A 'terrible disruption': COVID delays Fall River's old Bedford Street police station rehab

FALL RIVER — The pandemic has caused delays for many development projects and the old Bedford Street police station rehab into approximately 35 units of market rate housing is no exception.

On Jan. 25, 2020, the city closed on the sale of the more than 100-year-old structure that has been a blight for years in the city’s downtown. The property has changed hands several times, only to have the city take back ownership.

Wethersfield LLC of Chelsea, owned by Marc Lederman, paid $10,000 for the building that is contaminated and reportedly has gaping holes in the roof.

Lederman said that the company remains committed to the project that will provide the local workforce with affordable housing that will is close to their employment.

Matthew Thomas, the city’s real estate attorney who brokered the deal, included a number of benchmarks in the property’s development that are reflected in the sales agreement.

Those include all environmental remediation was to be completed at the contaminated site; they were to have gotten all the necessary permits and have the banking finance in place for the project by Dec. 31 of this year.

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Though the company missed some of the deadlines, Thomas said the principals have been “very upfront” about the delays and have met with the administration on plans moving forward.

“It’s been happening everywhere,” said Thomas. “I asked them straight out if they were still interested. I’ve been very to the point with them on that.”

COVID has been a 'terrible disruption'

The COVID pandemic “has been a terrible disruption,” said Lederman.

“Not just this project, but just life in general. It’s been difficult getting crews, and them staying on. There have been issues from demolition to electricians, plumbers — even architects. However, we’ve been muscling through,” said Lederman.

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Over last summer, the company completed demolition on the first-floor level.

“It really is giving us the information that we need to revise our architectural plans to be more in line with what is possible to do with the building. You really don’t know what you’ve got until you open it up,” said Lederman.

Depending on the final draft of the architectural plans that Lederman hopes to have in hand soon, the units will likely be mainly two-bedroom units measuring 1,000 to 1,100 square feet.

City grants extension on deadlines

The company does want to move the project forward and Thomas said he is working on amending the agreements that will now give Wethersfield a one-year extension on the benchmarks.

Thomas said that one of the project’s issues is parking and the company will have to go to the Fall River Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance. Thomas said the company has hired local attorney, Arthur Frank, to assist.

Lederman said so far, the company has entered agreements with local parking facilities, to start to address the issue.

Once final designs are in place, Lederman said he can start the process with the ZBA and apply for needed building permits.

Lederman said it's rare that a municipality and a developer to both be on board with a project.

“We all want the same thing, but its not just a rubber stamp process,” said Lederman.

Failed redevelopment attempts

Selling the property for redevelopment hasn’t been easy. After several attempts had failed in past administrations, Fall River mayor Paul Coogan pushed to give the city one last shot at successfully selling and redeveloping the property when he first took office.

Going back more than a dozen years, the city and the City Council Committee on Real Estate have tried to unload the four-story building and talked about tearing it down.

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 former Mayor Edward Lambert.

At the time, the council rejected a $25,000 bid from local developer Anthony Cordeiro, who had been eyeing the property as the site of a $4 million commercial project he was planning.

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 his supporter at the time, Joseph Ruggiero Sr., of Barrington, Rhode Island, with the minimum bid of $60,360 in May 2013. Ruggiero originally planned to knock it down and build a parking lot or parking garage on the 1/3-acre site. Flanagan indicated at the time that a $400,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant would be used to fund the cleanup; however, because the city caused the contamination, it was unable to use federal funds for the clean-up. Ruggiero never followed through on the deal.

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

Jo C. Goode may be reached at jgoode@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism and subscribe to The Herald News today!

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River's old Bedford Street police station project rehab is delayed