Upturn in New England Commercial Construction

Architects are the first to know

While the residential housing boom has all but flat-lined, it appears that developers are investing or planning to invest in building or renovating more large scale commercial projects.

New England area architects serving the commercial building sector report an increase in new plans and projects in the past 24 months.

Some of the more recent interesting plans include renovation and construction of some well known properties including:

• Lawrence, MA - Winn Development's proposed $100 million, 500 unit condominium plan for Malden Mills. The plan is for architecturally and historically correct restoration of the mill building's exteriors.

• Needham, MA / Westwood, MA - Cabot, Cabot & Forbes (www.ccfne.com), major projects include demolishing former Thermo Electron Corp. building and General Motors warehouse to make way for a 350 unit apartment building, (1000) homes, a shopping center and over 1.5 million square feet of office space.

• Brattleboro, VT - renovation of Union Station, $4.2 million project, planned restoration of station and construction of parking garage.

• Proposed "Cape Wind" (www.capewind.org) project to put electricity producing wind-mill like turbines in the ocean offshore from Yarmouth Port, (Cape Cod), MA. Proponents say the project will generate 1000 construction jobs and 150 permanent maintenance jobs.

New England construction cycles are pretty much like New England weather --- unpredictable, but always interesting. 

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