News

Jan 20, 2024

Why Sal Lupoli went to the poorest city in Mass. to create market

Editor’s Note: The MassLive Reporter Road Trip spotlights Massachusetts places

Editor's Note: The MassLive Reporter Road Trip spotlights Massachusetts places with important and transformative stories to tell through the written word, photos and video. This week, MassLive visited Riverwalk in Lawrence.

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Lawrence's Riverwalk Innovation District is currently home to nearly 600 apartments, with 400 more permitted in the former mill complex.

But despite Lawrence's status as the poorest city in Massachusetts, these luxury loft apartments go for upwards of $2,000 a month. Sal Lupoli says there's a good reason for that.

Lupoli, who started his career opening the chain Sal's Pizza and has become a major developer and owner of projects north of Boston like Riverwalk, said he has focused most of his energy since he came to Lawrence in the early 2000s developing the commercial space at the complex. About five years ago, he said, he turned to building residential space, knowing that the job opportunities and amenities he had created would bring tenants in.

"The people that live in my building, they’re the police officers, the firemen, the teachers, the people that do hard work and blue collar workers that need value, but guess what, they have money too," Lupoli said. "If you give them an opportunity to create disposable income, they’ll spend it locally. They’re not going to live here and get in their car and drive to Andover, Massachusetts. ... So just give them the services. So first you create the business, then you create the amenities, and then you get the people to live there. And now you have that whole cycle."

The building that houses Riverwalk Lofts, as the apartment complex is known, stretches more than 500 yards along Merrimack Street, about two-thirds of which is residential space. Inside, each apartment boasts 16-foot ceilings, a second-floor mezzanine, 12-foot windows, stainless steel appliances and in-unit laundry. Monthly rent at Riverwalk Lofts East starts at $2,150 for a one-bedroom, according to listings on the complex's website (an accessible one-bedroom unit with a lift goes for $2,000 per month).

Lupoli said the apartments at Riverwalk are not just aimed at current Lawrence residents, but at people in nearby communities who need easy access to Interstate 495, which is in sight of the building, or the MBTA Commuter Rail, which has a station just across the street.

In addition, there are tenants who work on the Riverwalk campus at one of the many life science, technology and other companies with office space there. Some of those tenants have given up their cars, Lupoli said, because they no longer need them to get to work.

"You could take this product right now and you could move it 100 yards down the road and it’d be in Andover, Massachusetts. And what I charge here would be comparable to what you term ‘workforce housing’ in the town of Andover," he said. "It's just based on location."

When the apartments opened, Lupoli said his company was leasing 40 to 45 units a month.

By bringing more people into Lawrence, he hopes to spur more economic development in the impoverished city. He said it made more sense to develop in gateway cities like Lawrence to create that growth, rather than more affluent communities nearby like Andover.

"You’re not going there and creating value. You’re not going to find that piece of coal that became a diamond, because you know what? Somebody already found it," Lupoli said. "You go to the cities that have the opportunity. Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill, they have those opportunities still inside the Merrimack Valley where you can find those little diamonds. You just got to compress it for 20 years like we did over here at Riverwalk, and eventually, that coal will be a diamond."

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