LAWRENCE — When George O'Gara bought an old mill at One Canal St. a quarter of a century ago, the building didn't have electricity.
Or water.
Or a sewer hookup.
"It was pretty primitive," O'Gara, 77, said.
How things have changed.
Since 1983, O'Gara and his daughter, Diane, and son, Kevin, have worked thousands of hours to make an office building of the mill that had been used for nearly 100 years as a storage facility for wool, paper and later, computer equipment.
It even has indoor plumbing now.
In the 25 years since he bought it, O'Gara and his family have installed sewer and water service, hooked up electricity and, more recently, added an office-building-style elevator to the 120,000-square-foot building. About 60 percent of the building has been renovated into offices. The remaining 40 percent is storage space or unfinished.
When they started, he said, "There was 2 inches of dust over everything."
Now, the building he bought for $175,000 is worth an estimated $4 million, O'Gara said — not that he would sell it.
And that's good news for tenants, who say they like their new home and landlord.
"This is like going to be heaven," said Debbie Hilton-Creek, human resources director for the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, whose office is part of a 6,000-square-foot suite on the third floor of the brick structure. "We really like it."
Hilton-Creek and her seven-person staff moved into the mill two months ago, as the O'Garas celebrated their 25th anniversary at the trapezoid-shaped building.
The Health Center also occupies other office space throughout the building, which has 10 tenants and room for more.
Health Center spokesman Marc Lemay's office is in the finished basement, with a conference room that overlooks the rushing waters of the Spickett River just 20 or 30 feet below.
"It's a great location. It's convenient, and it allows us to free up clinical space in our 34 Haverhill St. facility," Lemay said. "This allows us to take our administrative offices off-site, but still stay in the city."
Lot improvements coming
Lemay and other tenants, as well as the O'Garas, are looking forward to the day when a 1,000-space parking lot, a city park and the widening of Canal Street are completed. Those projects are part of the Gateway Initiative, a city, state and federal effort to clean up the entrance to Lawrence and create more parking for the mill district.
In fact, One Canal Street is likely to see its value skyrocket as those projects are completed over the next couple of years. While the views out the back of the building are nice — looking over the river and Lawrence General Hospital on the hillside above it — the views from the front will be dramatically improved when the new parking lot is built and landscaped.
The lot currently is a dusty, dirty 8-acre expanse of crushed stone and old foundations that once housed the General Tire and Rubber Corp. (GenCorp.), as well as other buildings used over the years by Oxford Paper Co. and others.
The new lot, scheduled to be started this month or early in June after years of delays due to the environmental problems, will be managed by the Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority, said Tom Schiavone, the city's chief economic development director. He said the lot should be done by the summer of 2009.
Schiavone said businesses will be able to lease spaces from the MVRTA. Other spots will be reserved for public use and public transportation purposes, Schiavone said.
In the end, the parking lot will become an economic engine of its own, helping mill owners like O'Gara further develop their property.
"They'll be able to entice better tenants if they have more parking," he said. "The whole intent of this was to have higher-end uses in the city's mill buildings."
Park and pedestrian paths
While One Canal Street is six stories, it actually has eight floors, counting a finished basement and sub-basement. Those spaces also are renovated for offices.
In addition to office space, part of the building is used for records storage. Riverside Realty Trust, the company owned by O'Gara, occupies part of the first level. But the top two floors and an unfinished "penthouse" are largely unused and remain in their original state.
Diane O'Gara, 43, said she hopes to one day convert the upper two floors to 20 condominiums, complete with a roof deck and loft-style units.
That can't happen with the current parking restrictions. The O'Garas have about 200 spaces now. Once the parking lot is built, it will be connected to their property.
Improvements also are underway on the other side of the building. The city took land from the Oxford Paper Co. in 1983 in tax title, which is being converted into a 3-acre park, with walking trails and scenic views of the Spicket River. But that project has been delayed as well, Schiavone said, after the Department of Environmental Protection ruled that the city couldn't fill one of the old raceways used to power the mills because it could cause flooding.
Instead, the city will maintain the raceway, putting paths alongside it.
Meanwhile, MassHighway is working on a $12 million plan to widen Canal Street and build a new bridge over the Spickett River. Schiavone said work on the park won't start until after the bridge work is done, and he estimated the park will be complete by 2010.
A historic stone bridge that Canal Street now uses to cross the river also will be part of the park, with the new bridge being built above it.
"That historic bridge will remain as a plaza," Schiavone said. "We will brick it over. It will become a pedestrian bridge and scenic overlook."
The bridge is worth saving, he said, because it was designed by Charles Storrow, one of the first engineers for the Essex Company, which more or less founded Lawrence.
"We're happy about the park," Diane O'Gara said. "We were promised that years ago — we've been waiting a long time."
George O'Gara was part of the original group of mill owners from the area who pushed for cleanup of the GenCorp. and Oxford Paper Mill sites.
"We got together because we wanted to try to figure out what to do with the Oxford Paper Mill," he said.
He hopes the city moves ahead with building the parking lot, so he can get to work expanding his building.
"We have had people come in here and look at the space but tell us they couldn't lease from us because of the parking," he said. "As fast as we can build new office space, we get tenants."
