The City of Lowell would like to revamp the Smith Baker Center, and will reopen the process of requesting proposals for the project after changing some of the specifications.
The Smith Baker Center was built in 1884, to serve as a church. As the Smith Baker Community Center, as it was named in 1969, it became a venue where various artists, such as musicians Thurston Moore and Patti Smith, and poets such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, performed.
The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was last used in 2002, when the Council on Aging moved out. Since that time, the building has been used for storage but has otherwise sat vacant. Now it has suffered water damage and is no longer ADA compliant, with experts saying it needs approximately $3m in renovations.
In 2015, the City Council agreed to sell the building to the Center for a Better Acre for $300,000. The CBA wanted to create a performance and community center there, after first renovating the structure. However, restriction on the terms of the agreement, specifically, that the work had to be done by a certain date or the project would lose its funding, stopped potential investors.
The city is now removing some of the restrictions from the transaction, and expects to issue modified requests for proposals this spring. Officials working on such issues can use flyer printing to keep interested parties informed.