First and foremost, Hall and Moskow is as vertically integrated as a project design/ build team can be. In our partnership and staffing we have the Owners, the Architects, the Leasing Agents, the Property Management Company, the Contractor, and even Heavy Equipment Operators. Hillside was not intended to be a one off effort; we were looking for a low rise multi-family construction system that is adaptable to any New England site. The goal would be to replicate the very same low rise multi-family design elsewhere. The trust between Keith Moskow, the Architect, and David Hall, the Builder, cannot be overstated in our trying to figure this stuff out.   

Our project consists of 48 market-rate 1-3 bedroom rental units and a deeply affordable 10 room/SRO shared-kitchen residence throughout 4.5 acres. The site is located on a former brownfield lot (bottle and coal ash dump) with significant grade changes and a subsurface of hard blue marine clay. It also rests at the bottom of a 9 acre drainage basin. With little to no soil permeability, one of our first priorities was discovering how to mandate significant stormwater capture, storage, and slow release. The site is long on its North - South Axis and tilts Westward towards a somewhat noisey Rte One. Orientation and exposure made it less than optimal for multi-family Passive House design.   

Our first MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing; in terms of inspection, respectively) confidently declared Passive House (PH) construction would be impossible with the orientation and cottage style architecture. The farmers' porches and density were considered problematic to PH goals, but we felt they were critical for resident interaction and blending with existing neighborhood scale and design language. 

Both the Moskow family and the Hall family have been multi-family property owners and managers for over 50  years in Newburyport and Boston. Both Hall and Moskow have developed strong instincts for what makes a desirable home and what to avoid within a multi-family structure (for both resident and property owner). 

From a business perspective, happy residents are long term residents. Turnovers cost money.  Long term rentership of the multi-family structures is planned. 

HISTORY OF HALL AND MOSKOW

Gordon Hall and Michael Moskow are the founders and developers of Hall and Moskow Corporation who own and operate numerous residential and commercial properties throughout Newburyport, MA.

Gordon Hall worked as a consultant to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) during the revitalization of Faneuil Hall during the '60's; restoring buildings that had been slated for demolition. His design and planning objectives for saving these buildings included: to create a modern center of activity, establish a new residential community, reconstruct the waterfront, and provide open spaces. Faneuil Hall, the first urban renewal project of its kind, was repeatedly imitated and sparked a world-wide restoration trend.

Gordon next came to Newburyport, at the behest of the Newburyport Historical Society, where he advised and recommended the preservation of the Inn Street and State Street buildings using the same objectives he applied to Faneuil Hall.

Newburyport's remarkable 18th and 19th century architecture and potential for commercial and residential development inspired Gordon to pursue the acquisition of real estate with Michael Moskow. Together they implemented the principles of preservation and revitalization they were beholden to. Gordon Hall and Michael Moskow owned 18 buildings with approximately 52 housing units in Newburyport throughout the 1970's.

In 1982, Gordon’s son, David D. Hall, graduated from the University of New Hampshire and joined Hall and Moskow to lead a dramatic expansion of the firm's portfolio. They acquired 12 multi-family properties with 44 residential units, bringing the total number of housing units to 93 today.

Residential restoration projects included saving three 18th century buildings from demolition through relocation and renovation, for which the city of Newburyport awarded David a special commendation. Next, David began converting industrial properties into space for retail and service businesses using the same visionary planning employed by his father in the 1960's.

In 1985, Prime Tanning Co. sold it's Newburyport tanneries to Hall and Moskow and David directed the environmental clean-up. The new Tannery Mall, consisting of Mill No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3, offer both low cost incubator space for entrepreneurs to start businesses and competitively priced retail space. Success has grown as a result of the restoration of Inn Street and other industrial buildings downtown, as well as the increasing attractiveness of the Tannery Mall as a destination shopping center.

The Tannery Mall expanded in 1992 when Mercury Anodizing's building (a super fund clean-up site adjacent to the Tannery) was purchased. With this property, David preserved a segment of the building to establish Mill No. 4 on the Tannery campus and allocated the rest for Tannery parking. Mill No. 5 was later constructed in 2005 on what was formerly a 430,000 gallon tank farm owned by W.E. Atkinson (another successful Brownfield clean-up project run by David).

Hall and Moskow today uses 400 60Kw solar panels to generate most of The Tannery's common area power needs, mandates recycling by it's commercial tenants, bales the Tannery cardboard – cutting trash volume in half – and is now the first in New England to experiment with using heliostats (computer-operated mirrors) to melt stockpiles of snow. David's management philosophy is an extension of Gordon and Michael's vision, one that goes beyond revitalizing industrial-use and residential property to encompass green building management practices.

SITE HISTORY

FORMER SALVAGE YARD TRANSFORMED TO CONTEMPORARY URBAN LIVING

The presence of over 3,000 tons of coal ash contamination on the land would have disqualified the site for residential use prior to the remediation work completed by Hall and Moskow in the summer of 2014. The source of the coal ash is believed to be from a former farmer who owned this property in the early 1900's and accepted ashes from Newburyport homes to fill low spots on his land.

Later owners accumulated old trucks and heavy equipment on the land between 1950 and 2008. The necessary cleanup of soils and equipment ranged from one to five feet in thickness. Remediation work was made possible by a $400,000 loan from Mass Development.

THE GRADE

As the name suggests, the Hillside Center for Sustainable Living is located on a hillside. Although this could be seen as a detriment, we have used it to our advantage. by building homes into the hillside we are able to benefit from the thermal mass of the hill and create first floor access points to multiple floors of the building.