Courthouse Lofts occupancy to start this month
Photo | Grant Welker
Construction is nearing completion on Courthouse Lofts at Main and Highland streets in Worcester.
Occupancy at Worcester's Courthouse Lofts apartment building will finally begin this month, more than 12 years after the courthouse building in Lincoln Square was left vacant.
The Worcester County Courthouse moved a few blocks down Main Street in 2008, and over the past few years the Boston development firm Trinity Financial has been working to renovate the building from a dated municipal building to a modern apartment complex, with some historical touches kept in place.
The first tenants are slated to move in in mid-January, Trinity said Tuesday, with 118 units eventually to be filled. Nearly all are set aside under affordability restrictions, which helped Trinity obtain enough state funding and historic tax credits to offset most of the cost of the $50-million-plus project.
More than half of the units have already been rented, Trinity said.
The roughly 214,000-square-foot building at Main and Highland streets includes an original mid-1800s wing and a more recent addition facing Harvard Street from the 1950s. Workers kept some touches in place, including judge's benches and old bookshelves. Two courtrooms have been remade as common resident spaces, and other amenities include a media and game room, fitness center, pet spa, children's playroom and outdoor playground. New windows have been installed throughout, and a utilitarian parking lot along Highland Street has been remade with new landscaping and lighting.
An approximately 2,000-square-foot museum dedicated to Major Taylor, a world-champion cyclist and an early Black star athlete, is also planned. Taylor spent much of his peak years in the sport living in Worcester.
Trinity Development bought the site in 2017 from the city for $1.3 million. The development was first slated to open last summer, and though the completion was delayed, work continued through the coronavirus pandemic, when some other projects were halted.
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