The majestic, albeit ailing Bank Street Armory once housed a volunteer militia, the National Guard and the Greater Fall River Re-Creation among its tenants before it was shuttered by the city building inspector in April 2015. Now a local developer with a track record of transforming old city buildings is eying the castle-like structure for redevelopment into 37 market-rate apartments or possibly a mixed-rate project with 20% of the units deemed affordable.
Alan Macomber, the principal in the development company Main Street Projects, was the only entity to respond by a March 17 deadline to a request for proposals by the city to redevelop the 126-year-old armory.
Macomber recently completed a $21 million redevelopment of the former Bradford Durfee Textile School on Durfee Street, a building that also once served as campuses of Bristol Community College and Southeastern Massachusetts University, before that school became the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Called the Creative Class, the three-building mixed-use project at 64 Durfee St. features 55 apartments, both market-rate and affordable units, with some set aside for artists. It also has retail space and a black box theater, among other amenities.