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Proposals Sought for Large Parcel Within Uniroyal Property

By
Lee Pouliot
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

The Last Big Piece of the Puzzle

 

Lee Pouliot

Since he’s only 37, Lee Pouliot has only known the buildings on the Uniroyal site as empty shells. With the request for proposals, that may finally change.

 

Lee Pouliot says he’s always had what he calls a bit of a fascination with what is known simply as the Uniroyal property in Chicopee — although there is nothing simple about it.

He grew up the city, but, because he’s only 37 (and a BusinessWest 40 Under Forty winner in 2020), all he’s known of the buildings — most of them, anyway — is as empty shells, the subjects of stories that almost every long-time resident of this community tells about working at the tire-manufacturing complex, or being related to someone who did.

While he was earning a master’s degree in landscape architecture at Cornell more than a dozen years ago, Pouliot took this fascination to a higher level, engaging himself and a few of his classmates in a final project — one that would create a development plan for the complex of buildings for the Uniroyal and adjacent Facemate properties, located in the center of the city.

Later, as an intern in the Chicopee’s Community Development office and then as a staffer in that office, he worked with city leaders to move a project to redevelop that complex, through a series of critical next steps.

“The reality is that there are a number of developers who have considerable experience with mill conversions. And so, in some ways, the city is trying to target developers who have this kind of experience, in the hope that we can see something creative done with those buildings that keeps them standing.”

And now, as city planner, a position he’s held since 2015, Pouliot is playing a lead role in writing what is essentially the final chapter in a long, complicated story that has, in some ways, been more than 40 years in the making.

This chapter involves a 9.58-acre parcel at the Uniroyal site, one of two yet to be developed, the other a 10-acre parcel being eyed by the city for recreational uses. A request for proposals was recently issued for the first of those parcels, which includes four buildings, including one that served as an administration building.

Those requests are due back on July 21, and Pouliot, like everyone else in the city, is anxious to see what the development community has in mind for this parcel, which is being marketed as RiverMills at Chicopee Falls, and especially the four remaining buildings on it, which the city opted not to demolish, in part because of their structural soundness.

the former Uniroyal buildings

This drone shot shows demolition of one of the former Uniroyal buildings. A request for proposals has been issued for the still-standing structures at the top of this image.

“The reality is that there are a number of developers who have considerable experience with mill conversions,” he explained. “And so, in some ways, the city is trying to target developers who have this kind of experience, in the hope that we can see something creative done with those buildings that keeps them standing.”

The bid package issued by the city touts this as “one of the largest contiguous areas of former industrial properties poised for redevelopment in Western Massachusetts.”

Further, the big package notes, “unlike other comparable sites, most of the costly and lengthy procedures required to prepare for redevelopment have been completed, reducing the risk and uncertainty typically associated with brownfield redevelopment.”

It is hoped that these amenities, if they can be called that, will trigger the imaginations of developers and yield some intriguing proposals, said Pouliot, adding that there are many possible uses for the buildings and the property. Housing is still a priority for the city and region, and the buildings, with some work, will lend themselves to that purpose. But there are other potential uses as well, he said, including retail, hospitality, and service businesses.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Pouliot about the long journey that Chicopee has taken to reach this critical juncture with the Uniroyal property, and what might happen next.

 

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

When asked what it was like, personally and professionally, to see the project reach this important milestone, Pouliot exhaled, glanced toward the ceiling, and then shook his head a few times.

“Housing is still a priority. I think anyone looking at the state of housing in the Commonwealth, or this country, would be foolish not to consider housing a likely piece of redevelopment here.”

The body language spoke volumes about the length and complexity of this project, which has been ongoing — in some respects, anyway — longer than he’s been alive and has involved several different mayors, planners, and Community Development directors.

“In some ways, it feels odd that we’re nearing the end because so much of our time has been focused on getting to this point,” he said. “But it’s also significant — this has been no small feat for a community of Chicopee’s size; this is a huge milestone for the city.”

