Jordan's building to reopen
Arts community is set to move in
A number of tenants, including Boston University's Center for Digital Imaging Arts, have signed up to move into the former Jordan's Furniture building on bustling, eclectic Moody Street in Waltham -- and parts of the newly renovated building are expected to be ready for occupancy as soon as next month.
"It feels absolutely remarkable to have it almost done," said John Thompson, the artist who spearheaded the 2005 purchase of the building and is the main investor in the project. "It's wonderful."
Thompson said the 12 artist studios and nearly 12,000 square feet of nonresidential space are almost completely leased out.
Robert Francis, the broker who is handling the leasing of the building, said the first of the spaces will be ready in early August, with another wave opening in September.
Boston University's Center for Digital Imaging Arts, in a major expansion from its current location across Moody Street, is set to become the primary tenant, occupying most of the ground floor's nonresidential space and half of the artists' lofts on the upper floors.
The new space adds 14,000 square feet of classrooms, editing suites, film studios, and photography studios to the center, which was outgrowing its 274 Moody St. location.
The center has been on Moody Street since it began with 27 students in 2004. It now has more than 400 students, from Boston University undergraduates to career artists seeking continuing education in graphic design, web design, 3-D animation and modeling, the recording arts, photography, and film.
"This is a fantastic location for any type of program like this, especially an arts-related program," said Bob Daniels, the center's executive director. "It's a wonderfully culturally diverse street. Everything is on Moody Street. It's the only place I know where you get a store that specializes in construction toys, a store that specializes in games, and a store where you can buy nunchucks."
Of course, Daniels is quick to add, it also has a cluster of creative companies -- a filmmakers' collaborative, a movie production company, and lots of artists working in traditional media. The center has also rented out the nearby Embassy Cinema for screenings of its students' work.
The renovation hasn't been simple, Thompson said. Parts of the Jordan's building date to the late 19th century, which meant ripping out decades of wiring, heating and cooling ductwork, and plumbing. Thompson said that about 32 large dumpsters of debris have been removed from the site.
Thompson also had to accommodate the mixed uses the building would serve in its new incarnation, and that meant maneuvering through a thicket of complicated zoning and building codes. Walls were made extra-thick to cut down on noise, studios were individually ventilated to prevent, say, someone's paint fumes from disturbing a neighbor doing digital or photographic art, and windows were added to increase light.
Francis said there had always been strong interest in the site, but potential tenants were wary of signing a lease without knowing exactly when their space would be ready. Restaurants and retail shops came close, he said, but construction delays caused them to fall through.
Another tenant will be Back Pages Books, which Daniels hopes will become the de facto campus bookstore.
Back Pages, which has been located down the street since opening in 2005, is moving into 1,000 square feet of retail space on the building's first floor. Proprietor Alex Green says he plans to move in late September.
Green said he's eager to start selling to the Center for Digital Imaging Arts students -- providing not just books for their courses but general interest titles for them and his regular customers.
But the heart of the project will be the resident artists. Half of the 12 studios are set up as dual live-work spaces, and Thompson said that all of them have been promised, primarily to painters like himself. They range in size from a few hundred to just over 1,000 square feet. He can't wait to move into his new unit from his current home in Weston.
"I hope I never have to move my studio again," Thompson said.
To celebrate the building's new mission in life, it will also have a new name: Lincoln Studios. It's a nod to the building's Victorian origins; when the oldest portion was built in 1870, it was known as the Lincoln Building.
Jordan's Furniture, a well-known Boston area chain that was founded in Waltham, had kept a store in the building for many years even as it built gigantic new stores elsewhere. The Waltham location was finally closed in 2004.
Mayor Jeannette McCarthy, who worked with the artists when they were trying to purchase the building, said that she's pleased at the way things have worked out, and that she believes the completed Lincoln Studios will be a valuable asset to the community.
"I think that it just goes to show that Moody Street is continuing to grow," McCarthy said. "What I think it does is accentuate what Waltham's historical and artistic communities provide for the city."
Stephanie V. Siek can be reached via e-mail at ssiek@globe.com 