The Apex of potential (continued)

In addition to his work for Apex, Geller was responsible for designing department stores on behalf of clients including Macy’s and Lord & Taylor (whose logo was taken from Geller’s scribbling of the retailer’s name on a design rendering). Jack Gorst, an unofficial Geller biographer, notes that his grandfather was one of the few Loewy designers allowed to freelance while in the employ of the master. The Apex store was one of these side projects.

Novel as they may be, the characteristic sign and ziggurat design were not the product of a flight of fancy on the part of Geller and the Apex company. Mike Cassidy, director of Planning and Redevelopment for the City of Pawtucket, notes that Apex bought the site from the Pawtucket Redevelopment Agency (PRA) in the 1960s. The PRA had established a prohibition on freestanding signs more than six feet tall. It allowed signs on the buildings themselves, however, with the proviso that the size not exceed the linear feet of the property’s road frontage. Apex, with a 10-acre site bordering three streets, had a large amount of potential sign space — the question was how to use it.

According to Geller, 80, who spoke with me by phone from his home in Northport, Long Island, "I remember I criticized the fact that they weren’t making it [the building] more noticeable from the highway. And so we came up with something triangular." Geller’s initial rendering, in fact, was a triangle, but with the Apex name on a separate piece elevated above the main structure. The eventually realized pyramid design features the Apex name more prominently than in Geller’s initial conception. In addition to its eye-catching form from the highway, the pyramid design dovetailed nicely with the name "Apex," or summit.

Geller last saw the Apex building about 10 years ago when he drove past it on I-95. He is vague about the building’s precise design, perhaps not surprising given that he worked on it more than 35 years ago, and it was one of many department stores he designed in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states throughout the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. He does recall, however, the happy association he had with Apex, as well as the site’s prime location. Geller also notes that Apex, like other stores he designed during an era he describes as "important socially and commercially," features large amounts of undivided floor space. Geller-designed stores typically featured stockrooms housed on a separate level above or below the sales area, rather than amongst or adjacent to it. "Visually," he says, "it meant that the entire floor was visible rather than broken up."

Of course, the very features that make the Apex site attractive to the state Division of Motor Vehicles — ample parking, easy highway access, and a large amount of clear unobstructed space — might also fit the needs of such potential tenants as a museum, a big-box retailer like Wal-Mart, or even a multi-use building with a restaurant, galleries, and boutiques.

Pawtucket officials are circumspect when asked about possible futures for Apex. Mike Cassidy, Pawtucket’s director of Planning and Redevelopment, defers the matter to Apex owner Andrew Gates, and says that in regard to planning for the site, "We haven’t really taken a run at that." Cassidy’s colleague, Pawtucket Economic & Cultural Affairs officer Herb Weiss, also says he is unaware of how Gates is leaning, but notes that in response to inquiries about the property, "We’re still sending people over."

While Pawtucket officials are understandably reticent to hazard predictions or make recommendations to a private landowner, the Apex site is clearly a key in Pawtucket’s redevelopment plans. Rich Davis, executive director of the Pawtucket Foundation, which represents the business and not-for-profit sectors in championing improvements, notes how the site’s gateway location — and the river views from the property — make it a potential linchpin for redevelopment. Although also hesitant to advance any proposals, Davis says, "As a property owner, businessman, and developer, he [Andrew Gates] has a fair idea of what the property is worth and what its potential uses might be."

The Pawtucket Foundation has nonetheless promoted ambitious plans to continue the redevelopment of downtown Pawtucket, with the river, the city’s industrial heritage, and the burgeoning arts scene as key elements. The foundation sponsored the 2002 Tidewater Workshop, summarized in the report, A Strategy for Tidewater Redevelopment, which recommended providing greater access to the river, as well as development along its banks. The foundation laments that much of the river, which it regards as Pawtucket’s strongest and most defining feature, is currently inaccessible or obscured from view.