Recapping the Uniroyal story quickly, Pouliot said it starts back in the late 1800s, when that the land was first used for manufacturing. From 1896 to 1898, the property was owned by Spaulding and Pepper Co., which manufactured bicycle tires. Fisk Rubber Co., which later changed its name to United States Rubber Co. and then to Uniroyal, manufactured bicycle, automobile, and truck tires and adhesives at the site from 1898 to 1981.

a shift change at the Uniroyal plant

This photograph, taken some time in the 1930s, shows a shift change at the Uniroyal plant, which employed more than 3,000 people in its heyday.

Uniroyal closed its plant in 1980 and sold the property — which stretched over 65 acres and included 23 buildings — to Facemate Corp., located adjacent to Uniroyal, in 1981.

Fast-forwarding, he said the city spent years working to acquire both the Uniroyal and Facemate property (Facemate went bankrupt in 2003), and did so in 2009, soon embarking on a massive cleanup that would cost more than $40 million and involve federal, state, and local money, while also planning work for development.

Eventually, individual parcels on the site were developed; the initial redevelopment project involved construction of the RiverMills Senior Center. Later, a private developer built River Mills Assisted Living at Chicopee Falls on a three-acre parcel. A third, four-acre parcel has been optioned to Brisa Development LLC of New York, which plans to build a mixed-use development that includes a 107-unit apartment building, an indoor sports complex, and a brewery and restaurant.

The 9.58-acre parcel that is the subject of the request for proposals is essentially the last big piece of the puzzle, said Pouliot, adding that it’s dominated by the four remaining Uniroyal buildings.

One is the administration building, or Building 26. The city has an agreement with the Massachusetts Historical Commission to try to see that structure redeveloped, he explained, adding that it is eligible for listing on the National Historic Register.

There is also a smaller building, what Pouliot called a retail shop for Fisk Rubber Co., where it sold and even installed tires, as well as two large manufacturing buildings, numbered 27 and 42, that are considered to be in “structurally decent condition,” he said.

“Instead of incurring the cost of demolition, which would have been a few million dollars more than what we were paying for cleanup, we decided to preserve them and see if there was appetite within the development community to do something with them,” he explained, adding that, if there is no appetite for taking them on, the city will look at what developers are proposing and decide the best course from there.

“We’re not going to predicate a decision on just whether or not all the buildings can be reused,” he said. “Certainly it is the city’s intention to sell the land and see something happen; this is just one of the criteria we’re looking at to see what the development community can respond with.

“There are a number of developers who would prefer raw land, but the reality with this site is that it’s not raw land,” he went on. “You could consider this an industrial archaeological site; there are going to be limitations on development regardless of whether the buildings are standing or not.”

Elaborating, Pouliot said he’s learned much about the property — and tire manufacturing — over the years, including the fact that, at some point between the two world wars (exactly when he’s not sure), the U.S. government began to oversee rubber production to make sure there would be enough tires for the war effort.

This government involvement helps explain why many of the buildings at the Uniroyal site, including Buildings 27 and 42, were built to withstand aerial bombing, he went on, adding that the structures are still sound a century or more after they were built, in some cases, which may become a factor in whether those in the development community want to try to do something with them. “Their structural capacity is incredible.”

Returning to the matter of what the city would like to see by way of development, Pouliot said priorities were spelled out in the River Mills Vision Plan, the development plan created for both the Uniroyal and Facemate properties combined.

“We were looking for redevelopment that reconnected these properties to the Chicopee Falls neighborhood and supported the neighborhood with appropriate-scale development,” he said of the overarching objective, adding that there hasn’t been any connection, other than history, for many years.

aerial shot from 2008

This aerial shot from 2008 shows the Uniroyal complex before the start of demolition of many of the buildings at that site.

This effort would ideally be a mixed-use project that can connect people with the river, he went on, adding that housing was, and still is, a need within the city.

“Housing is still a priority,” he said. “I think anyone looking at the state of housing in the Commonwealth, or this country, would be foolish not to consider housing a likely piece of redevelopment here.”

