Developers hope to revitalize Main Street business district with luxury apartments project
WOONSOCKET — Something is happening at 43 Railroad St. that Les Przybylko and his partners believe could be the early stages of a new outlook for the city’s Main Street business district.
The developers involved with 43 Railroad St. are converting a long vacant three-story city industrial building just over the tracks from the historic Woonsocket train depot into 20 residential apartments and 3 street level commercial spaces.
As can now be seen from nearby Main Street, the ambitious project is creating two of its residential apartments as spacious rooftop penthouses that will offer their occupants stunning views of the city’s downtown district and beyond.
Przybylko and his development partner, John Masier, completed a similar downtown rehab project at 122 North Main Street that is now fully occupied and home to the Lops Brewing nano brewery in the building’s ground-floor commercial space.
The 43 Railroad Street project is still months away from welcoming its first tenants, but Przybylko believes the finished product will have no trouble selling out in what he sees is a future high-demand market for efficient, easy downtown living.
“We actually have tenants that have committed right now – young professionals – which goes to show you there is a desire for what we are offering and which is not common to this area,”
Przybylko explained.
43 Railroad St. LLC purchased the 1890s industrial and commercial property located next door to Edward Harris’s historic stone-built warehouse on Railroad Street for $175,000 but will spend $2.2 million to complete the multi-use renovation, according to Przybylko.
Planning for the housing conversion included earning approval from the City of Woonsocket to create a fourth interior floor before the existing second and third floors, even before the rooftop penthouses were started.
The interior redesign took advantage of the building’s brick, wood and steel-beam structured solid build to create three new floors – 8-feet, 8-feet and 9-feet high – in the space of the prior 14-feet and 17-feet high floor spaces. A total of 18 micro-loft apartments will be located in the three new floors, configured as under 550-square foot studio and one-bedroom apartments with well-insulated walls and high-efficiency utilities.
The first-floor commercial space is being designed for
an arts business and two other commercial spaces to be rented.
The original heavy-duty construction of the building with large floor support beams, ironwork supports and quality brickwork made the redesign feasible, according to Przybylko.
“It’s a beautiful building and it is a solid building,” he said. “It’s just unbelievably well-built, and five times stronger than what we needed.”
With the
interior apartments
framed out, the project has now moved on to framing and roofing for the two penthouses. They will provide a new roof structure for part of the overall building while leaving some of the existing roof area for decked patio spaces outside each of the upper level, high-end apartments.
The interior micro-lofts are expected to rent for between $1,150 to $1,400 per month depending on their layouts. The penthouses will go for $2,050 and $1,850, respectively.
That may sound like a lot for Woonsocket’s downtown, but when you see the views of the train station and Court Street, and look down on Ciro’s Restaurant and Pub and Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining nearby, maybe not so much, as Przybylko believes.
“The city is trying very hard to promote commercial development downtown but I think it is the other way around,” Przybylko said. “People have to live in the downtown, and from there you hope they create
business.”
The city did take the needed steps to move 43 Railroad St. along, and Przybylko credits the planning and zoning boards, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s administration and the city council for supporting the changes and approvals that were needed to make the micro-loft project possible.
Now, the challenge will be to continue the new development momentum with other projects on the drawing board in the downtown district.
Przybylko and Masier just closed on a new property in the downtown – the former Father Roger Marot CYO Center on Federal Street – with the help of Pawtucket Credit Union, their finance entity. They will be designing a 33-apartment project for the purchased properties on Federal Street.
“That will be about a $3 million project,” Przybylko said. “I have already hired an architect, so I guess we have begun.”
Garrett Mancieri, executive director of the Downtown Woonsocket Collaborative, also sees 43 Railroad St. as another step forward for the downtown district.
The new residential apartments should be as popular as those in 122 Main St., and the project will give another long unused Main Street area property a major overhaul, he noted.
“This is the kind of property we want to see in the Main Street Overlay District – commercial on the first floor and residential on the upper floors,” Mancieri, a local real estate broker, said. “That is the best way to utilize these buildings.”