Community Development Board Endorses Tyler Street Fire House RedevelopmentBy Brittany Polito, iBerkshires Staff
02:28PM / Friday, December 24, 2021 | |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — CT Management's overhaul of the former Tyler Street firehouse continues to be endorsed by city panels.
On Tuesday, the Community Development Board approved a special permit for the adaptive re-use of the historic building to create four market-rate, two-bedroom apartments.
"Thank you very much and thank you to the City of Pittsfield for the opportunity to fix up another great old building," developer David Carver said to the board.
Since its proposal over the summer, the project has been granted $100,000 from the fiscal 2022 Community Preservation Act Fund and a 10-year tax increment exemption agreement that will save the developer about $55,000 in residential taxes and will bring in about $65,000 into the city.
"With the last several months, what we've been doing is stabilizing the building," Carver said.
"We were able to get a brand-new roof on the building and patch all the holes in the roof and we repointed about 95 percent of the outside of the building, there were some areas that were failing badly but it is now stabilized and we're taking a pause now to gain this permit and our final finance."
Before his interest, the long-vacant fire station was at risk for demolition after the city released multiple requests for proposals to no avail.
There was deterioration throughout the building but the roof needed immediate attention. With the acquisition of the CPA funds, Carver was able to complete the roof renovation and is working on the outside of the building.
In line with the other classic buildings he has converted into apartments, the goal is to restore the fire house’s original glory.
"Two of the units will have access by vehicle to the front of the building, the old historic garage doors will be used by each of those units to access the garage," Carver explained.
"And so the front of the building, the goal is to make it look exactly like it always has been."
The other apartments will have parking in the back that is accessed from Courtland Place.
"One of the things that we're trying to do on this site plan is to soften the look at the front of the building, right now it's basically a tarmac of concrete," Carver continued.
"Now we're proposing to remove all of that and make the driveway and access to the garage as small as humanly possible and yet still allow for some parking and turnaround, so we've added a lot of green space in the front up by the new sidewalk that will be installed."
A stockade fence that is overgrown with vegetation will be removed and replaced with a decorative wrought iron fence.
In addition, a company will be hired to replicate the building's original cornice in fiberglass. The existing one had to be removed because it was not structurally sound.
The board also approved a site plan review amendment application for the addition of cannabis product manufacturing to a cultivation facility in Downing Parkway. The facility was approved in 2019 and its product has just reached the market.
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