When asked for a timeline for the project, Pouliot said the city will likely take six to eight months to review the submitted proposals before eventually choosing a preferred developer. That developer will then need time to secure the various forms of financing that will be needed, he said, adding that it will likely be two to four years before work actually commences.

 

View to the Future

Returning to that project that he and a few of his classmates took on at Cornell, Pouliot said that, while creating that development plan — one that in many ways mirrored the one crafted by the city — he and the others involved worked to get a “feel for the community’s relationship with this property, its context within the city, and what they wanted to see.

“And one of the big takeaways, even for me, having grown up in this city, was just how many families had someone who worked at this property throughout history,” he went on. “So many people could tie themselves back to a sports league or working there, or the shift changes — we heard so many stories about how loud and noisy Chicopee Falls was when that plant was operating, and the volume of people.”

For the better part of 40 years now, most all talk concerning Uniroyal has been in the past tense. But if the request for proposals yields the imaginative concepts that city officials are hoping for, that will soon change — and people will start talking about what’s happening there now, not what happened a half-century or more ago.

As Pouliot noted, it’s odd in some ways to be at this point in the process. But it’s also quite rewarding. There’s plenty of work left to do, but a milestone has been reached.

 

Clocktower Building
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Creative Development Sought for Springfield Landmarks

By

Turning Back the Clock

Clocktower Building

The Clocktower Building, above, was home to Masonic Temple more than a century ago (right).

At other times in Springfield’s history, the properties at 113 State St. and 1155 Main St. were prominent players in the vibrancy, culture, and overall tenor of the City of Homes.

The former — long known, for obvious reasons, as the Clocktower Building — was home to the Masonic Temple when it opened in 1893, before a new, much larger facility was built further east on State Street. The latter, the Colonial Block, which opened in 1903, was one of the city’s first real mixed-use facilities, noted Tim Sheehan, Springfield’s chief Development officer, featuring a blend of office and retail space on the lower floors and residential units on the upper floors.

Until fairly recently, meaning before the pandemic, the two properties had still been somewhat vibrant, featuring a wide array of tenants, including nonprofits, small businesses, a bank (at 113 State St.), and a number of various-sized law firms taking advantage of the buildings’ proximity to the Hampden County Courthouse just down State Street. These days, though, they are almost entirely vacant and stand in stark contrast to the progress seen around them, most notably across Main Street at MGM Springfield and across State Street at the MassMutual Center.

City officials have been looking to change that picture, obviously, and are moving forward with a plan to return these buildings, and also 11-21 Stockbridge St., a smaller, better-occupied office property in that same area, to their former status and make them part of the city’s resurgence. After acquiring them as a package in 2021 for $2.75 million, the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA) has invited the development community to step up and submit proposals for the properties, separately or perhaps collectively.

Responses to this request for qualifications (RFQ) are due later this month — the deadline was originally late March — and Sheehan and SRA Executive Director Amanda Pham are expecting some imaginative proposals because that’s what will be needed to turn back the clock and make them key players again.

“This will require a responsive, creative developer, someone who has a vision for preservation of these buildings,” Pham said. “They have great potential.”

Sheehan and Pham are expecting proposals that will likely blend office and/or retail with a residential component, noting that what emerges for one, two, or all three properties will likely require a public-private partnership, similar to what was needed to finally move the needle and create a new use — a mix of residential and retail — for the former Court Square Hotel, just a block or so from the three properties in the RFQ.

Finding a preferred developer is a two-step process, said Pham, adding that, after responses to the request for qualifications are received and reviewed, three finalists will move on to a request for proposals.

If all goes well, a preferred developer is expected to be named by June, they said, adding that it may not be long after that when people start talking about these landmarks using mostly the present and future tenses, and not the past.

 

Building Momentum

As she gave BusinessWest a tour of 1155 Main St., Pham referenced some reminders of, well … what it once was, starting with the large directory on a wall in the lobby listing tenants and their suite numbers.

Tim Sheehan and Amanda Pham stand outside the historic structure.

