by John Michitson and Seth Itzkan

Background

The future of Haverhill's downtown is at a critical juncture. Hundreds of new residential units, mostly apartments, are complementing longstanding stylish restaurants and shops in the downtown. Yet, there are still missing pieces to the puzzle that must be solved before critical mass can be reached in the downtown.

A market analysis and strategic action plan for downtown Haverhill was completed by Gruen Gruen + Associates, urban economists and market strategists from Chicago, in June 2007 for the City of Haverhill. It cited these two primary disadvantages amongst others currently in downtown Haverhill: “(downtown) currently lacks a concentration of either major office space users or an established base of market rate residential units.” The report is available at http://www.ci.haverhill.ma.us/departments/econ/gruen_final_report.pdf . 

It is obvious that you need both market rate residential units and major office space users, as well as a variety of other recommendations offered in the Gruen Report for Haverhill’s downtown to succeed in a sustainable manner. For this article, we focus on creating jobs with pizzazz for knowledge workers and the trades in the Downtown.

Two downtown pioneers are not waiting for help; they are pressing forward to help draw the next generation of jobs as both a feeder to Haverhill’s industrial parks and an incentive to encourage the future work force to live in downtown Haverhill.

Bill Nofsker’s Building

William “Bill” Nofsker of Kifor Development Co., who developed and manages the Burgess-Lang Professional Center at 143-145 Essex Street (http://kifordevelopment.com/), agrees that jobs are a key ingredient for the downtown to realize its potential, “The Burgess-Lang Professional Center will be an oasis among the residential developments in the downtown because people need a place to work.”

Mr. Nofsker’s versatile, customizable and “best value per square foot space in the Merrimack Valley” is now being marketed as professional office and data center space for the service and emerging technology industries, in addition to light manufacturing, distribution and warehousing. An example of a hot emerging technology industry is renewable energy, which offers the hope of creating jobs for both knowledge workers and the trades. Both our newly elected President and our Governor are pushing renewable energy. Lawrence and other surrounding cities has been successful in this market

Community involvement and business development in the downtown have been Mr. Nofsker’s cornerstones since he arrived in Haverhill more than two decades ago.

Dave Spaulding’s Business

Enter Dave Spaulding, President of USAi.net (http://www.usai.net/), an outgrowth of MVA.NET, which he started in the late 1990s as a Mom and Pop dial-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) based on Washington Street in downtown Haverhill. During the .com bubble, then bust, the industry analysts predicted that the Mom and Pop ISPs would get swallowed up by the big regional and global ISPs. Not so in Mr. Spaulding’s plan.

In fact, he has transformed his business into a regional wireless Internet services provider, specializing in high availability for customers that need to be “always-on.” Key regional customers include the Boston Public Library network, Bay State College, Gordon College and Independence Investments. USAi.net provides primary and backup Internet services for the entire Boston Public Library network, which entails 28 buildings. 

Mr. Spaulding has also been synonymous with community commitment and business development in the downtown. When he first started his business, the downtown did not have an Internet infrastructure, only an outdated telephone infrastructure. He teamed with the Telephone company to install the first broadband infrastructure in the downtown. He has also been an active participant in the community, again teaming with the Telephone company in the 1990s to provide free computers and free internet access for inner city youth in Haverhill.

When Dave Met Bill – Business Continuity Emerged

Mr. Spaulding’s success led to a need for a larger facility. He said, “We recently moved our nine employees from 2000 square feet of office and data center space on Washington Street to 6000 square feet of space in Mr. Nofsker’s Burgess-Lang Professional Center. USAi.net broadcasts from more than 30 locations across Boston. Our new facility includes an office and a data center, but it also includes space dedicated to our next business endeavor, which is business continuity or disaster recovery.”

USAi.net is now ready to provide business continuity to companies of all sizes. Since 9/11, business continuity has become a national priority. Companies need to quickly recover and restore critical business functions that have been interrupted after a disaster or extended disruption. This includes virtual restoration of a company’s Information Technology capability and a Hot Standby office for workers at a remote location.

This capability will be provided in the Burgess-Lang Professional Center in Haverhill and another facility in Westminster, MA. If there is a disaster at a company in Boston, Route 128, or anywhere in the region, their customer’s critical business functions will switchover to USAi.net’s facility and the workforce will re-locate there. Mr. Spaulding is already proposing his new services to a consortium of Colleges and Universities.

According to Bill Nofsker, “This is a business strategy whose time has come.” In fact, Mr. Nofsker likes the idea so much he has agreed to partner with Mr. Spaulding on future endeavors, if USAi.net succeeds in the disaster recovery market. It seems that the two pioneers are at it again!