Somerset House plans on track

Design pleases heritage experts, merchant groups

Six years after Somerset House downtown was destabilized by a worker in a skid steer, plans are ready for restoring the historical building.

The structure at Somerset and Bank streets was under renovation in 2007 when a worker knocked out a key support, putting an end to work inside the building and closing the nearby intersection for months while engineers worked out how to brace the structure so it wouldn’t collapse on passersby.

What followed was a legal battle between the city and owner Tony Shahrasebi over who was responsible for all the costs, a fight that was settled only last winter, with Shahrasebi’s agreeing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in policing and firefighting costs but the city’s dropping a claim for other expenses and Shahrasebi’s ending a countersuit.

New plans by architect Derek Crain are the result: a restoration of the older part of the building right on Bank Street, and a modernization of the newer section along Somerset, which has been braced in steel and covered in tarps for years. Both parts were previously about the same height but the older section had three tall floors and the newer section squeezed in four. The plan is to replace the upper section of the new part of the building with a dark glass box to take it up to its original height and largely replace all the innards with a new interior built to modern standards.

The city’s heritage experts pronounce themselves pleased with the planned building, in a report to the city’s committee on historical buildings: “It is contemporary in design, modest in proportion and with the restored façade will make a positive contribution to the character of Bank Street,” the report says.

The two nearby merchants’ associations and Coun. Diane Holmes, who represents the area, are also satisfied, the report says.

The heritage committee debates the proposal at a meeting on Thursday. City council’s planning committee and then full council will vote on it.