Hey everyone. My name is Keith Custodio. I’m Martin Custodio’s son and work with him at the agency. I thought I’d chime in once in a while on the blog. You can find out a little more about me on the “Our Agents” portion of the site.
Anyways, I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for Phase 1 of the Union Wadding Lofts today. The development is located on 125 Goff Avenue in downtown Pawtucket. I had a chance to tour some of the units and speak to the developers. They really did a wonderful job with the conversion. You can find out all about the project here. I have long been interested in the revitalization of downtown Pawtucket and have followed some of the old mill buildings that are being redeveloped (The Riverfront Lofts, The Bayley Lofts, etc.)
There are 2 things that need to happen, in my opinion, for this downtown to really make a comeback:
1. The Central Falls/Pawtucket train station needs to be redeveloped and put into commuter rail service to the greater Boston area. The city has been working on this for some time. I truly hope it happens. I believe it will bring young professionals to the area which is the demographic that desires these type of lofts.
2. The city needs to to bring in some new businesses which will in turn create jobs for these young professionals. I don’t think it can depend solely on those professionals willing to commute to Boston.
It’s a tough problem to solve but I really believe that downtown Pawtucket can become a vibrant community. Slowly, the old industrial space is being converted to residential. Now the city needs to attract the professionals that will desire new retail, entertainment, restaurants, etc. Then things will really get moving along. The only way to do that is by creating jobs for them or making it easy to commute. I say do both.
-Keith
