October 1, 1998

7 Min Read
Situation Too Good to Pass Up

All Seasons Self-Storage
Overcoming obstacles key to Boston-area conversion

By Tom Brecke


The former F.W. Dixon building had been vacant for nine years prior to itsconversion to self-storage

When Anthony Miller saw the old F.W. Dixon manufacturing building in Woburn, Mass., heknew converting it to a self-storage complex was going to be a challenge.

Miller, owner of Hyland Commercial Building Concepts in Middletown, R.I., had builtoutdoor storage facilities for various clients in the past, but had never converted abuilding not designed for this sort of project. But, as fate would have it, Miller wasalready in the process of building a small self-storage facility for the owner of the F.W.Dixon building and was asked to do a bid on the job. As with most conversions of olderbuildings, Miller could really only cost out the new work, since it would be impossible totruly know what it would take until the site was torn apart and checked. Armed with somerough estimates and a loose preliminary budget, Miller's, design/build general contractingcompany was awarded the contract, taking on one of the more challenging projects of hiscareer.

"This was presented to me, and I thought the owner was nuts," says Miller, inretrospect. "I approached it very tentatively at first."


Architect's rendering of converted facility.

Situation Too Good to Pass Up

Tentative or not, the location of the building--in the heart of an establishedneighborhood--was too good to pass up, so the building's owner gave Miller the green lightto proceed with the conversion.

"It's right in the center of a residential area designated as a pre-existing,non-conforming building," explains Miller, adding that it was unlikely that Woburncity officials would have approved a plan to demolish the old warehouse for a new,ground-up self-storage facility. "There's no way if we had taken the building downthat we'd ever get permission to build something like this. The only thing that got us thepermit to put in a self-storage project was the fact that it was a pre-existing,non-conforming-use building anyway."

Miller says getting the permits needed for the project was tougher than he expected,beginning a somewhat arduous 14-month process that culminated earlier this year when the24,000-square-foot, 300-unit All Seasons Self-Storage opened its doors.

"We didn't realize at first that the town planning board was going to be sodifficult with us," he says, explaining that even small variations to the plans werescrutinized in great detail. "We made some modest changes from the initial footprintsize and even that opened up a whole can of worms. There was a lot going on politicallywith the building in the town." Things such as the building's facade, security andlandscaping were all worked over with a fine-toothed comb and mandated to the city'sdesires.

Getting Started

The 85-year-old building, with a 36,000-square-foot footprint, was originally framedwith heavy timber in a post-and-beam style. It served many uses during its life, includinga stint as a mushroom-growing warehouse. Most recently, it had been occupied by the F.W.Dixon Co., which built architectural models and processed other mill-work jobs at thesite. Despite its disheveled appearance from being vacant for the past nine years, thestructure was well-built and made an excellent base for a self-storage conversion.

"We started looking at things, and the building laid-out nicely. It had wide-openfloors on both sides, good floor-to-ceiling clearance of 12 feet, and structurally, it wasvery sound," Miller says. "We went in and did some beam lifts and some otherminor assurances, but the building was very well put together." Minor securityupgrades included cable ties to give the building lateral stiffness and beam clips lagedinto the existing timber.

The Challenges

The first obstacle came in the form of major asbestos abatement on the outside of thebuilding, but one of the more tricky problems in the conversion of the building was therevival of the old elevator shaft to modern-day standards.

"We completely re-fit the elevator shaft," says Miller. "It was an oldfreight lift that we had to strip and decommission. Then we had to bring the shaft to 1998standards as far as firecoding. We had to design an elevator box and system that wouldmeet the American with Disabilities Act regulations. Fitting that into the existinghoist-way was no small task."

What resulted was an elevator system new to everyone on the project, including theinstaller.

"Due to the configurations of the building, what we used was a cantilever-styleelevator. It was a unique set-up--there aren't many like that one--it was even new to theinstaller," he says. But what resulted was a high-quality operation that fit theneeds of the building perfectly. "It's a beautiful system," relates Miller."It goes up and down very fast, it's extremely quiet and smooth, too." He laudsthe efforts of Accurate Elevator and Canton Lifts as being extremely knowledgeable andcompetent, even with the new style of elevator used for the project.

"There was a lot of cooperation between the architect office and Canton going andchecking and re-checking dimensions and shop drawings."

Another challenging aspect of the conversion was the erection of a new stairway insidethe building. Through the years, the structure had sagged slowly, resulting in one end ofthe building--where the stairwell was being built--being 4 1/2 inches out of plumb fromthe peak of the roof to the foundation. Since there was no other place to put the stairs,Miller and his crew were forced to cut into the building and create beam pockets into theactual structure. "When you're hanging 50-foot steel beams, you have to hang themplumb," he says, adding that the trick was to not cut into any of the structuralmembers that were existing in the building.

After the beams were hung, Miller said it took some creative work from carpenters andplasterers to make the inside of the building look plumb.

"They basically shimmed the wall on the inside from bottom to top and weplumbed-up the stair system from the outside wall." Miller says all the work ishidden behind sheet rock and plaster and looks very nice.

On the inside of the warehouse, all of the existing office space was removed as well asall the former hallways, which gave the project the ability to best utilize space for the300 units. There are four floors, including a lower level in the form of a half-basementthat is accessible from the ground level in the back through an overhead door. The rest ofthe facility is accessible through an office entrance or through a loading dock that goesdirectly into the elevator.

On the outside of the building, all of the existing windows were removed and wallsredone using a fiber-mesh, cement-board product from Advantage Building Exteriors. Withthat, Miller could apply any epoxy-coated surface, such as exposed aggregate or what heexplains as a "sandstone finish" that they used in areas both on the outside ofthe facility and also in the stairwell and office.

In Retrospect

They say hindsight is 20/20, and Miller would probably agree, but the final result, hesays, made everyone involved extremely pleased. The budget was overshot somewhat and pastits originally planned opening date, but he says most of that is due to the fact that muchof the bid was guesswork until the actual walls were taken apart.

"A lot of stuff, even if I had done (a conversion) before, couldn't have beenknown with this building," explains Miller. "There was no way to know what thesewalls were like until we began ripping them apart and getting rid of the asbestos siding.All I could cost was the new work and it was difficult to imagine what we were going to gothrough to make it work."

But it did work and, in the end, was a successful project.

"We went through some interesting things," Miller recalls. "It didn'talways go smoothly, but it went. When it's all said and done, the building came out real,real nice and the owner was happy with it."

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