5 East Pleasant Street, Amherst
Yet another long-time business is abandoning ship over the upheaval caused by the pending $4.6 million sale of the Carriage Shops: the law offices of Seewald, Jankowski & Spencer, P.C.
After 30 years of practicing law in their quaint, brick building -- that fronts the main drag through Amherst town center -- they will be relocating (in January) to University Drive near Amherst Brewing Company, another business who fled town center three years ago.
Amherst Carriage Shops: On Death Row
The stand alone building is still part of the Carriage Shops, purchased from original developers Johnson & Gates as a business condo back in 1985 by Robert Ritchie former Amherst Town Counsel.
Jerry Gates still owns 60% of the complex and has to convince 15% of the other condo owners to accept the $4.6 million offer from Archipelago Investments, LLC. That local developer already built Boltwood Place, a five story mixed-use building in town center and recently broke ground on another, Kendrick Place, just a couple hundred yards north of the Carriage Shops.
Meanwhile, in addition to the uncertainty caused by the pending sale, the surrounding area is said to be "going downhill". According to Amherst Police records the calls for service to the next door Cousin's Market have more than doubled since they acquired a "All alcoholic Off-Premise Liquor License" back in May of 2011.
Cousin's Market and The Mercantile, adjacent to Carriage Shops
Calls for APD service to Carriage Shops have decreased over the past few years
Although:
AFD & APD on scene Carriage Shops 7/21 for possible drug OD by 36-year-old male
Summerlin (11 E Pleasant) and Piper Building (9 E. Pleasant)
Laird Summerlin confirmed the Summerlin Trust has NOT sold the Summerlin or Piper buildings, immediately adjacent to the Carriage Shops. Good thing.
Hate to see the Amherst Bulletin/Daily Hampshire Gazette have to relocate.
What happens if one single condo owner declines to sell?
ReplyDeleteAccording to the original legal paperwork only 75% of the owners must agree to sell (the other 25% are stuck with it), and since Jerry owns 60% ...
ReplyDeleteWould it be legal if the majority owner(Gates) offered the next largest owners(Ritchie and Loose Goose)a sweetheart deal if they agreed to sell and thus force the other 25% out? Or are all owners getting an equal % share?
ReplyDeleteI would think everybody gets an equal share.
ReplyDeleteI would also think you have been watching too much "House Of Cards."
Tear that disgusting looking old hotel down. It's one of the least inviting places to whop in the least inviting town of Amherst. It's all good folks. New shopping, new stores, no more 1960s look.
ReplyDeleteYet one more reason to never own a condo.
ReplyDeleteLarry, what was the original intent of that site - the brick building the management office (with live-in manager residing upstairs) and the rest being a circa-1960's motel?
ReplyDeleteIt always struck me as designed for something vastly different than what I'd always seen it used for -- the current eclectic retail - and it is so incredibly poorly laid out from a retailing standpoint, particularly in a college town where you have to continually attract new customers to replace those who graduate each May.
Was this Gates & Johnson's big mistake?
For that matter, was Cousin's Market once a factory building? That's an awfully large smokestack for a retail store...
ReplyDeleteEd---The Cousins building was, I think, the Tower Restaurant (before my time but I've been told.) If you look closely the faint outlines of the T-O-W-E-R letters can still be seen on the chimney.
ReplyDeleteIt was a motel. The two buildings in the parking lot were added later when it was converted into retail. Tower was Tower Pizza.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the check was large enough, would Laird cash it?
ReplyDeleteGoing from 20 to 47 *is* "more than double" but it is also *still* "less than once a week" -- and the numbers in most of the individual categories are too small to be statistically significant.
ReplyDeleteThe only category that shows dramatic increase is "followup investigations" and those could be anything ranging from problems relating to their sale of alcohol to them cooperating with the cops in completely unrelated matters.
I'm not a fan of Cousin's Market but fair is fair and those numbers (alone) really don't say much.