Tim Sheehan and Amanda Pham stand outside the historic structure.

The board still includes the names of dozens of tenants that are no longer there — from the law firm Pellegrini Seeley, Ryan and Blakesley, which once took much of the space on the third floor before moving to the Basketball Hall of Fame complex, to Revitalize Community Development Corp., which occupied a large suite on the second floor. In fact, the 82,000-square-foot property is currently only about 12% occupied.

Later, she pointed to a large bookcase full of law books left behind by one of the departing law firms.

“We have a lot of law books,” she said, adding that, apparently, many of the departing firms located in various-sized offices on the maze-like floors had no use for the books in this age of the internet and simply left them behind.

Thus, these law volumes become part of the dialogue concerning what this property used to be, said Pham, who took the helm at the SRA in 2021, adding that, increasingly, the focus is on what they can be moving forward.

The SRA has taken the matter from the discussion phase to what could be called the discovery phase with the request for qualifications. It includes a link to a six-minute video that features comments from Pham, Sheehan, Mayor Domenic Sarno, MGM President and CEO Chris Kelley, Peter Picknelly, chairman of Peter Pan Bus Lines and a key player in the Court Square project, and others, all inviting developers to take advantage of this “Main Street and Convention District development opportunity.”

“This will require a responsive, creative developer, someone who has a vision for preservation of these buildings. They have great potential.”

Together, they talk about the progress made downtown and the progress still to come, with projects like the $74 million parking garage and event space that will replace the facility torn down last fall. They also discuss how much of this progress was the result of public-private partnerships.

“This development behind me never would have happened if not for the cooperation of City Hall and the state of Massachusetts,” said Picknelly as he stood in front of the Court Square property.

The Colonial Block

The Colonial Block was one of the first mixed-use buildings in Springfield, with retail and residential space. It may see a similar blend in the future.

A number of developers, both with local ties and from outside the region, have expressed interest in the properties, said both Sheehan and Pham, noting that the city acquired the properties to move beyond the ongoing speculative nature of previous ownership and take redevelopment to a higher plane.

“We wanted the buildings situated so their redevelopment would ultimately fit the city’s overall planning as it relates to the Main Street Convention Center District Plan,” said Sheehan, adding that this plan, in general terms, calls for building on existing momentum and creating a true destination in the downtown, a place where people can live, work, and (especially with MGM and the MassMutual Center right next door) play.

A developers’ tour conducted several weeks ago attracted several parties, many in person, but some virtually, said Pham, adding that Springfield has managed, through its recent spate of progress, to put itself on the map with regard to regional and national developers looking to expand their portfolios.

There were site tours of the properties and the surrounding area as well, she went on, adding that firms brought full teams with them, including architects, engineers, and planners, to gauge future uses for the landmarks.

Given the current glut of office space, Sheehan said, especially the class B and class C variety that these properties have featured, future redevelopment will likely not focus on that use entirely, although it could be part of the equation.

“There is an overabundance of class B and C space in the office sector, so we’re really encouraging people to look at adaptive reuse to … something else,” he noted. “Developers may want to reduce the amount of office, but not completely eliminate it, either.”

A much larger part of the equation will likely be market-rate housing and activation of the ground floors with retail and hospitality-related businesses that will give downtown visitors more things to do and more opportunities to stay, he went on.

Colonial Block

Above, the directory inside the Colonial Block is quite dated, as most of those tenants have moved out. At right, one of the unique spaces in the building.

“Our planning ultimately calls for extensive ground-floor activation,” he explained. “You have two very strong anchors, in MGM and the MassMutual Center, adjacent to these properties, and we really think there is the ability to activate the ground floors so that it encourages people who want to come to the MassMutual Center or MGM to want to linger and stay in the area.”

As for housing, Sheehan said a recent study identified the need for 1,500 units of additional housing of this type in and around downtown.

And while conversion of such properties to housing is often difficult and expensive, developers need only look a few hundred yards to the south for inspiration, to the massive Stockbridge Court apartment complex, created more than 40 years ago and perhaps the city’s best market-rate-housing success story.

