In 1995, Beverly, MA Mayor William Scanlon asked the executives of Cummings Properties to consider redeveloping a local 1.4 million-sf concrete factory complex. For most of this century, the decaying complex, made up of five buildings, was headquarters of the United Shoe Machinery Corp. Appropriately, the site was known to locals simply as the Shoe.

The property's prominent history resonated dearly with Woburn, MA-based Cummings and, after protracted negotiations with the sites former owner, papers were signed on April 29, 1996 and Cummings acquired the property. Four years and $51 million later, the complex, now known as Cummings Center, is a thriving, state-of-the-art office and research park and a testimony to the possibilities when a developer and the local community work together to realize a vision.

"There is so much possibility waiting to burst forth from the Shoe," says Scanlon, a former president of USM himself. "Black enormity, and no other developer would even look at it as a possibility. Cummings saw through its then cloudy image and focused on the property's rich history and vast potential."

Broker Robert Cronin, currently with Boston-based Meredith & Grew/ONCOR, had stopped the property around for some time before facilitating the purchase by Cummings. Although the commission on the deal might not have been his largest, he cited the powerful substance of the sale as a reward in itself.

"It's a significant project for the entire North Shore," Cronin says, "and an economic alternative that companies didn't have before. There are only a few people who can take a project that size and make it work."

Cummings Properties, a 30-year-old firm, operates slightly more than seven million sf of office and research space in 10 Boston suburbs. Although the firm has tenants that lease upward of 100,000 sf, the vast majority of its 1,700 commercial users are in the 500-to-5,000-sf range. While this type of tenant can be considerably costlier to handle, the process apparently works for the firm, which attributes the bulk of its annual growth to expansion of its many existing occupants.

Over the years, Cummings has earned a reputation for renovating older, essentially abandoned buildings north of Boston and turning a profit by returning them as a revenue-and tax-generating community resources. The firm viewed the USM factory through the same lens it used to envision all if its other development projects. The main difference this time, however, was that it took a much larger lens to encompass the task at hand.

"Initially, the task of renovating the Shoe was very daunting," says William Cummings, founder and chairman of the firm that bears his name. "The enormity of the project was greater than anything we had ever-considered."

Typically, he explains, Cummings Properties developed buildings up to about 250,000 sf. The Shoe was almost five times that size, and indeed, one of the largest rehabilitation projects in the country.

The historic shoe-machinery plant was built between 1902 and 1905, and until 1937 was the world's largest reinforced concrete building. The construction method used to create it, a design by the father of reinforced concrete, Ernest L. Ransome, was revolutionary for its time.

For nearly eight decades, the plant was a fully functioning factory, at one time employing more the 5,000 people. In fact several generations of workers form many North Shore families spent their entire working lives in the Shoe. Ultimately, anti-trust laws ended a prosperous chapter in the nation's industrial past, and in the wake of those laws, the complex eventually began closing in the 1970's. With the breakup of the plant came the dissolution of the livelihoods of thousands of New England families.

David Tibbets, Massachusetts' secretary of economic development, notes that the USM's departure from Beverly was a "devastating blow" to the fiscal health of the area. The building stood as a fading, hulking reminder of the decline of industry in Massachusetts. The plant was left virtually abandoned and decaying until Cummings acquired it. Originally marketed for $30 million by the Black & Decker Corp., which bought the property in the early 1990s, the property was eschewed by dozens of prospective purchasers, forcing a steady reduction in the asking price. By the time Cummings first considered it, the price was down to $5 million. Now deceased, James L. McKeown, the president of the firm, made an offer to purchase for $500,000. The owners eventually accepted. The Shoe "just seemed to beg for restored dignity," says vice president and senior architect Michael Pascavage. "There are few times that development firms get the opportunity to do anything so socially significant. More important, there are almost never opportunities to undertake projects of this magnitude without the emergence of at least some form of organized opposition. That just never materialized in Beverly because everyone was pleased with the project."

But this local acceptance didn't ease the physical burdens of the renovation. Along with the task of revamping every major utility system in the facility and bringing the massive edifice up to code, Cummings reportedly inherited a $3,000 daily operational loss. Since, reportedly, no bank would consider a loan on such a severe risk, the owner /developer financed the project 100% internally to the tune of just over $50million.

Three years ago, it was commonly believed that a wrecking ball would be the only solution to one of New England's biggest and most deteriorated monstrosities. Today, fully renovated and 78% occupied, Cummings Center has been deemed a success. Its range of corporate, technology and research tenants run in size from a few hundred feet to 150,000 sf. Current rates in the complex range from $12 to $18 per sf, depending on location and upgrade finishes.

"There was so much about this project that was intriguing," says Cummings. "But the final motivating factor was probably the challenge of taking on a project with such cultural and historic importance-one that nobody else seemed to think could be accomplished in a profitable manner."

