Among other things, it has been the office for Whitman Carpet and, most recently Regal Discount. But now the building will be the location of a new pub that owner Richard Rosen hopes will help pump life back into the center of town.

After Thanksgiving, Rosen will open McGuiggan’s, an “upscale” Irish pub and that Rosen said will bring a new type of bar atmosphere to Whitman.  

“There isn’t anything similar around here to what we’ve built,” Rosen said. “The Irish pub seems to be what people want, so that’s what we’re going to give them.”

Rosen, who has made his bones in real estate, said McGuiggan’s will be the realization of his life-long dream of owning a restaurant.

“I actually took hotel and restaurant managing in college,” he said. “Pretty much all my life I’ve wanted to do a restaurant or a pub style thing. I’ve almost opened a restaurant in the past, but never did. The timing of this has just worked out well.”

Rosen bought the building on Washington Street a little over a year and a half ago, and has been busy renovating to make room for McGuiggan’s. The outside building has been redone to give McGuiggan’s a old time pub-like look on the outside while Rosen said he has gone to “great pains” to soundproof the newly redesigned apartments on the upper floors to keep out the bar noise.

Rosen said the addition of McGuiggan’s to Whitman Center’s landscape has already helped the town by cleaning up the center and creating almost sixty jobs, and he hopes the pub will play a big role in bringing people into Whitman at night.

“We’ve renovated the entire building from top to bottom and I bought the lot across the street and we filled in a lot that was really an eyesore. So I think we’ve really cleaned up this area,” Rosen said. “At our busiest times there is basically no one in the center. If you come down here at five at night, it’s basically desolate. Hopefully one of the things we can do is revitalize Whitman Center and make it come alive again after dark. I think we’re going to achieve that.”

Rosen has also designed the inside of the bar to give the feel of an Irish sports bar. McGuiggan’s will be split between a 60-person dining area (the bar will have a full “pub style’ menu) and a 50-person bar area highlighted by the 54-inch, mahogany bar designed specifically for the building.

“I wanted the biggest one that we could build, and that is literally the biggest bar we could fit in this building,” Rosen said. “To have that true pub effect, you need a great bar, and of course, we’ll have Guinness on tap.”

Rosen also added flat screen TVs around the bar area as well as a sound system. Though he said an Irish fiddler or single guitar player might come play, he said there will not be any full bands playing at the bar.

Rosen also hopes to keep McGuiggan’s, named after his wife’s maiden name, a family business, with his daughter Danielle taking one of the manager positions.

“The family will be in here,” he said. “We’re all very excited.”

Rosen is now overseeing the final construction of McGuiggan’s, and plans to open after Thanksgiving with a few days of open houses before opening to the general public. Though he said the home stretch has been a bit nerve-wracking, he said he couldn’t wait to see the pub open and business coming back to downtown Whitman.

“Now that it’s crunch time it’s a little stressful, but it’s been exciting so far,” he said. “And I’m sure it will continue to be exciting for a while.”