The owner of the iconic General Store building in the center of town, home to the Harvard General Store and the Harvard Press, has told its occupants that he intends to sell the property.
In a May 29 email to General Store owner Scott Hayward, the building’s owner, Adam Horowitz, said he planned to place the building on the market and sell it. Therefore, he said, he would not be renewing the store’s lease, which expires July 1, 2027. “The buyer of the building may have different plans for the property,” Horowitz explained in a follow-up notice of nonrenewal-of-lease sent to Hayward Aug. 6.
Horowitz, who moved with his wife Lyn from Harvard to South Africa some years ago, explained his decision in an Aug. 11 email to the Press: “We are putting the General Store on the market as we are no longer in a position to be good custodians of this important building given our distance from Harvard.” He added: “We will obviously, as has always been the case, work carefully with all stakeholders giving everyone as much time as is reasonably possible.”
Horowitz has owned and maintained the building since 2007, including extensive renovation of the first and second floors, the repainting of its exterior and replacing of its aging roof and gutters. “Adam saved the General Store, for which the town was grateful,” Hayward said this week.
While the building is not yet on the market, Horowitz has hired Steve Nigzus, broker associate with Harborside Realty, to prepare it for sale. “Given the importance of the General Store to the town, our approach to pricing the building will be to rely on an independent appraiser,” Horowitz wrote the Press. On Tuesday morning this week, Nigzus, accompanied by a pair of assessors and led by store-owner Hayward, toured the property. Nigzus said he expected to be ready to offer the building to interested buyers by mid-to-late September.
Future of building’s occupants uncertain
The pending sale of the 1817 building leaves the future of its principal occupant, the General Store—its basement bakery; first floor cafe, retail store, wine and spirits store; and second floor events and meeting space—up in the air. The same can be said for the offices of the Press. Hayward has leased the basement and first and second floors of the building since 2012. The Harvard Press occupies a portion of the third floor rent-free thanks to an informal arrangement with Horowitz. The Press does, however, pay a portion of the store’s monthly utility bill, consisting of a cash payment and Press solar credits.
Should Horowitz receive a desirable offer anytime before July 1, 2027, Hayward’s lease provides him, “for a limited time,” with a right of first refusal, the ability to respond with an offer of his own. But Hayward, who said he was not surprised by Horowitz’s decision, is not waiting.
“It totally makes sense that he [Horowitz] would want to sell [the building] now that he lives in South Africa,” he told the Press in a Tuesday interview. The move was not a surprise, he said, but added: “No matter what you know or what you think, the finality of something is always a surprise.”
Still, he said, “I have to assume I have to come up with a plan right away.” His preferred outcome? “I think, and I believe, that a group of like-minded, Harvard-based investors should buy [the building]. It’s a community space, and it should be owned by the people in the community. So I think it’s actually a great opportunity for everybody.” But, he added, “There’s so many things I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen if it goes on the market. What the interest will be, how many competitors I may have.”
There’s not much the town can do to influence the building’s future use, Select Board Chair Kara Minar told the Press. “It’s clearly the heart of the community, and it creates the vibrancy in town center that really is just—is critical,” she said. “So we do hope that it will, however it goes, keep that same use, that same position in town.”