“Stockbridge Court is certainly an example of what can be done,” he said, adding quickly that any residential projects in these properties will likely require a public-private partnership to not only renovate the buildings in question but improve the overall area and its connection to Main Street.

“We’ll need to enhance the infrastructure to make it a much more walkable environment — and a pleasant walkable environment — if we’re going to attract that scale of residential development in this area.”

 

Right Time and Place

Overall, there are some building blocks coming together that could make development of these properties a more attractive and more viable opportunity, said both Sheehan and Pham, noting that leasing activity will start soon at Court Square, and construction is set to commence on the new parking garage. Meanwhile, a new entrance is planned at the southwest corner of the MassMutual Center.

Meanwhile, the two leaders are looking at adaptive reuse of these properties as just part of a larger effort in the city’s downtown.

“We’re looking at these as the first step in the redevelopment of the area,” said Sheehan, noting that that there are several other vacant or underutilized spaces, including the neighboring 1260 Main St., several surface parking lots, and other properties.

As he referenced a photo of the Clocktower Building, from the days before its stone exterior was mostly stripped away — it remains in some places as a reminder of what was — Sheehan waxed nostalgic on its place in city history.

“For a long time, this building has certainly played a major role in downtown Springfield in terms of being a major corner and a huge presence,” he told BusinessWest, adding that the hope is that this property, as well as the Colonial Block — and other properties in that area — can attain that status again.

Time will tell, of course, when and how soon that happens, but this is certainly a developing story — in every sense of that phrase.

Commercial Real Estate

How Landlords, Tenants Can Navigate the Commercial Market

By Contributor

This Is Not a Fire Drill

By Brion J. Kirsch and James F. Martin

 

Remember in elementary school when they would have a planned fire drill? The alarm would go off, and students lined up in an orderly fashion and walked single file to the nearest exit and out into the schoolyard. Inside, the school was completely empty.

Brion J. Kirsch

Brion J. Kirsch

James F. Martin

James F. Martin

Obviously, the circumstances are light years apart, but that’s essentially what occurred in office buildings in March 2020. One minute, every room is filled with people working at their desks; next thing you know, the entire place is vacant.

What would always happen after the fire drill — everyone was back at their desks in about 10 minutes — didn’t happen in office buildings. It’s been almost three years. Some are never coming back.

Remote or hybrid work is here to stay, and people’s habits and expectations have changed. As a result, the commercial real-estate market is facing challenging times. In Western Mass., for example, the vacancy rate for office space is of concern to landlords along with the reality of expiring leases for downtown office space. However, the more attractive rental price per square foot of class-A office space in Western Mass. serves as a significant advantage to retaining and attracting tenants when coupled with the lower cost of living in contrast to Eastern and Central Mass.

Thus, there are some reasons for optimism, and potential options for landlords and tenants alike.

The continuing development of multi-family apartment complexes in both the cities and the suburbs is a promising sign. And with the proliferation of shopping from home and consumer subscription services, industrial properties like warehouses and fulfillment centers are in high demand.

 

Options for Tenants

For employers who now have more workspace than on-site workers, subleasing is an interesting option that can both reduce expenses and boost revenue. This requires a conversation with the landlord, but if conducted in good faith, it can be a win-win situation.

With a landlord’s consent, a majority of commercial office leases allow subleasing and partial assignments. But finding an occupant to sublease part of your space is far from the final step; legalities and practicalities abound. The documentation must be specific and thorough as there’s an extra added layer of complexity in these situations.

Taking a contractual agreement between two parties and adding a third opens up room for all sorts of unexpected conflict and misunderstandings. The language in the agreement must be crystal clear.

“With a landlord’s consent, a majority of commercial office leases allow subleasing and partial assignments. But finding an occupant to sublease part of your space is far from the final step; legalities and practicalities abound.”

