Action Inc. moving to Main Street

Gloucester Daily Times, page one, March 6, 2004

By Richard Gaines Staff writer

It won't be long before that oversized nubbin at the city's center on Main Street doesn't look so large.

The redevelopment of the Brown's Mall block and the Woolworth building by Action Inc. promises to put plenty of foot traffic to the street and the nubbin, which drew howls when it appeared last summer.

Action is moving this May from its administrative headquarters at 24 Elm St., the base for 26 employees and more than 90 home service workers, and Brown's Mall next door, where three other Action divisions employ eight others, providing computer, job training and placement classes.

Fun Among Us and Sports Zone rent space from Action in the former Woolworth's building. The nonprofit will pay real estate taxes on the building, which it acquired from James and Mary Jo Montagnino for $1 million last June.

In January, the Montagninos began the complex, 100,000-square-foot makeover and expansion of their four historic buildings on Main, Pleasant and Elm streets.

The two projects -- together they encompass the entire north side of the block from Elm to Pleasant -- were engineered to keep retail shops at street level. The two redevelopments will mean close to 200 new residents and merchants on the already-busy block.

Yesterday, Mayor John Bell, Ward 2 Councilor Gus Foote, Ward 1 Councilor Joe Ciolino and a coterie of city officials toured the 6,000-square-foot second floor of the art deco Woolworth's building.

Bell and Ciolino praised the commitment to storefront retail.

"It's a great contribution to downtown," Bell said of Action's adaptation of the second floor of the Woolworth building. Architect Robert Mitnik's design, now in construction, will produce an angular open floor to allow the light from the south and western exposures to filter to the back through glass-enclosed mid-floor offices with transparent tops a few feet below the drop ceiling.

The orientation of the floor suggests a "prow" at the southwestern corner, above the corner at Pleasant and Main streets where the nubbin seems to lean out into the intersection.

Action has offered the city use of the main conference room. An elevator on the Pleasant Street side will rise to the reception desk at the opposite corner from the prow.

"It's the kind of renovation and construction we've been trying to encourage for downtown," said Bell. "The (Action) board was sensitive to allowing retail to flourish on street level."

Bell yesterday said the repaving of Main Street along the full length of the East End improvement project, from Manuel F. Lewis Street to the nubbin at Pleasant, would be done with 60 days -- in time for Action's move.

William Rochford, Action's executive director, praised Ciolino for supporting the project and helping coordinate the move from the city's property on Elm.

The consolidation of Action operations was long coming. The social service agency began work in Gloucester in 1965 but never had a real home. It operated in the beginning from offices on the other side of Main, but in 1970 moved to 24 Elm St., a one-time stately Victorian, now down on its heels in two-tone yellow.

Action's move from the city-owned Elm Street building was indirectly forced by the recession. After making more than $1 million in withdrawals from the $2.4 million stabilization fund in the past year to supplement the city's $64 million budget, the mayor and City Council forged a policy to sell off 24 Elm St. along with the Maplewood School to generate cash.

Bell postponed the offering of the Elm Street property, which had been set for last month, until the end of May to allow Action to finish work on the Woolworth's building and move.

The City Council last month voted to sell the Elm Street property for a minimum of $250,000. It's expected that the buyer will raze the house and rebuild on the small lot 200 yards north of Main, where the redevelopments are progressing.

When the city began inventorying surplus property, Action's need to find a permanent home became acute.

"We started touring Cape Ann to find a location more suitable to build or move into," said Charles Foster, an Action board member. "It was extremely difficult. We asked Jim Montagnino if he would be willing to sell Woolworth's," which was built in 1937 and maintained as a archetype of the iconic American five and dime on orders of the family whose members had a summer home on Eastern Point.

The Montagninos bought the building in 1974 but maintained Woolworth's signature yellow brick and red facing when they renovated.

"We want to see a strong downtown community," said Timothy Riley, Action's deputy director. "We want to create jobs, and to do that we need a strong business community."

Action's consolidation will produce $90,000 in beneficial cash flow -- the $58,000 in rent from its commercial tenants in the Woolworth building plus the $31,000 a year it no longer will be paying the Montagninos for rent in Brown's Mall. But the $100,000 in annual debt service for the loans from First National Bank of Ipswich and Rockport National Bank, and a smaller loan from MassDevelopment, the financing agency, leaves Action looking at a $10,000 a year shortfall.

To close it, Rochford said Action hoped for and would "appreciate community support."

Rochford described the project "as a fulfillment. We're pulling ourselves together to offer the whole range of services from one point. We can deliver the way we've always wanted to."