Market Square Mill Project In Full Swing

Marie Deschnes, the maestro of Le Moulin at Market Square, wakes up every morning at 3 a.m.  She owns and operates a successful telecommunications contracting company where she works 60 hours or more per week.  On top of that she has undertaken the massive task of developing a mill complex in Woonsocket.

Her project has caught the interest of the local community, the city government and Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee.

She has named the mill Le Moulin, which means the mill in French.  It is located at 68 South Main Street.  Before Deschnes purchased the property it was like most of the mills left in Woonsocket, dirty floors, expensive heat, broken windows and dangerous electric wiring.

As of today she has renovated two floors, attracted 18 tenants and spent $500,000 updating the mill and it has been a continuing financial struggle.

She bought the mill in 2007, right before the real estate market crashed, for just under $1 million.  She had hoped on using Rhode Island’s historic tax credit to receive 30 percent of rehabilitation costs from the state.  But that program ended in 2008 as the cash-strapped state repealed the expensive program.  After the market crashed in 2008 the mill lost half its value.  Despite its lower value she must still pay taxes on a pre-crash mortgage. In fact she said her tax rate from 2009 to 2010 jumped from $13,000 to $22,000 as Woonsocket raised rates to attempt to balance the budget.

“I came in and gave it hell,” she said “I put a bunch of work into the mill and they must think I have some money.”

The tax rate increases and the loss of the historic tax credit have slowed down the development process.  There are many things left to do. 

She needs to install individual gas furnaces for each tenant because the boiler in the basement is grossly inefficient.  She needs a new roof and new windows.  She needs a new transformer and would like to upgrade the gas lines.

Even with all the roadblocks, Deschenes gets a kick out of the project, which she said she undertook because she was getting bored running her lucrative telecom wiring company.

“Taking risks in life, is part of life,” she said sitting in a rolling chair in her third floor office inside the mill.  Her computer was covered with a clear tarp and buckets were placed on the maple wood floor in front of her desk to catch the rain as it dripped through the roof.  Behind her hung posters that read “Integrity” and “Customer Service.”

Deschnes grew up in Northern Maine.  She was the 11^th of 14 children and the youngest of six girls.  Her father was a lumberjack who cut and sold wood from the large tract of land he owned. 

She worked at non-profits for 15 years including battered women’s shelters and Boston United Cerebral Palsy.  She was also a counselor in Northern Maine before getting started in telecom wiring.  She learned that skill on the job in Florida and afterwards started her own company with a partner, Michael Dube, which she has ran for the past 12 years.

Despite her success, Deschenes stays true to her roots.

She said of herself, “I’m just a little Northern Maine girl that bought a mill.”

She had operated her telecom wiring company, Vogue Communications, out of the old bank on Main Street for 8 years.  While there she said she “never met a soul” from Woonsocket.  But as soon as she moved into the mill at 68 South Main Street, people started coming in, saying hello and asking her what she’s up to.

As development of the mill continued she established strong relationships with her tenants and moved some less desirable one’s out.  When she first bought the place it was owned by a furniture company and rock clubs rented out extra space.  The clubs vandalized the hallways and left the rooms they used in general disrepair.  She got rid of them.

She kept the good tenants like Mark Montecalvo’s Screenworks t-shirt printing, J.L Danis and Son carpenters and Joseph Gutowski’s Yarnia.  But she also attracted many newcomers.  The Blackstone Fencing Academy has moved in to a beautiful open space on the third floor.  Nearby, Rondeau's Kickboxing opened up and across a hallway, the Boys and Girls Club put in a boxing facility.  Gigi’s custom framing and art studio is the first tenant to inhabit the proposed mini mall on the second floor.  , the student art group, has a sprawling location filled with easels, woodworking tools and a photography studio in the basement.  Connie Anderson opened a combined wine bar/yoga/zumba studio on the first floor.  And Deschenes has established her Vogue Communication’s offices on the top floor.

Deschenes plans on renovating two of the top floors of the mill buildings and turning them into artists’ lofts that overlook the Blackstone River and Market Square.  She hopes to attract six more stores to the mini mall on the second floor and perhaps even a farmer’s market outside featuring fresh and local produce from area farmers.

She has also instructed a local artist, Ron Diziel, to design and beautify the mill.  He has plans to use running water in the design of the mini mall and has already painted the entrance hallway with a New England landscape.

“She has really put her heart and soul in it,” said John Danis of J.L Danis and Son Carpenters about Deschenes’ work to update the mill and added that her work has inspired him and a few other tenants to watch over the mill.  They help her out by shutting off the lights and locking up.

“We take care of it like it’s our own mill,” he said.

Ray Thomas, an associate director at the Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant University, is one of the people helping Deschenes navigate the bureaucracy of local and state governments to make the project successful.

He said the mill is a solid facility in a good location in Market Square.  But added that the biggest problem, for any small business, is acquiring capital.

“She’s doing a great job on the business side and applying profits [from Vogue] to this,” said Thomas, “We’re doing what we can from a marketing perspective,” to help her business plan seem more attractive to investors.

“This is a real opportunity for the community and the governor recognizes it,” said Thomas.

Rhode Island on March 15 and instructed his economic development director, Keith Stokes, to find ways to help Deschenes acquire loans for energy upgrades and rehab costs.

Deschenes is not the type that’s going to wait around for help, however.  If she’s not working for Vogue, you can probably find her painting a wall, sanding a floor or talking with one of the tenants in her mill.  She said she had already broken two commercial sanders trying to sand the dirt and grime off the 100-year old maple floors.

But as the grain in each piece of wood that was laid down almost a century ago begins to show, it’s one more step closer to turning an old mill into an artist’s enclave and a commercial showpiece.

“Her perseverance and determination are unbelievable,” said Ray Thomas.

Deschenes said that with a little help she hopes to have the mill completed in 5 years.