An extraordinary wave of public support rallied when the news spread throughout the city that an established developer was adopting the huge municipal eyesore. The locals, who remain loyal to the factory that was the livelihood for many in its community for much of the 20th century, slowed their support with thousands of personal visits, as well as phone calls and letters from throughout the region. During the developer's second open house in 1997, more than 2,000 visitors flocked to the site to view the rebirth of what Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable has called "the single most important…concrete landmark in this country."

Like many developments that realize the value of character and ambiance inherent in former factories and mills, Cummings' new research and office park had proven itself a viable venture. The Shoe is gone, but its successor is presently home to 238 small businesses that already employ a collective 3,000 people.

Because renewed factory spaces seem to appeal to the entrepreneurial spirit of many growing companies, Cummings executives say the firm typically offers a written expansion guarantee. "Part of the lure of our properties is that they accommodate varied businesses," states Pascavage. "This firm has historically catered to start-up companies looking for good space, good location and good rates. Often those tenants will grow from 300-or 400-sf facilities to 10,000 or 20,000 sf in just a few years." Outsiders comment that the firm sometimes picks up buildings that the rest of the industry appears to ignore-those that are partly or fully abandoned or just run-down. Only 25% of the firm's 64 major buildings were built from scratch, Pascavage notes, while the rest were fully rebuilt, existing structures.

"The greater Boston office market was just beginning its marked upturn in the summer of 1995, when we determined to put together a deal to purchase the Shoe," says Cummings. "With our inventory of similar product in the same area, we were aware of how dramatically the commercial leasing market was improving."

Not many sites in the country are quite as notable as Cummings Center in terms of overall size, historic significance and public sentiment. Ernest Ransome's revolutionary technique, called "armored concrete," allowed for installation of vast window spans, originally covering 90% of the exterior façade. The system substantially improved cavernous conditions for factory workers in the early 1900s, before electric lights were common.

Today, in all, the 74-acre Cummings Center boasts 36 acres of floor space in five totally rehabilitated buildings. Pascavage says his staff affectionately refers to the 1.3 million-sf main building-which makes up the vast majority of space at the center-as a groundscraper."

"If you stood it on end," he explains, "it would be about as tall as the Sears Tower." Cummings Center apparently sacrifices nothing for size. According to Pascavage, the company's experience has shown that employee productivity, dependability and satisfaction are bred in a supportive workplace. By offering amenities such as health clubs, day care, travel agencies, dry cleaning, restaurants, postal services, hair salons, medical offices and even a choice of full-service banks, the developer has created a level of comfort not normally available in most free-standing work environments.

Community Contribution
The Shoe's legacy does not end with the local business community. In November 1996, Cummings' then president McKeown met with Scanlon to finalize plans for his firm's donation of a portion of the center's land for the construction of Beverly's first new school in nearly 50 years. Just three days later, McKeown died of heart failure at age 41. Improving on McKeown's original commitment, Cummings Properties donated the entire $1.3 million parcel to the city, and the Beverly City Council dedicated the James L. McKeown Elementary School in his honor. Ironically, last September, the McKeown Elementary School replaced the grossly outdated McKay Elementary School, which had been built a century earlier on land donated by and named for one of USM's founders.

Today, Cummings works closely with the nearby Beverly Historical Society to identify, preserve and exhibit artifact's from the property's long history. Even outdoors, there are refurbished displays of major pieces of original USM equipment as a reminder of the site's significant past. Interior hallway walls throughout the complex display scores of four-food wide USM photographs from the 1910s and 1920's providing interesting contrast with today's ultra-modern business park activities. Throughout its 100- year history, the Shoe has been a hotbed of internationally significant innovation. During USM's occupancy, over 9,000 patents were reportedly developed at the complex, including military weaponry used in two world wars, the hot-glue gun, the soda can pop top, the drive mechanism for the lunar module and the pope rivet. Today, many resident companies are continuing the tradition of innovation that began in 1902.

Cummings Center's tenants include computer software firms, biomedical research organizations, executive offices and other high tech industries. Some of the more prominent names who now call the complex home include Orion Research (a division of Thermo Electron); Ray Ozzi (founder of Lotus Notes); Barry Sears, Ph. D. (scientist and author of "The Zone"); Beverly National Bank; Danvers Savings Bank; Collagenesis Research; Proteome Inc.; American Shoe Machinery Corp.;YMCA; Bright Horizons Day Care; HP Hood Co.; Beverly Hospital; Marriott Corp,; Micromass Inc.; A.W. Chesterton Co. Inc.; Insurance Holdings of America Inc.; US Postal Service ; and Wakefield Engineering, Inc. "It's a business smorgasboard here-a very dynamic and eclectic mix," Pascavage comments. It's also a prime example of an asset with a great local significance successfully rehabilitated for a new generation of use.