Lee — A historical preservation roadblock over some buildings at the old Eagle Mill complex, located behind Joe’s Diner off the north end of Main Street, may cause a $60 million redevelopment plan for the site to go up in smoke unless a state and federal entity can agree to make an exception.
Mill Renaissance, LLC developer Jeffrey Cohen says his “development team is ready to go” on a project that will ultimately create more than 200 jobs, not including construction work, add “significantly” to the town’s annual tax rolls, and rehabilitate a classic – but dilapidated — mill building into a vibrant commercial and housing center with retail, offices, restaurants and affordable housing.
Even the local hotel management company, Main Street Hospitality Group, owner of The Red Lion Inn, has committed to building a hotel at the site.
Cohen is seeking historic tax credits that can be obtained only through a historic designation process from the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC). Such an application involves noting a “period of significance” to determine a framework for a property’s historic significance.
And this is where the roadblock went up. Cohen and MHC disagree over the period of significance for part of the 6.4 acre site on the Housatonic River. The roughly 200-year-old complex, a former paper mill, was expanded in later years, with new buildings added on to the site. Cohen’s period of significance for the property are the years 1808 to 1931, he said. After that, Cohen added, the paper-making process and architecture changed, and in 1939 a masonry brick building to house machines was built; and between 1952 and 1954, Butler-style metal buildings went up for more storage. Cohen wants to tear down those and the brick building; neither have historical or architectural significance, he said, and the space is critical for the project to move forward.
The MHC disagreed, Cohen said, without even a site visit, on the grounds that the mill was still making paper at that time those structures were built. “They said the whole site is historic. And we said, if so, then we can’t develop it.”
“It makes no good sense,” Cohen added. If the buildings remain on what is a “very narrow site,” he said, there would be no parking, green space, and limited access for emergency vehicles. “In essence we’re offering to save most of the historic buildings.”
“And if we don’t develop, we lose [the site] to decay over time. That’s the consequence.”
A site visit did finally come, however, in the spring, through the influence of Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox), Cohen said.
“Just because a building is old, doesn’t make it historical,” Pignatelli said, adding that the butler-style buildings are old “tin shacks.”
“Yes they’re old,” Pignatelli went on, “but they’re garbage and should be torn down. It could be a deal-breaker. We’re on the cusp of a $60 million development of an old mill in the heart of downtown Lee and we’re getting hung up on which buildings need to get restored because they’re old.”
An amended application for historical designation was filed by Cohen on April 10. The legal response time, Cohen said, is 30 days. The MHC has now run past 90, without a word.
The National Park Service’s National Historic Landmarks Program got involved, and according to Pignatelli, “there seems to be an ongoing misunderstanding of whose role takes precedence, MHC or the National Park Service.”
Due to the influence of U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Springfield), who Cohen said has “an interest in the project succeeding,” the Park Service is doing a site visit next week with MHC, Cohen’s consultants and legislators Pignatelli and state Sen. Benjamin Downing (D-Pittsfield).
“It will hopefully come to a head next week,” Pignatelli said. He said that the idea was to get the MHC and the Park Service “in the same room at the same time to hammer this thing out.” Cohen said that it was Pignatelli who invited the MHC to visit the site while the Park Service was there.
“There’s been a lot of finger pointing back and forth,” he added. “They’re both deferring to each other.”
A former Washington, D.C. police sergeant who lives in Great Barrington, Cohen has been developing historic properties for 45 years, he said. He says he will “walk” if both the state and feds say that every brick at Eagle Mills must stay.
“The state, the town — we all lose,” he added. “If there’s no development there, I don’t see the site being developed for any other use. As an industrial site, the code regulations would be prohibitive.”
For housing on the site, Cohen’s plan is to make 80 percent — 68 apartments — affordable; the other 20 percent would be market-rate, because “there’s a need for that,” he said.
Main Street Hospitality Group has signed a letter of interest, and there is serious interest from “lots of local businesses” for retail space at the site.
“It’s not like we’re saying, ‘let’s do a box store, a CVS, a Dollar Store.’ It’s all small businesses. And because of its uses it’s financially feasible.”
One of Cohen’s consultants, Rich Vilette, said that the “site itself is difficult enough to redevelop, but if we can’t effectively get rid of the butler-type tin shacks…and make some room…then the project becomes less feasible. And operating with out historic tax credits makes the project financially difficult to pull off. Without government help, these projects can’t happen.”
Cohen says that the Eagle Mills project is also a “catalyst” to help the town get funding from the state’s MassWorks Infrastructure Program to replace an “aging infrastructure,” and redevelop three other mills.
Schweitzer-Maduit International Inc. owned the mill before selling it to another development company in 2010.
Pignatelli says he’s “optimistic” about next week’s site visit and the outcome, “although I feel we’re on life support. Though we still have a pulse.”
“I’ve been dealing with development projects for 12 years — my entire tenure,” Pignatelli said, “and this is a viable development…and it fits with the town’s vision. This building will ultimately get to the point where it has to get torn down — then we’ve lost everything historic.”
