Latest plan to redevelop old police station may be dashed due to structural concerns

FALL RIVER — Structural concerns at the old Bedford Street police station could scuttle the latest plan for the more than 100-year-old structure leaving the possibility that the city could own it once again. Attempts to redevelop it have spanned six mayoral administrations starting with then-mayor Edward M. Lambert.

Wethersfield LLC of Chelsea, the company with plans to convert the old police station into 36 market rate housing units, had permits in hand with plans to start construction this summer.

They'd already been granted a special permit regarding parking from the Fall River Zoning Board of Appeals last July to allow the project to bypass parking requirements. 

But a walk-through of the building last week with Glenn Hathaway, the city’s director of Inspectional Services, the owner and an engineer put the project on hold.

The building has had a failed roof system for years and is in varying degrees of asbestos remediation. Hathaway said he wants a structural engineering report of the building before any more activity inside resumes.

“My fear is the building is in danger of collapsing from within, not from the outside,” said Hathaway. “The fact is six or seven months has gone by and no work has taken place in the building to stop the water from penetrating the building.”

When it rains, it pours inside the building

Because the roof is compromised, water continues to enter the building every time it rains, and Fall River, like the rest of the region, has seen a number of torrential storms this summer.

“Thereby deteriorating a building that’s already deteriorated,” said Hathaway.

Renovation plans Former Fall River police station could provide 30 new apartments

Owner needs to make decision

“Time has not been good to the building,” said Matthew Thomas, the city’s real estate attorney who has been charged with the purchase and sale agreement with Wethersfield and its principal, Marc Lederman since the latest sale of the old police station in January 2021 with a price tag of $10,000.

The sale was dependent on performance benchmarks for the redevelopment process, the terms of which were extended by agreement with the city due to COVID-related delays.

What's next? City officials discuss future of Bedford Street police station

With concerns regarding the soundness of the old police station, Wethersfield will either come up with a new plan or the city could take it back as contractually allowed.

City awaiting an updated schedule

“We told them they need to get back to us with an updated schedule or let us know what’s going on,” said Thomas. “We need to be objective about it and we’ll sit down and see where we need to go. We need to be pragmatic and realistic about it.”

The administration is expecting a decision by the owner this week.

Thomas stopped short of saying the city would be absolutely taking back the Bedford Street building.

“I’m not going to say it’s a good possibility, I’m going to say that the city is going to do whatever it has to do to facilitate its redevelopment. If that means working with Lederman, then we’ll work with Lederman. If it means getting the building back, there are mechanisms to do that, we’ll get the building back.”

Thomas said the question then becomes “what happens next?”

“And how is that going to happen and how is that going to be funded,” said Thomas.

If unsafe city ‘obligated’ to tear it down

Mayor Paul Coogan had given redeveloping the property one more shot early in his tenure in office.

“Time worked against us on this project, we inherited it, but it's our job to finish it and we’ll do something with the property,” said Coogan. “If it's going to be declared unsafe now, we are going to be obligated to take it down.”

Years of blight and dashed hopes of redevelopment

The aging property has been a source of blight in the city’s downtown area for well over a decade, changing hands to several owners, not all with good intentions and others wanting to demolish the building.

The city took back the old police station from the last owner in 2012 for the more than $80,000 owed in back taxes.

It was first purchased by former city resident and Florida real estate developer John M. Pavao for $160,000 under Lambert. Local developer Tony Cordeiro offered to buy the property for $25,000 but the offer was rejected by the City Council Committee on Real Estate at the time.

Pavao tried to “flip” the police station a month after the purchase for $695,000, then became involved in an inside deal that enabled Pavao’s JPS Investments Group Inc. of Ocoee, Florida, to transfer the property to Superior International Investments Corp., headed by Pedro “Pete” Benevides, a former Fall River resident.

Benevides sold the building in June 2008 for $1.28 million to Winter Garden, Florida-based Casper Holdings LLC, owned by Steve Brueggeman, who later gave up the building for back taxes to the city in 2012.

Former Mayor Will Flanagan attempted sell the police station to lone bidder and former Flanagan supporter Joseph Ruggiero Sr., of Barrington, Rhode Island, with the minimum bid of $60,360 in May 2013. Ruggiero never followed through on the deal.

Former Mayor Jasiel Correia II tried to sell the Bedford Street station while in office with the hopes of developing it into a boutique hotel, but that plan never materialized either.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Redevelopment of old police station may end due to structural concerns