Downtown Salem named A Top Ten Neighborhood: Last Gasp of Gentrification?

As has been widely reported in the News, and the Gazette, the American Planning Association has named Downtown Salem as one of its Top Ten Neighborhoods:

One of colonial America's most storied towns, downtown Salem, Massachusetts, blends 17th century history and architecture with a 21st century pace and liveliness. The neighborhood's picturesque Common, eccentric street grid, and profusion of archetypal old houses belie a humming, mixed-use district with dozens of retail stores, more than 50 restaurants, and 400 newly built residences.

Given the neighborhood's success in retaining its historic character while incorporating modern-day changes to make the area economically vibrant, compact, and sustainable, downtown Salem has been named one of 10 APA Great Neighborhoods in America for 2008.

To be fair, this is a great victory for Kim Driscoll.  Three years ago, Mrs. Driscoll was the assistant city manager in Chelsea, the once-troubled small city just north of downtown Boston.  In the 1980’s, Chelsea was in state receivership, but starting in the 90’s, the city gentrified at a fierce pace.

Driscoll had to have wanted that for her city of Salem. 

Indeed, during one mayoral debate, Driscoll bragged about the steep rise in property values in Chelsea, at the time the city was listed as the 2nd highest increase in values for a town in the Commonwealth.  Her opponent, Kevin Harvey, was less positive about this fact, saying that it was a list he didn’t want Salem to be on.

And now Kim has it.  She has the steep rise in property values in downtown.  She has, in her city, $300K condos named after Hawthorne.   Even my ward councilor is caught up in the gentrification wave with his support of the Salem Jail redevelopment.

We make our money downtown from “history”, tourists and ever elevating property values, rather than the industry and business of years past.

Salem celebrated this honor in a ceremony this past Wednesday with our state rep Keenan, state senator Berry and Congressman Tierney.

I wasn’t invited.

I’ve lived downtown for 13 years.

People at the ceremony were given T-shirts (“Downtown Salem/I Live Here!”)

I don’t have one.

I’m slighted.  Snubbed.

This Top Ten Neighborhood honor is not for the long-time citizens who have quietly worked for Salem’s benefit, but more for the up-and-coming dynamic individuals who can pull down $500K mortgages for tiny condos. 

Kim, the Council and the administration got their wish.  So too did the condo owners.

But what will happen to them in an economic collapse?  What will happen to us, when we can’t make money out of churning property values and Halloween visitors?

If your condo is foreclosed upon, will the same city officials who feted you, return your calls?

One last quote:

Other signs that downtown Salem no longer is just a draw for tourists, says former city planning director Bill Luster, who has lived downtown for several years, are the neighbors he sees when walking his dog, going to the drugstore, or doing other everyday errands. "There's definitely a neighborhood feel to downtown now," he said.

I’ve been around, Mr. Luster. 

Where were you?

Gentrification in Salem

I don't often comment on pundit-bloggers like Instapundit or Daily Kos, but Megan McArdle hit a nerve with me:

One of the reasons that I left New York (I mean, aside from my awesome new job), is that I didn't like what the place had become. I grew up on the Upper West Side when it was still the place where Leonard Bernstein had set West Side Story: a poor-to-middle-class place with no good restaurants but all sorts of interesting local places. The fifteen-story co-op in which I was raised felt in a lot of ways like a very small town.

By the time I left, in my thirties, the Upper West Side south of 96th street was wall-to-wall investment bankers, and the ubergentrification was creeping towards me; I lived across the street from the last grocery store south of 125th street that didn't carry artisanal cheese. I have no objection to artisanal cheese, of course, but the monoculture was oppressive. None of the finance people or their associated service personnel seemed to live in my neighborhood; they came there to sleep. On weekends, they left for their country houses as quickly as their expensively garaged cars could carry them.

The road to Salem's gentrification began sometime in the late 1970's, when the Essex Street Mall was created, which blocked off Essex St. to traffic between Liberty St. (now New Liberty St. and the Museum Place Garage) and Washington St. The East India Square Mall (now Museum Place) was built, and there was the Pickering Wharf development (now a hotel). The first condo complexes were built on Central St., and Federal St. (at the corner of Washington across from the court complex).

At that time, the last remnants of the old Salem that I grew up with were fading away. The Paramount theatre that so many old-timers remember was gone by 1970. But in 1982, the biggest department store in Salem was no more.

Almy's, Bigelow & Washburn was gone. Due to congestion downtown and a declining economy, it closed forever. A condo complex--and the old Almy's clock--now sit on the site.

For me, that marked the end of the Salem I grew up in and the Salem I loved.

I had many happy memories of "going downtown" with my mom and her daughter to go shopping.

That was the start of my bitterness over Salem's change.

Salem experienced more decline. The Second Salem Fire happened around this time: The Salem Armory and the Masonic Temple were burned by an arsonist in 1981. (The armory's drill shed is now the visitor's center; the front shell, demolished, is now a park.)