The biggest concern is historic and/or prospective liability. One party’s transgression may have a direct impact on the other party, even if there is fault on only one side. Something else to consider is the construction of a demising wall for the new tenant’s subleased space. To be up to code, this new area will also need proper access, exits, and restrooms, in addition to other possible requirements, such as a kitchen or metered utilities.

Depending on the terms of the lease, there may even be an express option that simply allows for the reduction in the total area being occupied and would prevent the need to sublease.

 

Options for Landlords

There’s an opportunity now for landlords to make a long-term play by allowing tenants to make modifications to their original lease. The value in this circumstance arrives in the form of an early renewal or extension of the current lease, in exchange for allowing the tenant to sublease a portion of their space or shrink their footprint.

As many business owners have discovered in other industries, incentives are becoming a more crucial part of attracting customers or, in this case, tenants. And just because a space was previously used for one purpose, that doesn’t have to remain the case. Repurposing is an exciting and risky but sometimes necessary option.

Taking an empty office building and converting it to multi-family apartments or mixed-use commercial space is a large undertaking. But the strong demand for housing seems likely to continue, while office space continues on a more uncertain path.

While interest rates and the cost of construction materials both remain high, supply-chain issues are easing, and real-estate profits from the past decade have some property owners’ war chests well-stocked. It’s also likely that property values will begin to fall in the coming months and years.

It’s anyone’s guess how the current confusing climate of high inflation, low unemployment, rising interest rates, and massive tech layoffs will shake out in the coming years. Some say a recession is inevitable; others are optimistic one will be avoided. One thing we do know for sure is that we’re not in elementary school anymore. And this is not a drill.

 

Brion Kirsch and Jim Martin are attorneys at the law firm Pullman & Comley, which has offices in Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island, as well as Springfield. Kirsch co-chairs the firm’s real estate, energy, environmental, and land use practice and practices in both Massachusetts and Connecticut; Jim Martin is located in the firm’s Springfield office and is a recognized practitioner in the areas of commercial real estate and real-estate planning.

Evan Plotkin in the 1350 Conference Center.
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

1350 Main St. Melds Art Gallery, Event Space into Unique Facility

By

Art of the Matter

Evan Plotkin in the 1350 Conference Center.

Evan Plotkin in the 1350 Conference Center.

Evan Plotkin says he decided to call it the ‘Springfield Room.’

That’s because … most all of the paintings on the walls, courtesy of artist John Simpson and his students, depict well-known personalities who either live in the city or have strong connections to it.

It’s a diverse group that includes Herbie Flores, the long-time director of the New England Farm Workers’ Council, as well as philanthropist Lyman Wood, White Lion Brewery founder Ray Berry, and even Plotkin himself, who has become well-known for his work in recent years to being more people — and more vibrancy — to the city’s downtown.

The paintings, all of which are for sale, are just one of the selling points of this facility, part of what is now known as the 1350 Conference Center, one of Plotkin’s latest efforts to re-envision, and repurpose, the property at 1350 Main St., which he co-owns.

The center is located on the ninth floor, in space that had served as what Plotkin called “an informal art gallery and event space” that was used occasionally for fundraisers and other gatherings. It was not marketed or really open to the public, he said, adding that it has been given a facelift to bring another amenity to existing tenants, hopefully attract others, and bring new meeting space to downtown Springfield.

And Plotkin believes the timing is right for such an undertaking. After more than two years of COVID, he noted, gatherings of all sizes and types are becoming more prevalent as the region continues to move beyond the pandemic, even at a time when most meetings have at least some type of remote component.

“The artwork in here is spectacular, and combining an event space with a gallery made a whole lot of sense.”

“Most meetings are hybrid now,” he noted. “You have people who can attend the meeting live, and there’s an opportunity to bring in others via Zoom. With such formats, your meetings tend to be better-attended, but most groups are gathering in-person again.”

Plotkin acknowledged that there are several meeting spaces in the region, including others in downtown Springfield, but nothing quite like the one he has created.

Indeed, it is different because of the art, he said, but also the location, in the center of downtown, and the amenities, including state-of-the-art equipment and new furniture.

