WATERTOWN — A building in disrepair located at 138 Court St. in the city of Watertown should see new life after a business owner neighboring the three-story structure was chosen to renovate it by the city council on Sept. 21.
Stephen Bradley — co-owner of Abbey Carpet of Watertown, Inc., situated at 150 Court St., with his wife, Joyce Bradley — received a unanimous vote from the city council, and now has until March 2016 to decide whether he will purchase the nearly 1,350-square-foot building from the city for $30,000.
Bradley wants to turn it into a mixed-use building, with a grocery store/deli on the ground floor and market-rate apartments on the second and third. He estimates the total project would cost about $800,000.
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The commercial real estate market has been rough for some time, and the residential market has seen wild fluctuations. Inflation, high interest rates and decreased demand for office space have
Bradley says he will use the six-month window to determine the project’s feasibility and secure a financial package. He is undecided on how much of the cost he will seek to finance through a line of credit.
“I’ve got to do a lot of engineering work and go through [the building] because it has been leaking [water] so long, and it’s in such poor shape, I want to make sure the numbers work,” he says.
Bradley expects to provide the city with an answer much sooner than the six months he is afforded.
If Bradley decides to move forward with his proposal, he says he intends to have the renovations complete within a year.
The building at 138 Court St. has been leaking water into the adjacent 150 Court St. — which Bradley and his wife own through the entity S&J Properties of Watertown, LLC — for at least four or five years because the two structures share a wall, he says. Buying the adjoining property is like an insurance policy, Bradley explains, because it gives him “a little control over what’s happening next door.”
Bradley estimates he will build fewer than 10 apartments at 150 Court St. He says he is currently unable to be more precise because the structure has windows in just two of its four walls (the other two walls it shares with neighboring buildings). Having natural light is important, Bradley explains, so he will have to do “a lot of unique things” to make the apartment designs work.
Opening a grocery store on the bottom floor appeals to Bradley, because he says, “the closest grocery store to downtown is almost a mile away.”
Bradley says he knows someone who has been in the grocery store business for more than 30 years, whose name he declines to share. Bradley says he will either run the grocery store with that person as a partnership, or allow the individual to run the store alone as a tenant of the building.
The amount of water damage the building at 138 Court St. has endured means Bradley will likely have to gut and rebuild all of the interior walls, he says. Also, the building has a lot of lead in it that needs to be cleaned out.
Before any of that work can begin, though, the building’s asbestos must be removed, which Bradley says will cost at least $200,000 to do.
To cover that expense, he is working with the Development Authority of the North Country to secure a $250,000 grant, which may come with a matching finance package. He says he only recently began working on the grant application and doesn’t know all of the details, including the exact source of the funds.
The renovations are not dependent on the grant, but the additional funds would be a boon, says Bradley. Asbestos abatement doesn’t add value to a building, so a traditional financial package won’t include funds for that treatment, he explains. A decision on his grant application may not come down until as late as December, he says.
He did not include the cost of asbestos removal in his estimate of the proposal cost, which would push the total to about $1 million.
Thanks to his three-plus decades of experience in the flooring industry, Bradley says he has verbal agreements with all would-be subcontractors for his proposed project already, since he has worked with all of them previously. Bradley declined to provide names because the contracts aren’t finalized.
The project, should it move forward, would be Bradley’s second as developer. His first project was to renovate the building he and his wife own at 150 Court St., he says. About four years ago, he added 10 market-rate apartments to the upper floors of that structure, similar to his current proposal.
“I’ve been there, done that. I want to do it again,” he says. The two buildings were built at the same time, so there are some similarities, he adds.
Bradley estimates that 138 Court St. has been in disrepair for 15 years, since around the time that its last significant business tenant, the Berow & Monroe shoe store, moved out. He says a few other businesses have opened there since, but none has lasted long.
Bradley’s wife would not be involved in the project, he says, adding that she runs their Abbey Carpet of Watertown business, which is a franchise of Abbey Carpet & Floor.
Abbey Carpet of Watertown has been serving the North Country since 1989, according to its website. The business sells and services a number of brands of carpet, vinyl, tile, hardwood, cork, laminate, ceramic, and window treatments.
Abbey Carpet & Floor has more than 800 stores across the U.S. and Canada, according to its corporate website.
