THE MILL WHISPERER

David Moresi sees life in old buildings

David Moresi, principal of Moresi & Associates, stands in the Norad Toy and Candy Company, in the NORAD Mill in North Adams. Moresi, also a partner in Moresi Real Estate Partners, has redeveloped multiple buildings into residential and commercial spaces in North Adams, including the Wall-Streeter Building and the former Johnson School. He is also co-owner of Grazie Italian Ristorante.

GILLIAN JONES

BY LARRY PARNASS

NORTH ADAMS — In 2017, David Moresi bought a building he’d been driving by his whole life.

The owner couldn’t wait to unload it. Because the price was so low, Moresi went with his gut, thinking that, if nothing else, the former Excelsior Mill in North Adams, all 100,000 square feet of it, could house a workshop and storage for his construction and real estate development business, Moresi & Associates.

Early the next morning, a rainy Saturday, he went alone into the old mill and put his hands on it.

Enviable blank canvas?

Money pit?

Today, the rebranded NORAD Mill — short for North Adams and the original name of the building, which began as a textile mill in 1863 — at 60 Roberts Drive, off Route 2, hums with life as home to dozens of tenants and their scores of employees and customers.

We asked Moresi how he got here from that dreary Saturday. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. You said in 2019 you believed mill development was the future of the Berkshires region. What’s tricky about finding the right mix?

A. Mills are very complex buildings. In the construction industry, they’re considered “archaic” structures. The first thing people think of when they hear about mill redevelopment is contamination. Is it a dirty building? Unfortunately, a lot of the buildings around here [in the Berkshires] have been dirty. So that’s the first thing you need to look at — and get a clean bill of health.

Then you have to look at the building from the practicality standpoint. The buildings tend to be vast, wide open spaces. How are you going to divide it up? Obviously, everybody goes gaga over these giant windows.

Early on in our project, I’m looking at all these old floors, all dinged and damaged, thinking that we got to cover these — until we realized people marveled at the floors. You see these gouges and scratches and burn marks. Places where machinery was bolted down throughout the years. These floors tell a story.

Q. OK, but what about a business plan?

A. I’ll be honest, I never had any intention of purchasing NORAD. I was looking for more shop space. I’m sitting here at a stop sign one day and I saw the for-sale sign.

This has always just been a monstrous building to me, growing up here in North Adams. I came through the place and I’m thinking, “My goodness. I don’t know, let’s see what happens — see if we can pull this one off.” There was no redevelopment plan. Now, I’ve got to put the money where my mouth is and actually do something with the place.

Q. What happened next?

A. Once we got into this building, and had a little press on it, something started to happen. Our phones started ringing. “Hey, I’m looking for space.” And, no lie. We were averaging three to four calls a day for months from people. Our first tenant was Tunnel City Coffee. They were here within 48 hours of us buying the building. It just went from there. There was no plan. The thing just evolved.

A lot of commercial landlords say, “Here’s the space. Here are the keys. Here’s what the rent is.”

We have this very diverse company. We have electricians. We have carpenters. We do all the build-out. We don’t let anybody else touch our product.

Q. How do you curate what happens here, as emcee, of sorts, for this big stage?

A. We first had to define what this place was. It’s like a mall. But malls are dead. So we called it a business mill. We’re signing leases left and right. We’re getting all these diverse businesses. It was like orchestrating this whole building. I loved it. I’d be in here at 5, 6 in the morning on a Saturday, just like a little mouse running around with a tape measure.

Q. What’s the personality of this place?

A. Buildings do have personalities. I can walk in that front door and, believe it or not, this building will talk to me. I can recognize any odd sound, strange smell or weird sight. It could be a steam line blown. It could be an electrical hum. It can be water dripping. You can almost think of a building as a living, breathing thing. If you don’t maintain a building, the building will die.

Q. When you take this building’s pulse, is it hard for you to read what’s going on?

A. This building’s an open book. I purchased it on a Friday. And that next day, Saturday, was this rainy, dreary day. I got up early that day, I told my wife, “I don’t want anyone bothering me. I’m going to explore and see what the hell I got.”

And I came in here. I started all the way up in the attic, as high as you can go, crawling around. It was actually really cool. You’d find old bobbins with thread on. I worked all the way down into the basement, into crawl areas. I needed to mentally map this building. And know everything about it. ■