Posted on October 24, 2019
Growing up in Haverhill, Mayor James Fiorentini has many memories of the city’s downtown. He remembers taking the bus from his parents’ home to visit his grandparents at the store and restaurant they owned. On the way home, he’d stop at F.W. Woolworth to buy goldfish food and eat a banana split at the long Woolworth’s lunch counter.
Another memory is seeing the Woolworth building empty. He saw this a lot because the landmark store along the Merrimack River closed in 1970 and remained that way for 45 years. During this time, Fiorentini built a law practice and political career, first as a city councilor and then when he was elected mayor in 2003.
This is why Fiorentini and so many others are excited when you ask them about Harbor Place at the corner of Merrimack and Main. “We waited a long time for this,” Fiorentini said. “Most people can’t remember when Woolworth’s was not an abandoned eyesore.”
Developed by the Planning Office for Urban Affairs (POUA) and the Greater Haverhill Foundation, Harbor Place features a five-story office building, a six-story 80-unit mixed-income apartment building, and a plaza with three walkways to the river.
Creating access to the river was a challenge due to a 10-foot high flood wall. To connect the river with Main Street, developers knocked down the Woolworth building and seven buildings around it. They worked with the state and the Army Corps of Engineers to raise the level of the street. They built a development platform even with the height of the new street and the top of the flood wall. They put a parking garage under the platform and built Harbor Place on top of it. A boardwalk was added, giving pedestrians access to the river for the first time since the 1930s.
There were other challenges. Developers worked with the city to create new zoning. They put together a financing package that included Bank of America, MassWorks infrastructure funds, tax credits, city tax incentives and state funds for market-rate housing in gateway cities. Finally, they received a $7 million loan from MHP, which supported two previous POUA developments in Haverhill as well as revitalization efforts in downtown Boston, Dorchester, Lynn and Salem.
“This part of the city had seen a lot of disinvestment,” said POUA executive director Lisa Alberghini during a half-hour interview in which she rattled off every detail of the $70 million project. “You couldn’t see the river. To be able to renew the life of the street has been transformative.”
Glorimar Vazquez can attest to that. For seven years, she has worked at Lahey Behavioral Mental Health, rising from filing medical records to becoming the central scheduler for 25 clinicians. She goes to work every day trying to provide for her daughter Yaira the things she did not have as a child. When Glorimar was young, her parents split up, sending Glorimar on an odyssey that included 13 homeless shelters between Haverhill and New York City.
Providing the best for Yaira was difficult at their previous apartment. Drug use was rampant and Yaira once found needles in the yard. When Glorimar heard about Harbor Place, she didn’t think twice. When their application was accepted, she and Yaira cried. Something good was happening. Their home is safe. There’s a Market Basket grocery store across the street. “I feel at peace that I don’t have to worry about my daughter,” said Glorimar.
Yaira feels the same way. “I love walking on the boardwalk, playing hide and seek, and doing gymnastics in the grass,” she said. “You can do so many things with your imagination out there.”