Worcester Business Journal

W hen Worcester leaders decided in the 1960s they would tear down a swath of downtown in favor of a new indoor shopping center, they were creating what they saw as a differ- ent Worcester for a new era. Residents were leaving for the sub- urbs, and new highways could bring them in and out of the city easily. e Galleria mall was built, and included in the project was an unmistak- able signal of this new era: a 19-story office tower, by far the tallest building downtown. e Mercantile Center, as the tower at 100 Front St. is called today, found itself in the middle of a tower boom, at least by Worcester's stan- dards. And it was supposed to be part of an even larger tower com- plex. One plan envisioned five towers between 12 and 18 stories each. Only a year aer the Mercantile Cen- ter tower opened in 1971, an even taller tower opened a few blocks to the west: Worcester Plaza, a 24-story glass tower. e year prior, a 16-story residential tower opened at 425 Pleasant St. west of downtown, a 13-story office building opened on Main Street and a 16-story residential building opened at Plumley Village, just north of downtown. e trend toward taller buildings continued with the Sky Mark Tower, a 24-story residential building on Main Street built in 1990. en it stopped. Zero towers – defined here as 10 stories or more – have been built fol- lowing a two-decade period in which 15 were built. Towers are typically built for two major reasons: land values are so high to make construction costs viable, or a builder or owner wants to spend on a signature project, said Rob Krueger, an associate professor of social science and policy studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. "Worcester doesn't really fit into ei- ther of those categories," Kreuger said. "We just don't have that land scarcity issue" like in Boston. Street development Starting in the 1960s, urban develop- ment was more likely to involve clearing out older and oen rundown buildings during an era when people were more apt to drive via highways than walk along sidewalks as they do today. "When those buildings were built, we were in an era when vertical was good," Kreuger said. Today, older buildings are more likely to be revitalized using historic tax credits, and instead of a de- velopment being more visible with towers, it's more likely to take place closer to the street. Growth is taking place below the roof lines instead of above it. As the city's tower boom came toward an end, con- struction began taking place elsewhere, like Ledgecrest Drive and Nutmeg Drive, a subdivision of duplexes off Goddard Memorial Drive, as well as Fourth Street and adjacent roads off Mill Street, and the Broadmeadow Brook area of the city, with residential streets off Massasoit Road New developments replacing the old Galleria mall are far shorter. An office building at 1 Mercantile St. opened in 2012 is seven stories. As for the two opened this year, the 145 Front at City Square apartment complex is five sto- ries, and the adjacent AC Hotel is six. A few blocks away, the Homewood Suites hotel opened last year across Washington Square from Union Station is six stories. Two downtown housing develop- ments along Main Street are taking place not in new buildings but in old ones. One, at 332 Main St., involves convert- ing the 1926 building into a new 55-unit development. Another, at the former 1843 Worcester County courthouse at Lincoln Square, will renovate that build- ing into 114 units and retail space. Stagnant skylines Larger cities like Boston have skylines seeming to change each week. Drive in from the west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and among the first buildings you'll now notice is the 61-story One Dalton tower rising in Back Bay. But Worcester isn't alone in smaller BY GRANT WELKER Worcester Business Journal News Editor The age of building vertically stopped in Worcester nearly 30 years ago, as new developments focus on street-level interaction F O C U S A R C H I T E C T U R E & C O N S T R U C T I O N Same skyline, more development Amy Finstein: "It's good to see a pause in tearing things down." Worcester Plaza, one of the two tallest buildings in the city 14 Worcester Business Journal | June 11, 2018 | wbjournal.com

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