“The artwork in here is spectacular, and combining an event space with a gallery made a whole lot of sense,” he noted. “And the response I’m getting from social media and the tenants who have been up here has been very positive; people are excited about it.”

Meanwhile, the new conference center is not the only intriguing development at 1350 Main St.

Indeed, Plotkin said he has several new tenants coming in that will turn on the lights on floors that have been dark, or mostly dark, for several years.

art adorning the Springfield Room

Just some of the art adorning the Springfield Room at the 1350 Conference Center.

The long-vacant sixth floor is now home to lawyers and support staff with the Committee for Public Counsel Services. Meanwhile, the Department of Children and Families is poised to sign a lease to take the seventh and eighth floors and part of the 15th. In all, roughly 60,000 additional square feet will be under lease by the summer, he said, adding that these new additions should help bring more foot traffic to downtown businesses and help them make a full recovery from COVID.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Plotkin about the new conference center and other developments, literally and figuratively, at 1350 Main St.

 

Drawing Interest

Plotkin told BusinessWest that he recently took a prospective tenant through the building for a detailed look-see. The last stop on the tour was the re-envisioned ninth floor.

“After going through, they said, ‘where do we sign?’” he recalled, adding that the business in question stages training programs on a regular basis and needs such a facility.

A desire to solicit such responses was one of the motivating factors for renovating the space, said Plotkin, adding that, overall, he believes there is room for additional meeting and event space in the region, especially something that falls into the category of ‘different.’

The art makes it so, he said, adding that the works currently on display are mostly from Simpson, a self-described painter, sculptor, muralist, and teacher, whose works can also be found throughout downtown Springfield, on museum and office-building walls and adorning the sides of buildings as well.

But new works from various artists will be rotated in and, hopefully, sold, said Plotkin, adding that the art gives the space a unique, always-changing look.

There are three rooms in the 1350 Conference Center, he said, listing a larger room ideal for presentations and meetings of up to 200 people, and two smaller rooms, including the Springfield Room, that are designed for smaller gatherings, training sessions, team meetings, and more.

“We’re still just moving the pieces around. We need to get some net gains in the downtown, and the region as a whole.”

The space can be used for a variety of different uses, including fundraising events, annual meetings, and even holiday parties, he went on, adding that he only recently opened the space to the public — the sign outside the entrance went up late last month — and has already had a number of inquiries.

“I’m ready now to get the word out to the public and offer it to organizations across the region as another option; I think it’s going to really take off,” he said, adding that the space will be free to tenants of the building, while there will a fee charged to for-profit businesses and a lower fee to nonprofits.

He expects interest to spread through word of mouth, and noted that the space is just one of several intriguing developments at 1350 Main St.

As noted earlier, three long-vacant floors — six, seven, and eight — will have new tenants. The Committee for Public Counsel Services, which includes the Public Defender division, Children and Family Law, and the Youth Advocacy division, will bring close to 100 people to the building. Meanwhile, the Department of Children and Families will bring an additional 200 people to that address.

As they do so, they will do more than activate some long-vacant space, said Plotkin, adding that these additions should help many downtown businesses that have been impacted by the pandemic and the accompanying trend toward remote and hybrid work schedules.

“We’re bringing 320 people downtown — that should make the restaurants happy,” he said, adding that history has shown the importance of the downtown office towers — especially when vacancy rates are low — to the surrounding business community.

With these new additions, 1350 will approach 70% occupancy, said Plotkin, adding that he is exploring all options for the remaining spaces, which include the 16th and 17th floors (the ‘penthouse’), which were occupied by Disability Management Services until last June, and several retail spaces on the ground floor, including the large space last occupied by Santander Bank.

As he goes about trying to fill those spaces, he reiterated his contention that what the city — and the region — need are positive momentum when it comes to absorption, and less movement by existing businesses from building to building.

“We’re still just moving the pieces around,” he said. “We need to get some net gains in the downtown, and the region as a whole.”

