasant Street.
June 1995 -- The city takes possession of the building, which owes more than $700,000 in back taxes, giving controlling interest to the New Bedford Redevelopment Authority. Six months later, local developer Paul C. Downey is designated as sole developer of the Star Store.
Also in November, a letter of intent is signed by the city and UMass Dartmouth to rehabilitate the vacant building as the new home of the university's arts program. Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny crafts language in the state's bond bill that gives the school access to $3.5 million to convert the building if state legislators agree.
July 1996 -- Sen. Montigny introduces language in the state's Capital Outlay Bond Bill allowing UMass Dartmouth to sign a 20-year lease of the building. In August, the bill all but dies on Beacon Hill until Sept. 5, when it is revived and whisked through the state Senate. It now awaits House passage.
With even its architecture similar to New Bedford's Star Store, the Porteous, Mitchell & Braun Department Store in Portland, Maine is seen as a blueprint of how New Bedford can use the UMass Dartmouth art school as the foundation for downtown's revitalization. It's a scenario that is working in Portland.
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