The Lowell Sun

Businesses: Loitering teens are hurting us

CHRISTOPHER SCOTT, Sun Staff
Monday, December 13, 2004 - LOWELL The business owners choose their words carefully.

They're not against kids. Nor are they against the United Teen Equality Center, and its mission to help the city's teens.

What they're upset about is groups of teens often dressed in baggy clothes and oversized hooded sweatshirts milling around the sidewalk on weekday afternoons and early evenings.

"It's huge," said Mark Coddaire, raising his arms above his head to stress his point.

Coddaire owns Marx Running and Fitness Center on Merrimack Street, next to UTEC, and said his business has dipped to the point that he may move to Chelmsford.

Coddaire is just one of several downtown business owners who've complained to city political and business leaders that the downtown is no place for a youth center. UTEC moved to 106 Merrimack St. in June.

Their presence and activities, the businessmen say, drives customers away while conflicting with the downtown image they're trying to cultivate.

"When outsiders see large groups like this congregating on the sidewalk, well, it doesn't help the image we're working for," said Frankie Descoteaux, who with her husband Matt opened the Mambo Grill across the street nearly four months ago.

"The kids need to show respect for the businesses," said Ernie Middlemiss, who opened Earlington's Haberdashery next door to UTEC three months ago. "Often times, their language is very offensive."

Center leaders are sympathetic to the businessmen's concerns and have acknowledged Merrimack Street is not a good site for a teen center.

But UTEC won't be on Merrimack Street for the long haul.

Center leaders are pleading for patience as they narrow a search for a permanent home on the outskirts of the downtown.

For the businessmen, that move can't come soon enough.

One recent evening, Coddaire videotaped several teens he said were UTEC clients standing and milling about his doorway.

One teen even leaned against his front door for a short period.

Coddaire said the teens dispersed as he approached from the inside.

"But can you imagine if you were one of my customers that evening?" said Coddaire. "Not good."

Other than kids hanging out on the sidewalk, few people would know UTEC is there.

There's no UTEC sign.

A single brown door leads from the sidewalk up a flight of stairs to UTEC space on the second and third floors.

Flags of the world serve as draperies.

Make-shift walls are painted bright colors.

It's easy for a visitor to see these aren't permanent headquarters.

Steve Pearlswig, UTEC's board of director's chairman, said the organization is looking for a new home and is focusing its search on two "very real" locations.

Pearlswig declined to elaborate, but said a new location should resolve conflicts with local businesses.

Center Executive Director Gregg Croteau stressed, however, that the center must be somewhere downtown.

"The downtown is considered gang-neutral turf," Croteau said. "If we moved to a neighborhood, it wouldn't be good."

Until a new location is found, Pearlswig said UTEC employees have been directed to get teens off the sidewalk and into the building.

"We're doing this to minimize the impact," said Pearlswig. "We know we don't belong there."

J. Matthew Coggins, Division of Planning and Development director, agrees with the business owners that the downtown and a youth center aren't a good mix.

"But everyone has to remember that the 4,000-student high school is right downtown and all the kids you see might not be UTEC kids," Coggins said.

Coggins said he was troubled to learn earlier this year that UTEC was moving from its previous location, at St. Anne's Episcopal Church on Kirk Street.

"That was a good fit up there for UTEC," said Coggins. "It was tucked away up there."

Center leaders like Pearlswig and Croteau disagree, however, with charges made by Coddaire that vandalism and graffiti are rising and that it is connected to UTEC.

"We feel there are factual and subjective pieces to this," Pearlswig said.

The subjective side "is not in dispute."

But UTEC has requested information from the Police Department to determine if the charges are valid.

Deputy Police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee said the Crime Analysis Unit is looking at statistics from the area before UTEC moved in, and after. A conclusion is expected this week.

"There may be an intimidating effect," Lavallee said. "But UTEC is also a great resource that has helped keep a lid on gang violence."

Several of the businesses that have raised concern about UTEC, including Marx, Mambo Grill and Earlington's, have received loans from the Lowell Development and Financial Corp. Downtown Venture Fund.

LDFC president James Cook has met with some of the businesses and is aware of the UTEC problem.

"Obviously, we have a vested interest," Cook said. "We want to help make sure the businesses are successful, but also that they feel safe in the downtown."

Noting the downtown is often the chosen location for social-service agencies, Cook added: "Sometimes it's not a very healthy marriage between the two."

Christopher Scott's e-mail address is cscott@lowellsun.com