Building Haverhill Together

Every community has a chunk of land that people scratch their heads over. Sometimes it’s an overgrown patch of grass in a residential neighborhood, or a long vacant building in the middle of downtown, and or a decaying parking lot. For Haverhill it’s the latter. Haverhill Massachusetts is a pocket sized city on the banks of the Merrimack River. It’s an old New England mill city with a dense urban core and roads that radiate outward from downtown like spokes on a wheel. Over the years its weathered the seasons and the global economy with varying degrees of grace. One half of downtown retains its old Victorian aesthetic alongside renovated residential mill buildings. The other half of downtown Haverhill was reconfigured with single story buildings and paved over with parking lots as part of 70’s era “Urban Renewal”. Large under-used spaces are bad for downtowns. They discourage walkability, pedestrian safety, and are economically unproductive. This is why parking lots in high density urban areas are looked down upon as wastes of space. Redeveloping large parking lots is a priority for downtown and urban cores throughout the United States. The Goecke Parking Deck in Haverhill is a massive City-owned parking deck smack in the middle of downtown. Its two stories high and spans over three acres of land. On its busiest days its 50% full, most days it's far below that. For the past few years the area has been the focus of local redevelopment efforts. In 2017 the parking deck was transformed into an ideal city block complete with pop up shops, temporary store fronts, bike lanes, and crosswalks. The event was organized and put on by Team Better Block , City of Haverhill , and MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative . These organizations use temporary low cost changes to urban spaces as a catalyzing tool for downtowns. This practice is known as “Tactical Urbanism”. The Haverhill "Better Block" event had tremendous results with hundreds of people using the space in a totally different way. It got the community thinking about the space differently and catalyzed local entrepreneurs who worked the market space. It was the very next spring that the Haverhill Farmers Market decided to take over the parking deck every Saturday from June till October allowing them to expand to a more central downtown space in the heart of the City. This goes to show how a single event can help motivate more consistent and permanent change. The results were transformative, the Haverhill Farmers Market saw: 25% increase in customers 20% increase in sales 80% increase in vendors One vendor decided to open up a permanent store downtown New crosswalks painted to accommodate all of the people walking around Adjacent businesses saw more sales and new customers More foot traffic downtown, on boardwalk, and rail trail Rebranding - people refer to the space as “Farmers Market Lot” not “Parking Deck” The Haverhill Farmers Market is a huge success and attracts thousands of people to Haverhill’s downtown - generating economic activity and casting the old parking lot in a whole new light. It highlights the success of one-off activities like Better Block, which lay the groundwork for continued transformation by reshaping how people understand and see space in their communities. The success of the market and increase in both vendors and customers are the result of creative placemaking and tactical urbanism. Small cities, often strapped for resources, don’t need a lot to make a small difference. Intensely focusing on one city block makes small changes add up quickly and catalyze into more transformative urban changes. The "nothing-happens-here" cycle has been broken. Just because the lot now hosts a popular farmers market, other events like food festivals, arts markets, and music nights, are being planned by other organizations in an effort to build off of it. These events would have been impossible two years earlier, because the space was not a destination for a critical mass of people. The Haverhill Farmers Market will continue to draw more and more people to a space that has been seeing declining use for decades. It may not seem like a huge success, but its small changes like this that knit together an urban fabric that gives downtowns desirability and staying-power. It goes to show that a little tactical urbanism can have transformative effects that radiate throughout the community. If you have a free Saturday this summer, I recommend coming to Haverhill and checking it out yourself.

Textile manufacturing is coming back to the United States and Haverhill is getting a piece of the action. If you had told me that five years ago I would have laughed it off, but we live in interesting times. As the cost of labor increases overseas and the demand for well-made local products increases some companies have found a sweet spot for clothing manufacturing in the United States. Here in Haverhill we are proud to host the world headquarters of 1620 Workwear, a new clothing startup located at 45 Wingate Street, right downtown. What happened in 1620 you may ask? Well it’s when the Mayflower pulled up to Plymouth Rock to see what was going on. 1620 Workwear set up shop in Haverhill this summer. Two Merrimack Valley guys, Josh Walker and Ted De Innocentis, decided to take the plunge together. When they were looking at places to open their offices, Haverhill jumped on their radar because of the beautiful downtown buildings at a fraction of the cost of Boston. This isn’t their first foray into textiles, both have extensive histories of working with overseas clothing manufacturing, but they wanted to come back to Massachusetts and do something here. Now with a headquarters in Haverhill the two entrepreneurs feel at home. Their vision is that working men in the manual labor world would be willing to pay a little extra for durable clothing that can keep up with them at the job site. Guys in the manual labor world know that clothing can wear out quickly and 1620 Workwear knows it too. A quick glance at their website shows that they have brand ambassadors across the United States like commercial fisherman Matt Arsenault from Plum Island or Spenser McCleskey an Alaskan welder. The one thing that these guys have in common is a need for clothing that can keep up with their lives and 1620 Workwear has their products in just about every situation. Every piece of clothing produced by 1620 Workwear comes from the United States. Staying true to their working class New England roots the majority of the clothing is manufactured in Everett, Massachusetts and then shipped to customers across the world. The press has noticed too, with write-ups on AOL.com and the Boston Globe, 1620 Workwear is beginning to make a name for themselves. Ted and Josh’s vision is coming to life in Haverhill. Made in Haverhill is a monthly series published in Haverhill Life about manufacturers in Haverhill. Contact us to suggest a business for this column. Nate Robertson Assistant Director Economic Development, City of Haverhill