5 minute read
A Fresh Cut of Cloth
A freshBUSINESS BUZZ CUT OF CLOTH
It started as one of the city's premier fine cotton textile mills.
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by Michael J. DeCicco
Now "Kilburn Mill at Clarks Cove" features retail, professional, art, and entertainment space, and a rooftop deck with a panoramic view of New Bedford's Clarks Cove and Buzzards Bay. It has a goal of being a destination site for the city. The 465,000-square-foot Kilburn Mills, at 127 West Rodney French Blvd., opened in 1905 as a cotton spinning mill. It changed owners in 1952 to become more of a retail manufacturer and eventually the "Furniture City" retail store. Its new owners, which include both local and Boston-based partners, built the third-floor rooftop deck that now faces the hurricane dike and west beach, and they say it's just a part of big plans for the mill's future. Property manager Peter Andrade, who's worked at the building for 33 years, said Mother Nature sparked the Kilburn Mills' current ownership's future goals. In 1960, Hurricane Donna tore a 7,000-square-foot section off of the mill's wooden roof. After that, nothing much was done with the entire third floor of the building until the New Bedford Whaling Museum brought a grand whaling voyage panorama (painted images linked to create one long illustration of a whaling trip around the world) to the third floor in 2018. Then the Schwartz Center Meeting School in New Bedford asked to host its annual fundraiser in the space the next year. "We didn't have a plan B for that space, until being approached by Meeting Street," Andrade said. "That's when the light bulb went off as to how we could use this space in the future." Since then, the third floor has been renovated into an Entertainment Center that now hosts regular "Night Stage" programs of music and comedy. A new roof and platform have been added to the section laid bare by hurricane Donna, turning it into an expansive rooftop deck that regularly hosts Sunday entertainment events (which can be moved to the indoor center in case of rain) as well as rental space for private events. These renovations are just the beginning of the plans the
new ownership group has to “systematically rehabilitate” the building, Andrade said. On the first and second floors, and even the basement, they've constructed spaces for retail entities and local artists' studios, leasing to a variety of over 100 tenants. There's "New Bedford Antiques at the Cove" on the basement floor, the "Do Co Cafe" on the first floor, and a gym, yoga studio, and artist studios elsewhere within the mill.
These renovations are just the beginning of the plans the new ownership group has
The plan, Andrade said, is to make Kilburn Mills a "destination place for all of New Bedford." Its owners have partnered with the likes of The New Bedford Whaling Museum, AHA, Spinner Magazine, and other art groups and artists for events the mill has hosted and hopes to host in the future. "The goal is to take things in a systematic, cautious, but aggressive way, taking it one day to the next," he said, explaining the company immediately reinvests the money it takes in to renovate the mill space. "We're walking before we run. But so far, so good."
DEDICATED PACE
The age of the building itself is a challenge, he admitted. However, construction manager Jim Murray said his crew, which includes all necessary disciplines – carpentry, plumbing, electrical – works hard to get the job done, including regularly reusing what's there. They'll take a door or a wall and install it elsewhere. They reuse old plywood as trim. They refurbish and reuse the original mill windows. "We are preserving what we can preserve," Andrade said. Andrade and Murray added there's a community approach to both the construction and leasing management. They know the tenants on a firstname basis and treat them almost like family. "We're like a city within a city," Andrade said. That's part of the reason the construction is going slowly and methodically. The building is around 40 percent renovated and 50 percent occupied. The goal, of course, is getting to 100 percent in both categories. However, it's what he calls "a balancing act" because the construction work must still provide tenants access to their spaces. Even the first floor front lobby is still being worked on; but it must be done at a pace that doesn't inconvenience tenants or their customers. The fact remains that old and new will continue to co-exist at Kilburn Mills. The mill's original freight elevator has been replaced by a modern one, but the original elevator is now on display on the first floor. One of the mill's original carpet weaving machines is on display on the third floor near the entrance of the fully renovated Entertainment Center hall. Future plans include creating living/work spaces for tenants, Andrade said. "We have a lot of different possibilities and scenarios in mind," he said. "But we're proceeding slowly with our options."
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