THE TIDEWATER REDEVELOPMENT report specifically recommends the restoration of River Street and the establishment of a riverwalk along the eastern side of the Blackstone, skirting the western edge of the Apex site. The commission’s recommendations are comprehensive, encompassing all of the Pawtucket waterfront, including the "Mill Pond" (below Exchange Street and near Slater Mill and City Hall), the "Gorge" (between Main Street and the I-95, where the Apex site lies), and the "Basin" (south of the I-95 and Division Street, and leading toward Narragansett Bay). The Apex site is thus only one element in a redevelopment strategy for the Pawtucket riverfront, but its central 10-acre location along the Blackstone, and between two key crossover points, renders its disposition central to such efforts.

When it comes to development, noting is forever, as is suggested by conversations with Mike Cassidy and Rich Davis, and a review of the Tidewater redevelopment report. Asked and answered 40 years ago, the question of what should be done with the Apex site is now being revisited in light of changes having to do with Apex, Pawtucket, and the broader culture.

The Tidewater report notes how the Apex property was once crossed by four public streets and divided into six city blocks. The site comprised mills, houses, churches, a fire station, and a bakery — in effect, a neighborhood, run down though it may have been. The completion of Interstate 95 east of the river in 1963, and the Pawtucket Redevelopment Authority’s purchase of the tract that was cleared and sold to Apex, cemented the current course of development. This path, trod by many cities in the 1950s and 1960s, is marked by easy highway access and plentiful parking, although it creates an unfriendly cityscape for pedestrians, and turns its back on such natural assets as waterways. Just as in Providence, the completion of I-95 cut Pawtucket in half, displacing a number of residences and businesses, cleaving the city in two.

The Tidewater redevelopment report notes that although the Apex site borders the river, "it bears little relationship to the water because of steep slopes and the river’s low elevation below the falls." More specifically, a walk around the Apex building reveals that the loading dock and freight entrances are at the rear of the building, on the riverside. Not only is there a steep drop from the driveway (the former River Street) adjacent to the Blackstone, this embankment is completely overgrown and thick with trees, bushes and weeds — you can’t even see the river from it currently. Interestingly, Andrew Geller’s initial rendering placed an entrance to the Apex on the riverside. Any development seeking to orient the Apex site toward the water would have to address public access to the Blackstone, while literally turning Apex (or another occupant or building) around.

From the standpoint of preservationists, the next best choice after a museum would be something maintaining the Apex building as it is, as well as such aspects of the site as the signs and the vintage mid-1960s bug antennae-like lights in the parking lot. Sale to a big-box retailer, which would likely raze the Apex structure, would be a worst-case scenario. Kierstead suggests that the demolition in the late ’90s of the nearby 2700-seat Leroy Theatre, and its replacement by a Walgreens drugstore, represents just such a preservation nightmare. Hogue, expressing the general fears of preservationists, says of Apex owner Andrew Gates, "I would hope that before he gets the idea in his head that the land is worth more vacant, nothing rash happens to the building."

Although Gates attended the Pawtucket Foundation’s 2002 workshop on the future of the Pawtucket waterfront, he has otherwise demonstrated little interest in redevelopment initiatives. Davis, the foundation’s executive director, says Gates "has a high regard for the building itself." Still, in the absence of comment from Gates, it’s difficult to know what this means in practice.

Perhaps it’s worth considering the thoughts of Apex designer Andrew Geller, who, not surprisingly, expresses dismay about how regional department stores are anachronisms and shopping is increasingly done from home-based computers. Told how the Apex now shares space with the DMV, he asks, "That’s progress?" Geller remains impressed by Apex’s possibilities, however, and suggests that "marketing and merchandising types" could engineer a restoration or revival of this once-important name in Rhode Island retailing. While such an unexpected twist seems as improbable as turning the Apex building into an industrial design museum, it beats at least some of the alternatives.

Tim Lehnert can be reached at timlehnert@cox.net