A storage company covered up the granite on a historic Fall River mill. Can they do that?

FALL RIVER — The city's famous pink granite isn’t only the foundation upon which Fall River was built — it's long been part of the city’s landscape aboveground, too. But there’s much less of that granite visible these days on Plymouth Avenue.

The 19th century mill at 288 Plymouth Ave., still the home of Carter’s Clothing and Footwear, and until recently Lazer Gate, Straight Shooters Family Billiards and more, is in the midst of renovations with a self-storage facility coming soon. The work has covered up most of the building's granite exterior with panels of corrugated metal, painted in unusual, irregularly patterned rectangles of red, white and beige.

What’s going on with this building? Here's what you need to know:

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What’s happening with this Fall River mill building?

The mill — the Richard Borden Manufacturing Co. Building No. 2 — will soon be home to a self-storage company, doing business as Store Space. It’s part of a nationwide chain of self-storage facilities called Storage Cap.

It’s not yet known why those multicolored panels were put up, how complete this exterior work is, or how it will look when finished. When contacted, spokesmen for Store Space declined to comment.

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Have there been any complaints about the look?

Jason Bouchard-Nawrocki, chairman of the Fall River Historical Commission, said his board received an email complaint about the building’s peculiar new look. “It’s very visual — you can’t miss it,” he said.

The Historical Commission is tasked with helping to identify and protect the city’s historic buildings.

“If we had known that there was work being done, and it was going to look like that, we would have written a letter to the new building owners indicating that it was not in keeping with the structure,” Bouchard-Nawrocki said. But, he said, even if the board had done so, it might not have made a difference — this building isn’t historically protected. "There’s really nothing that can be done.”

Aren’t all the city’s mills historic? Doesn’t that mean they can’t make big changes to the building?

It may be a historic building, but that's different from being historically protected. Well over 100 mills have existed in Fall River’s history, with dozens still standing today. Many are registered with the National Register of Historic Places, in the Massachusetts Historical Commission’s database, or on Fall River’s own list of significant structures. Some have preservation restrictions.

This particular building, Borden No. 2, was never entered into the national or state databases. It’s on the city’s list of significant structures, Bouchard-Nawrocki said, but because it isn’t in the city’s historic district, the only city-level restriction on the property would be a six-month delay if the company had wanted to demolish the building. Registry of Deeds records show no preservation restrictions on the property. Therefore, Storage Cap is free to cover up the granite exterior all they like.

“At least the paneling that they put up looks reversible," Bouchard-Nawrocki added. “I don’t think they cut any granite. I think they just covered it up.”

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Do any of the company’s other facilities look like this?

The Store Space website lists more than 70 locations in 22 states. A check of several locations seems to show that each building looks somewhat distinct.

What was this mill originally?

That building was building No. 2 of the Richard Borden Manufacturing Co., a textile company first organized in 1871. Its namesake was Col. Richard Borden — a granite pillar of Fall River’s early days himself, founder of the Iron Works, the gas works, the city’s first railroad company that eventually became the Fall River Line steamship service, local banks, and many other companies. He was the Richard Borden Manufacturing Co.’s first president until his death in 1874, whereupon his son Richard Baxter Borden took over. 

Building No. 1, built in 1873, stood on Plymouth Avenue and Rodman Street, where the McDonald’s, Shell gas station and Sullivan Tire are today. According to the Library of Congress, they were “considered one of the most efficiently designed textile mills of its time.” Building No. 1 was even one of the first mills to feature a sprinkler system; but it wasn’t enough to save the mill from fire many years later, when it burned down in 1981. Around that time, the building had been home to Arlan’s discount store.

Building No. 2 was built in 1889. By 1955, the company was gone. The city took over the building for back taxes in 1979 and sold it to a development company; space was leased to a number of businesses over the years — most recently Carter’s Clothing and Footwear, Trader Jan’s Archery Pro Shop, Professional Image Men’s Fine Clothing, Inside the Park batting cages, and Spectrum Tile and Carpet.

Is there anything the city could do to save the way the building originally looked?

No. According to Bouchard-Nawrocki, the greatest level of protection to a building’s exterior changes is available when a property is in a local historic district. Fall River has only one: The Highlands.

“We really want to promote the idea of creating additional local historic districts,” he said. “You see a lot of people that weigh in on social media about how things are going and how things look, and that’s all great, but that can be prevented if we created additional local historic districts.”

Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River granite mill remodeled by self-storage company Store Space