 For more than two years, AVTECH Software worked with the City of Newport to put together a plan to buy the former Sheffield School. AVTECH had pushed the city and state to change the Newport Master Plan to rezone the building.
But by the time the changes were made, the deal had lost its appeal, CEO and owner Michael Sigourney said.
And within a few weeks of looking elsewhere last summer, the company had its sights on Warren's Cutler Mills, which it has now purchased. The approximately $2 million purchase closed Dec. 17 and a partial renovation that's set to cost about $500,000 is now under way, Sigourney said.
"The city [of Newport] in the end wanted to lease the building and there aren't too many banks that want to lend you money to lease a building," he said.
A message left for Newport City Manager Edward F. Lavallee wasn't immediately returned last week, but city council minutes show that both the city and the R.I. Department of Administration approved rezoning the school as "Limited Business".
The four-story, 50,000-square-foot mill in Warren was built in 1868. There's also a 7,900-square-foot outbuilding, which had most recently been a market.
The decision to buy property was, in part, because there are "not a lot of options" for commercial space between 10,000 square feet and 20,000 square feet, Sigourney said.
"There are lots of spaces available for small businesses and lots of extremely large spaces, but if you're kind of in the middle, where you're going from small-to-medium-sized, you can't find a lot of space," he said.
The company is set to occupy both the second and third floors - 8,600 square feet apiece - and about a quarter of the first floor. In the future, it might expand into the smaller - about 6,000 square feet - upper floor. AVTECH is set to start the month-long moving process from its current Third Street location in Newport on April 1.
AVTECH is also rewiring the entire building and installing a 5,000-square-foot "state-of-the-art events" room for video conferencing and communications. That will be a place where other companies can use the space, giving AVTECH due credit, Sigourney said. He added that the company intends to bring partners from around the world to Rhode Island to use that room.
Inside, the re-design includes 22-foot-wide central hallways that are set to be flanked by the by the employees' offices. For those new interior walls, many of which will be wood, not drywall, Sigourney found historic mill windows that were being disposed of by other mill redevelopments around the state.
From another Rhode Island mill redevelopment, Sigourney has also bought 14-inch globe lamps that look like acorns, he said.
And buying the property has given Sigourney another opportunity: he's now a landlord. Cutler Mills has five tenants, including the East Bay Chamber of Commerce, Basically British Tea Room and Imago, an art gallery.
And for the property's 7,900-square-foot outbuilding, Sigourney said he hopes to soon have a tenant, too.
"We're talking to a few people," Sigourney said. "We'd love to see it be a market, because if we get one tenant in there it's easier to manager than multiple tenants."
It was a difficult decision to move out of Newport - the company leases about 8,500 square feet - but it has been growing and needs more space, he said.
The company now has 30 people in Rhode Island, its corporate headquarters, and about 100 worldwide employees. At Cutler Mills, Sigourney said he plans to occupy about 40,000 square feet. |
AVTECH Software, Inc.