Gentrification continued, with more steam, in 1985 when the Salem Common Neighborhood Association was established. My family lived in the public housing at the Phillips School in the neighborhood, so this was my first encounter with gentrification. Residents in my building were never really welcomed to SCNA's meetings. They still aren't.

Sometime in the late eighties and early nineties, yuppies began to discover Salem. They, and the city, also discovered Salem's history, specifically colonial history to 1812, to be good for property values.

Or, as I like to put it, the appearance of history is good for property values. Just ask Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Now, the forces of gentrification are just across my street. The Salem Jail is being developed.

And I'm unhappy, as you already know if you're a regular reader of mine.

McArdle references an article in the Times about the galloping class divide in Manhattan in explaining why she moved out. A money quote:

Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell, has written about the phenomenon of Americans who feel impoverished because of the towering wealth of those above them. In New York City, he said, those feelings are compounded by the sense that much of the wealth at the top is derived from financial instruments that merely move money around.

It’s one thing if people are adding value to society,” Professor Frank said. “But there is skepticism that this is all a shell game and these guys are not adding value, at least to the extent that justifies their salaries.”

What do people like Polly Wilbert do? I grew up around factory workers, my best friend Leo Jodoin is a carpenter, my mom raised foster children. What do the denizens of Washington Square or Federal Street do?

At least I can explain my own field of IT. I have never seen an explanation of gentrification in Salem that didn't involve historic-property owners capitalizing on their property values and refinancing, apparently to fund lawsuits against the city for destroying the "character" of their neighborhood, or against their own neighbors for repainting their houses in the "wrong" colors.

In New York, no one knows where gentrification will stop. I don't, either, but I know I won't like the journey.

Salem Jail update

[Rendition of the Salem Jail looking east down St. Peter St., from the SRA meeting in February]

The Salem Jail project that I've written about before has gone before the Planning Board. New Boston Development officials went before the board tonight to present their updated plan.

No surprises for the most part; they reiterated what had gone before at the SRA meeting in February.

It's been mentioned before that some units will be marketed as apartments to take advantage of federal funding. These will be in the "old" part of the Jail. There will be a "new" part of the jail in the existing parking lot at St. Peter, part of a new "parking structure". (Not mentioned, but I presume the old barn will be taken down.)

One member of the board asked about affordable housing. There will be one affordable unit.

That's one more than I thought would be there!

I'm not surprised. The SRA doesn't need low-income folks downtown. The Jefferson was supposed to be for "up-and-coming, affluent and hip" people too.

There'll be one parking space per unit per downtown zoning, which has been extended to the Jail. This means no families.

(I would like to see Federal St. zoned for no resident parking--horses only! But another post, please.)

There'll still be a restaurant. So they say. The rep from New Boston wasn't going to speculate further.

There is one last round of approvals from the city before construction starts. I didn't hear this part of the meeting very well, but I had thought I heard that this would come up at the regular SRA meeting on the 9th; not sure why it would come before the SRA again.

UPDATE: At the SRA meeting of April 9th, it was mentioned that the closing is scheduled for June. The project will be permitted in July and construction will start in August.

Salem Jail developer switching from condos to apartments

Salem News reports that the Salem Jail, slated for development for over 15 years, will be developed as apartments rather than condos. On the Housing Bubble Blog, people refer to those as "repartments".

I'm not really surprised. The economy has been cited as the main reason for this, but I believe also that the changes that this area of Salem will undergo, notably the bypass road, will be more risky than many condo owners would want.

The developers, New Boston Ventures, briefly reviewed their plans at last night's meeting of the Salem Redevelopment Authority. There will be 36 residences and 22 of them will be leased as apartments for the first five years. There will be 7 permanent parking spaces for the complex in the Museum Place garage. There will be 5 spaces reserved in the garage for the senior housing complex next door (where this blogger lives), during construction. (Interestingly, it was not mentioned in the meeting, nor did I think to ask, if these spaces would be permanent. Parking is the most serious concern in my building.)

Here's a model:

The view of the model is from St. Peter St., with Bridge St. and the bypass road to the left of the frame and St John's Church to the right. The parking entrance is the "historic house" on the right, and the main jail building is left of the center courtyard.

A restaurant has long been proposed for the jail site, but no proposals were named at the meeting; Aquitaine had a proposal for the jail site several years ago, but had since pulled out. New discussions are ongoing but are said to be at a sensitive stage.

Rental prices were not given but the condos will be in the range of $400K to 700K.

My councilor, Mike Sosnowski, was very enthusiastic and could not stop praising this project.

I don't feel the same. I'm very upset.

Why can't the SRA promote something other than condos?

The Aquitaine proposal for the restaurant at the jail was killed by its grandiose nature: There was to be a new garage at Church St. (long a dream of the city but no money.) There was going to be valet parking to Museum Place. Those things were never to come together, indeed, they're not even on the horizon now.

So the SRA tries again to develop. And makes condos. What a surprise.

