Doors Open at Acord's New Home, Four New Apartments

For Rick and Lorraine Pesce, the construction of Firehouse Place in Hamilton could not have come at a more perfect time.

The couple was looking for a place for Rick’s 83-year-old mother to live as she was moving out of her condominium.

“We feel very fortunate” to have found Firehouse Place, said Lorraine Pesce following the celebrating the completion of the downtown Hamilton project on Monday.

Pesce’s mother will live in the unit that was designed for an elderly or disabled resident in the newly renovated building that was the Hamilton fire station from 1916-1957.

Upstairs, there are three one-bedroom apartments for low or moderate-income residents. The first floor will also be the new home for .

“This is a dream come true for us,” said Ann Marie Cullen, co-president of Acord’s Board of Directors.

On Monday, the $1.2 million renovation and reconstruction of the building at 69 Willow St. .

On one side, the four new below-market rate apartment units were unveiled. On the other side, Acord Food Pantry’s new home was opened.

Construction of the project was coordinated, and will be managed, by Harborlight Community Partners of Beverly, a non-profit group that provides housing to low and moderate-income residents on the North Shore.

“Five months ago we were standing here with hard hats and shovels,” said Carol Suleski, president of the Harborlight Community Partners Board of Directors told a group of about 80 people that gathered in the parking lot outside the building on an unusually warm November day.

The and new residents will move in on Dec. 1.

The project actually began to come together when the 20-year-old Acord Food Pantry began to become concerned about the future of its headquarters at 69 Willow St. three years ago when the building was sold.

It was that need that brought Harborlight to become involve in a project in Hamilton for the first time with Firehouse Place, said Andrew DeFranza, Harborlight’s executive director.

The project is a great example of an affordable housing project that "meets needs and suits the context," he said.

It is also the first affordable housing project in Hamilton to receive funding from Community Preservation Act money. A total of 13 different public agencies and private contributors helped fund the project, including the $180,000 in town CPA money.

Hamilton Selectmen Dave Carey said he was impressed at the great looks of the new building – which was designed by Siemasko and Verbridge architects and built by Martins Construction.

“It looks like the building has been here for 100 years,” Carey said.

The footprint of the building was not changed, but the exterior look was redesigned to have a gable end facing Railroad Avenue and a refreshed facade on Willow Street that included removing the double garage doors.

Acord, which has been temporarily operating in space out of the rear of (the Old Hamilton Library), will reopen in its new home on Nov. 30, said Managing Director Deby Baker.

Acord will be open an hour more each week than before, she said – Wednesdays 9:30-11:30 a.m.; Thursdays 6:30-8 p.m. and Saturdays 9-11:30 a.m.

More than 400 people from Essex, Hamilton, Ipswich, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Topsfield and Wenham are helped by the organization each month – up 24 percent in the past year.

“Our numbers are growing incredibly,” Baker said during an interview on Monday inside the new space.

Baker said she is expecting Acord to be in its new home for at least 30 years.

“It’s been a long time coming,” she said.

In the apartment units, DeFranza said two units already have residents who are ready to move in on Dec. 1.

“We expect the other two will be filled in the next few days,” DeFranza said.

Two units are set aside for residents making 30 percent of the median income in the area, and the other two for someone earning less than half of the median income in the area.

There were more than 90 applicants for the units and Harborlight is conducting screenings of the potential residents, including credit and criminal records checks. There is no requirement that applicants be currently living in Hamilton.

Firehouse Place was Harborlight’s first work in Hamilton, bringing the non-profit agency’s work to a total of seven North Shore communities.

There’s not another specific project planned in Hamilton right now, “but we have some ideas,” DeFranza said.