Construction is well underway for the Elias Brookings Apartments, an adaptive reuse project with extensive focus on historic restoration and preservation. HCDI, along with Allegrone Construction, Davis Square Architects, and numerous other partners, will have completed 42 mixed-income apartments by March 2022.
“One of the big challenges of adaptive reuse…is that we want the building to perform like a modern building in some important respects [such as] life safety, energy use, convenience, and comfort, but we want it to look historic,” Iric Rex, President of Davis Square Architects said. “Changing the use entirely…is about the most complicated kind of project we do.”
Working from the fourth floor down, Allegrone and their contractors are currently installing new framing (most original classroom walls will stand), as well as plumbing, electric, and HVAC. Demolition is ongoing throughout the building, including removing windows and doors. Masons will be on-site soon completing exterior repairs.
The Elias Brookings School was built in 1925, and in addition to adaptive reuse, the HCDI team is striving to preserve and restore most historic elements in the design and construction process, in order to honor the history and legacy of the school.
The building has punctuations of interesting, ornate, architectural features. Many of these have been deemed historic and will be restored and/or preserved. One key historic element on the exterior of the building is oriel windows that originally flanked the outer front of the building (taken down at an unknown time). These will be reconstructed and replaced. The architects are currently finishing shop drawings to recreate the windows based on the historic photographs and outline of the brick coloration.
“[The oriel windows will] bring a lot of the historic character back to the front face of the building. And there’s a lot of restoration work with the red cast stone around the entrances of the building as well,” Miranda Stuckey, Job Captain with Davis Square Architects, explained.
In addition, the exterior red brick and mortar have been deemed historic and matching those features to replace damaged sections has been a feat. Rex and Stuckey have been working diligently with Allegrone, providing multiple rounds of mock-ups and communications with the masons to match the mortar perfectly.
“It may sound like a small detail…but when it’s done and you step across the street and it’s a different color, you notice it,” Peter Serafino, Director of Real Estate Development, HCDI, said of the color of the brick and mortar. He explained that these types of details are significant to the National Park Service and the Massachusetts Historical Commission.
On the interior of the building, a patchwork of historic yellow brick makes up the wainscotting that lines the hallways. Matching the shades of yellow brick glaze when repairing damaged sections is another significant historic restoration project for Rex and Stuckey. Terrazzo floors in the hallways and the original wood floor in the gymnasium will also be preserved.
Another major project underway is to restore a unique feature – glazed brick grotesques that flank the entrances to most of the classroom doorways. HCDI hired Michael Karmody, a fabricator and artist who works out of his studio in the Brick Coworkshop in Holyoke. Karmody described them as “entry spirits” – secular entities placed on either side of the classroom doorways. He surmised that the purpose was to greet the children walking into the classroom, to help them focus on their lessons and schoolwork.
Karmody’s medium is concrete. He uses a glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC), which is more efficient and sets very quickly. He traditionally fabricates things like kitchen counters, sinks, cabinet doors, and other pieces.
“Casting was a challenge. In order to figure out how to do it, I put myself in the mind of the people of the time…they would have had rubber as a molding method,” Karmody explained. He created molds out of wood and rubber, and the important part was how well the rubber could flex away from the concrete once it was set. “I’ve used rubber molds for all sorts of things…I have to do [everything] upside down and backwards. Working with rubbers and plastics and epoxies…is part and parcel of what I do.”
Karmody has also taken a lot of care to replicate the subtleties of the figurines. “The originals are darker than they would have been; it was hard to figure out what the color was meant to be. [I added a patina] in order to indicate some history and age…Patina gives it a surface that [shows a] visceral experience essentially. To make it look like…it has experienced the world.”
Echoing Karmody’s sentiments of the intricacies of historic restoration, Stuckey explained, “It’s part of the historic challenges, fitting in the new material with the old and making it as cohesive as possible…It’s fun to do; it’s fun to work with everybody.”
This significant redevelopment project has far reaching benefits, as Serafino explained: “We are not shipping [construction materials] out and installing new, we are using what is there…Not only is it good from the historical perspective, but it’s good from the environmental perspective as well.”
Those interested in renting at Elias Brookings Apartments should email brookings@hmrproperties.com or call 413-570-4976 for more information. Applications will be accepted later this year. Apartments are expected to be ready for occupancy in April 2022.
Major funding to this project was provided by the Massachusetts Historic Tax Credit (HTC) program. This program is in danger of being eliminated in the proposed budget, currently being discussed, in the Budget Conference Committee. Expressions of support for this program should be sent to: Budget Conference Committee, Massachusetts State House, Boston, MA 02133.