I'm angry with my councilor for approving this: Mike is a working-class lobsterman. There is no way someone like him or his family or kids could afford any of the apartments even if they were feasible for him. He could not afford Aquitaine had it been developed, and he will surely not be able to afford whatever restaurant comes in there.

If one comes in.

The approval of the Salem Jail project comes on the eve of what many believe is an oncoming recession. Many in the financial blogosphere even fear that we are back in 1929, headed for another, greater depression, brought on by the massive worldwide credit bubble that may have just popped.

Imagine 2010. The developers have half-completed the project. Still no restaurant, and it's rumored there'll never be one. Joe Yuppie, a new resident of the Jail, is trying to leave house for work. He'd take the train but because of budget cuts the trains are late and when he tried taking the train, it took 20 minutes to walk to Salem Depot in the teeth of the bypass road traffic. He missed his train and he was late. His boss told him "never again!" He'd like to get a job within walking distance but Dunkin Donuts doesn't pay enough.

So he's been idling at St. Peter St. behind a line of traffic waiting to get onto Bridge. It's raining hard. He sees his neighbor walking on the street behind him. He's not one of the lucky ones--he has to walk a block and a half to Museum Place to get his car. He can't wait to move out.

So too, does Joe. Joe has been sitting in traffic for ten minutes. He fumes, knowing that when he goes through the intersection, another one awaits at Washington St., and still others at North St. or Boston St. He looks at his watch, angry. He knows it will take him 20 minutes in any direction to get out of downtown, and 20 minutes after that to even think about reaching the highway, to 128, 93 and another workday.

Is this worth $700,000?

Other photos from the SRA meeting:

• Salem Jail parking and roadway diagram
• Artist's conception of the courtyard and parking structure
• Layout of the Salem Jail complex

Nathaniel Hawthorne lives here?!

Two Hawthorne Boulevard 002, originally uploaded by dmoisan.

When I rail against over-entitled "historic" property owners and snob Salemites (Hi, Washington Square! Hi, Federal!), a bitter gibe I'll never stop making is that these people really think Nathaniel Hawthorne lives in their building or in their neighborhood, spreading historic character, not to mention property values.

At Two Hawthorne Boulevard, it's really true! This is a sheet of paper printed off a realtor's color laser and stuck to the corner of The Old Spot, kitty-corner from the hotel.

According to the website, units start at $200K for one bedroom. Nathaniel can be your neighbor at no extra charge. Granite countertops, too!

Waterfront condo project 'dead'

Ferris wheel at 289 Derby. The proposed condos would have been six stories or about the height of the spoke of the wheel. Derby Lofts, in the background, is five stories.

The condos next door to SATV are officially dead: Waterfront condo project 'dead' - SalemNews.com, Salem, MA

This was a waterfront project, fronting the South River, and Massachusetts has strict regulations on public access to the waterfront. Many private projects, such as the Jefferson apartments on the North River and the condo complex near the Willows and Collins Cove, have public walkways directly on the coast per regulations. The city has been working with the state for several years to build a walkway between Lafayette and Derby St. on the water and the city just got money to build a playground at the Lafayette St. end next to Wendy's.

The developers had to have known this:

"At this point, I would consider it dead," said Henry Bertolon, the Beverly developer who took over the project more than a year ago.

Harborview Place was the victim of a down real estate market and, according to Bertolon, foot-dragging by a state environmental agency. The long delay obtaining a state waterways license from the Department of Environmental Protection hurt the project, he said.
"The DEP sat on it for 15 months," Bertolon said. "It's a shame - they would have been built and sold (by now) if the DEP had been more responsive."
The DEP disputed that claim, saying some of the delay was due to valid issues raised by the public.

Do developers really think, "Oh, we'll get the city, the state and everybody around to rubber-stamp this and ram it through before the economy turns?"

What turnip truck did we fall off of?

A project as complex as that condo, with its underground parking, is not going to be finished or even substantially complete in 15 months! Two other comparable projects in the area, the Derby Lofts project and the old police station each took about 3 years from permitting to construction.

The expansion project at 10 Federal to add three floors did take about 16 months, but there was no parking involved. The parking garage that was planned has been put on hold and perhaps shelved.

It's obvious now that the real estate market was peaking when that project was permitted three years ago. Any informed observer could have seen that but for Upton Sinclair, who said, "It's very difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

Developers and advertisers, the Salem News and the Salem Gazette, have an interest that depends on their deliberately not understanding our economy. Politicians, too. I expect the News to be calling us ignorant peasants who don't appreciate the benefits of development, or is it, the benefits of real estate ads, rampant gentrification and the "cool dynamic hip people" that these ads solicit.

And Tom Furey will say, "Oh, but it's a blow to Salem, a real tragedy!" (And why hasn't Boston and Bridge been developed all these years? Cue the crickets.)

If this does mean that Salem goes down the tubes, perhaps a future government can resolve to do it right and Salem can come back for real next time.

Let's hope.