Page 72 - BusinessWest October 27, 2021

Trolley
that Continued from page 70 need-
ed to be undertaken to ready the property for the planned
new use, especially transforming the portion occu- pied by the methadone clinic into modern office and warehouse space.
“I liked the building — I could tell it was really strong,” Trask said. “I loved the space in the ware- house, but the office at the time was all broken up
“The office was so chunked up, you couldn’t really get a feel for what it was because you couldn’t see more than a few feet without a wall.”
and I didn’t really like the office space at all.”
Eventually, though, they decided seizing the opportunity was worth the challenge. Thus com- menced more than six months of cleanup and restoration work that yielded some surprises — sheetrock was cover- ing original brick and intricate woodwork in that office area — as well as a few artifacts, and a workspace that speaks
to the early 20th century but certainly works in the early 21st century.
The warehouse area of the JD Rivet operation is where trolleys were once stored and maintained, and, later, where buses were repaired and painted.
“There are a lot of reasons why we’re here — location, price, everything,” Trask said. “But I love old
buildings, and this is one of the most historic build- ings around.”
And it provides what the company needs most — a long-term solution to its space needs, he added, noting that JD Rivet has worked through the many hurdles created by the pandemic (although some stern challenges remain, especially supply-chain issues) and is in a growth mode.
Founded in 1960, the company specializes in the installation and maintenance of commercial, indus- trial, and residential roofing systems. The company has worked on everything from churches to hangars at Westover Air Reserve Base.
From its new headquarters in Springfield’s North End, it can see the past — and the future as well.
Pulling Out All the Stops
As for those artifacts ... there are several of them, including old pictures of the trolleys that were once housed there (one now graces the second-floor con- ference room), a boiler alarm bell (just like it sounds, it’s a bell that would ring if there was a problem with the boiler) that dates back to the turn of the 20th cen- tury, and some old fire-insurance maps, found on the property, that offer a glimpse of the dramatic growth
that came to that section of Springfield in the early 1900s.
These items would be considered a bonus, said Bob Ostrander, JD Rivet’s chief financial officer, add- ing that what the company really wanted from its new home was a chance to consolidate operations
— it was spread out in several different buildings on Page Boulevard — as well as have better, easier access to highways and that room to grow.
It got all that and more at an address — Carew and Main — that has seen a lot of history and cer- tainly changed with the times. Indeed, the owner for decades was the Springfield Street Railway Co., which opened in 1870, and originally operated a single line of track — served by four cars and 24 horses — that ran from the North End of the city down Main Street, past State Street.
The original line soon expanded to other parts of the city, and by 1891, the lines were all electrified to run trolleys. By the end of the century, the network had extended to several area communities, and con- nections were made to other networks in other cit- ies, including Holyoke, Westfield, Northampton, and Hartford. To handle all this growth, the company built the facility, named the Trolley Barn, at the corner of Main and Carew.
Like all trolley lines, Springfield’s became obsolete in the 1950s as cars and buses became the dominant modes of transportation. The Trolley Barn would eventually be acquired by Peter Pan Bus Lines to house its Coach Builders operation, which painted and repaired buses.
When the management team at JD Rivet first
looked at the property, Coach Builders was still occu- pying the large area formerly used for housing and maintaining trolleys, and a methadone clinic had recently moved out of the office portion of the prop- erty. That later operation required privacy for its cli- ents, said Ostrander, adding that the relatively large area had been carved up into many smaller spaces covered by sheetrock.
“The office was so chunked up, you couldn’t really get a feel for what it was because you couldn’t see more than a few feet without a wall,” he said, add- ing that their collective imaginations managed to see through all that. And they liked what they saw.
“We had a demolition contractor, Associated Builders, come in and tear down all that sheetrock, and when they did, it revealed all this beautiful wood,” he told BusinessWest, waving his hand across the space that has become his office. “So we decided to restore all that wood — the floors, the wainscoting on the walls, the ceilings, the doors.”
Only small portions of those hardwood floors could not be fully restored, said Ostrander, adding that the company has effectively blended the past — specifically those floors, walls, and ceilings — with the present, including a new, glass-walled conference room created on the ground-floor office area.
Gouvin agreed. “From the beginning, we treated it as historic renovation — every turn was thoughtful,” he said of the efforts to preserve historic qualities of the property (and there are many of them), yet make the property suitable for modern office and ware- house operations.
Elaborating, he said the structure is in a historic
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