The Shoe has come full circle

By JULIA FAIRCLOUGH
Essex County Newspapers

BEVERLY — From its birth at the dawn of the Industrial Age to its adulthood at the twilight of this century, the former United Shoe Machinery Corp. has come full circle.

Now called the Cummings Center, the 1.5 million-square-foot complex on Elliott Street was built between 1903 and 1906, when shoemaking went from being hand- to machine-made.

For a time, The Shoe, as the locals know it, fell into almost complete disrepair. Today, the plant has been completely restored into a business park housing the most modern computer and biotechnology companies.

"It went through its peaks and hey days and then declined," said Gerald McSweeney, the Cummings Center general manager. "And now we have seen a reawakening of an old tradition. It is very much cutting edge for its day, just as The Shoe was state-of-the-art back then."

The conglomeration of small companies that comprised The Shoe was influential to the shoe industry and fought anti-trust legislation for 60 years before being asked to diversify in the 1970s.

After the plant closed, it became a run-down eyesore and was occupied intermittently by a handful of tenants to the Black & Decker Corp.

Two-thirds of Beverly voters in November 1995 approved rezoning that portion of the city from strictly industrial to commercial in order to allow the Stop & Shop to be built on the parcel of land across the street formerly owned by Black & Decker. That paved the way for commercial businesses to move into the center.

Purchased by Cummings Properties in 1996 for $500,000, The Shoe has needed about $40 million so far to renovate the historically blue-collar plant into a white-collar business park. Cummings Properties manages 12 other properties on the North Shore.

Just as 9,000 shoe-machine patents originated from the plant in the early 1900s, cutting-edge biotechnical patents have been born at the Cummings Center in the latter half of this century.

"And I am sure there will be many more patents coming out of the building in the future," McSweeney said.

As of this fall, the property was about 80 percent occupied with more than 300 businesses employing 3,700 people.

Medtronic/AVE, a Danvers-based, Fortune 500 company will relocate a business it acquired to the center this winter, bringing about 350 new jobs to Beverly.

The more businesses that move in there, the more money the city will make in property taxes.

The center is on a tax increment financing system for a period of 10 years, an arrangement that encourages new development _ and a first for Beverly.

Until 2001, the city will not increase its property assessment, still at $6.5 million. From then to 2006, the city can increase the assessment by half of what Cummings invested; in 2006, the cap will expire and the city will assess the center at full market value.

It was Mayor William Scanlon, himself The Shoe president from 1982 to 1986, who pushed for the tax increment financing system in Beverly.

The tax increment financing system was to encourage maximum possible development. The initial tax break was meant to be short term, and in return Cummings Properties ended up investing millions in the center, something which would not have been possible without the arrangement, Scanlon said.

"We gave them the attitude that the people in Beverly wanted them to succeed," Scanlon said. "That in turn gave them more confidence to invest than they had in the beginning. It was truly an ugly eyesore and unproductive asset when Black & Decker sold it to Cummings."

"But the real boon is creating jobs to stimulate the local economy," McSweeney said.

William Cummings, the chairman of Woburn-based Cummings Properties LLC, had doubts when he first saw the rambling complex in early 1996. Then-Cummings president James McKeown was also leery of something as large and daunting.

The property was originally selling for $35 million, but the price gradually dropped to $5 million. Cummings officials figured they had nothing to lose and said they would pay $500,000.

"And after that we said, `What have we done?'" Bill Cummings said with a chuckle.

The "vision" came slowly and is still constantly changing, Cummings said.

"It was just an old factory as far as we were concerned at that time, but we have come to love it," he said.

Converting the old dinosaur entailed replacing turn-of-the-century utilities with new gas and water lines, heating, ventilating, electrical and telecommunications systems. Leaks and breaks had flooded the building, requiring a new roof and extensive wall repairs.

Every one of the huge windows was broken, so Cummings manufactured 2,000 new ones in a shop of its own installed in one of the building's covered courts.

"This has been the most challenging experience of my career, and by far the most rewarding," Cummings said. "And for more than any other reason, because what we have done has been perceived so well by the community. It is nice to be in the developer role and have a white hat on once in a while."

All the while, they kept in mind interesting tidbits of history that made The Shoe unique. For example, the building was the largest and earliest reinforced concrete structure in the world until 1937. A process of reinforcing concrete with twisted iron was patented by builder Ernest Ransome; it became the basis for buildings that we see today.

Now that the heavy construction work is complete, the center is in a more normal operating mode with a full range of people and services on site, including restaurants, gift shops, beauty shops, law and accountant offices, dentist and doctor centers, and a fitness center.

Three satellite campuses have also joined the community: Gordon College, Lesley College and most recently, North Shore Community College.

"It is like a giant jigsaw puzzle," McSweeney said. "We have all these pieces and have to find the right slot to fit them (businesses) into. As they grow they also need expansion, so we have to configure how to do that."

The two largest industries are biotech and software development, which McSweeney predicts will continue to grow at a rapid rate over the next 20 years.

Tim Collins, the vice president of Medtronic/AVE, said in the future the center will mirror not only the community, but the country, as it moves forward into the Information Age.

Collins grew up in Salem. He used to walk by the center as a child and gawk at its mammoth size. He likes the fact that Cummings has not given up on its nostalgia, but capitalized on it. Throughout the center are old photos and placards noting different anecdotes of the building's history.

"It's unique," Collins said. "You don't see places like it anymore. Most office parks are cookie-cutter arrangements."

Rose Pasquarelli of Beverly, a retired Shoe alumna who worked in payroll and then as supervisor to inventory from 1951 to 1993, said that as a factory, The Shoe was naturally closed off from the community. But today is much different. People enjoy the grounds, the Shoe Pond and the gym.

"It could not be a place back then like it is today," she said.

Scanlon agreed the Cummings Center is integral to Beverly's fabric, historically and economically. It provides jobs, tax revenue and ways to help the city maintain its infrastructure and schools.

He hopes that the 100-acre, industrially zoned parcel by Beverly Airport off the newly created Sam Fonzo Drive will follow in the center's footsteps.

"I think the Cummings Center will be very important to Beverly through the entire next century," he said.