The Reid and Hughes Building CommitteeReport to the Norwich City CouncilJanuary 12, 2012

In February of 2011, the City of Norwich resolved to form the Reid & Hughes Committee for the purpose of “making recommendations as to the repair, restoration, modification and marketing of the Reid & Hughes building.” This is the analysis and report on this property.

Description & history of property

The Reid and Hughes building (R & H) is a former department store located at 193-201 Main St in the downtown Norwich historic district. It has approximately 22,000 square feet and is comprised of two buildings connected together. The smaller of the two, the Williams & Chester building, was built in 1869 and it directly adjoins the Shannon building. The larger of the two buildings was built in 1898 and it directly adjoins the Strand building. Both buildings were joined in 1898 and were called the Reid & Hughes department store. The once disputed rear property line for these buildings has been settled in an agreement arrived at in 2008. The existing rear property line coincides with the rear wall of the buildings.

Recently, Norwich was approved for a Historic Preservation Technical Assistance Grant (HPTAG). This is a matching grant of up to $10,000 that is to be used in conjunction with up to $10,000 from Norwich. The funds were used to study the structural integrity, the extent of hazardous materials present and the architecture of the building. These assessments are necessary in order to properly remediate and plan any work or development to be done to this building.

The engineering assessment was done by CLA Engineers of Norwich. It states that the building is in very unsound condition. A 2006 report by this firm estimates that to repair the unsound issues including the roof leak would cost $179,200. The hazardous material assessment was done by Mystic Air Quality Consultants of Groton, CT. This report states that there is a presence of certain contaminates (mainly asbestos & lead). The cost to remediate these contaminates would be approximately $55,000.

The historical and architectural assessment was done by Becker & Becker Architectural Associates of Fairfield, CT. This assessment of this property is very in depth. It looks at the property assets and points out the detriments to renovating it properly. It recommends a mixed use of residential, retail and commercial space as a viable renovation option.

These 3 assessments are included in this report.

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Options for the Reid & Hughes building

Option #1 Use available city resources to protect & preserve the building with the plan to continue to market it or to save it for future use. The resources are limited but certain repairs must be made to the roof and to the structure of the building. It is estimated that structural and roof repairs adequate to save this building for use 3 or more years into the future would cost approximately $179,200. Norwich was granted $ 100,000 in CDBG funds for roof replacement in 2010. However, the funds had to be used as a part of an overall plan to save this building. There was no plan in place, therefore, the $100,000 grant needed to be recaptured by the CDBG committee.

Option #2 The city could rehabilitate this building. At a cost of anywhere from $1.5 million to $6.5 million dollars this option would be quite a controversial expenditure. Certain grant monies might be available for a project such as this depending on the final use. A newly applied for CDBG grant could be applied here providing that there was a solid plan in place for the property. CDBG funds cannot be used to "mothball" a building. Obvious questions are ever present in this scenario such as where will the money, expertise and political will come from.

Option #3 The city could do nothing to the building. This will allow it to deteriorate and it will probably have to be demolished at some future date. There are ongoing costs and safety issues associated with this option, such as, the falling brick issue of last March where a 6’x8’ section of the rear wall collapsed and badly damaged the shed of a neighboring owner. The leaking roof issue could be temporarily repaired at an estimated

Option #4 The city could aggressively seek a developer and offer this property with some incentives. Examples of incentives would be combinations of:

• enterprise zone tax abatements

• downtown bond funds thru NCDC

• possibly the sale of the building for $1

• possibly energy efficiency programs thru Norwich Public Utilities

Certain state and/or federal grants and tax credits could be applied to private projects or even to a combination of private & municipal projects. A chosen developer could bring even more creative ideas and options to the bargaining table.

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Option #5 The city could demolish the entire building. This option would certainly make this problem go away but it would be at the cost of another one of Norwich’s prominent historical landmarks. It would also leave a gaping hole on the downtown streetscape. The rough estimate of cost of this action including hazardous material abatement would be around $500,000. Of course, the road to securing approvals for demolition from the various historical agencies would be long and arduous and possibly entail certain legal fees.

ConclusionGiven the historic presence of this building and the current desire to improve the downtown district it is the opinion of this committee that the city should aggressively pursue option #4. It is in Norwich’s best interests that everything possible should be tried in order to preserve our rich historic architecture.

We also highly recommend that the search for a developer through an RFP begin as soon as possible. There are 3 reasons for this expeditious RFP:

1. The deteriorating condition of this building2. The possible limited availability of soon to be released state grant funding for projects such as

this3. The availability of low interest financing for any proposed developer

We also recommend that the city council assign a senior staff person, such as the city manager or whomever he may appoint, to work along with an experienced committee. This committee should report every three months to the city council on any and all matters regarding the Reid & Hughes building. Said committee should strive to bring a dedicated professional developer to the Reid & Hughes building and to oversee a successful development.

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