 

Imaginative Stroke

Talking in general terms about Springfield, the region, and its business community, Plotkin said there is an ongoing need to be creative and do more to bring people to Springfield and its downtown.

With the new 1350 Conference Center, he believes he’s doing both.

He considers this an exciting new addition to the landscape, event space that is a work of art. Time will tell if it generates the interest he expects it will, but this is certainly shaping up to be an intriguing brush stroke as he fills in the canvas that is 1350 Main.

 

Michael Martin, left, and Nick LaPier
Commercial Real Estate

New Ownership Brings Renewed Vibrancy to West Side Property

By

Building Momentum

Michael Martin, left, and Nick LaPier

Michael Martin, left, and Nick LaPier have acquired 333 Elm St. in West Springfield and made it home to their businesses.

In many respects, Nick LaPier is back where he started. Or at least back to where he started his own accounting firm in 2003.

That would be the office building at 333 Elm St. in West Springfield.

Back then, he took a tiny office (600 square feet) on the first floor. There, with his mother, Elaine, serving as an office manager, he quickly grew his firm and eventually moved out and up.

Today, he is co-owner of the property where he first put his name on the door, along with Michael Martin, managing partner of Paladin Wealth Partners, which will soon be expanding with a second office at 333 Elm, sharing the property with LaPier Dillon & Associates (LaPier partnered with Brian Dillon several years ago); New Valley Bank, which moved in last August; and tenants that will occupy roughly 1,500 square feet of space currently being built out.

Together, they’re filling the parking lot and bringing new vibrancy to the property known to many in the community as the ‘Checkwriters Building’ (the payroll company occupied most of the property before outgrowing the space and moving to Northampton in 2021) and, before that, as the home to a dental practice — Dr. James Sady built the property in 1975 — and other tenants.

It was also home years ago to Multi Bank, where LaPier and his wife, Kathy, secured their first car loan.

So LaPier has a long history with the property, and he and Martin intend to write more chapters, starting with the relocation of their businesses to that site, thus becoming part of the revitalization of West Springfield’s downtown, a work in progress that includes the redevelopment of the former United Bank property, 95 Elm St., just a few blocks to the south; some new restaurants; and planned traffic improvements, including a rotary at the intersection of Elm Street and Route 20 (more on that later).

“The hope with this move is that, as we continue to grow, we will have the space available to accommodate that growth.”

LaPier, Dillon, and the accounting firm’s other employees finished moving in just after the new year. Meanwhile, Martin and others from Paladin Wealth Partners are set to move in later this month. While the property was acquired last summer, the two partners have invested heavily in renovating its spaces.

“We essentially gutted it and designed it from the ground to function as a full-service CPA firm,” LaPier said of his firm’s 6,500 square feet, adding that the company now has 16 employees. “We designed it to be the most efficient operation format for a CPA firm, but, at the same time, designed for 2023.”

With both LaPier, Dillon & Associates and Paladin Wealth Partners, the acquisition of 333 Elm started with the realization that they had outgrown their existing homes. For the accounting firm, that meant space roughly a mile away at 71 Park Ave., and for Paladin, space in Tower Square.

“The hope with this move is that, as we continue to grow, we will have the space available to accommodate that growth,” LaPier said.

Martin said his firm, which he launched with partner Pat Donnelly in 2018, has seen steady growth over the past several years. Having outgrown the space in Tower Square, the logical decision was made to expand with a second office.

“We have 2,500 square feet in Tower Square, and we were full,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, at the advice of his son, Ryan, who once worked in sales at Checkwriters (and now works at Paladin Wealth Partners), he took a close look at the 333 Elm St. property. Later, he would partner with LaPier, his long-time accountant, to acquire it for $1.9 million.

But there were other considerations for this acquisition beyond the need for more space.

Both LaPier and Martin were looking for real-estate investment opportunities, and when the property came on the market in 2021, they gave it a close look and decided that, in addition to a storied past, it had a solid future, given its location, parking, and other amenities.

Nick LaPier, left, and Brian Dillon

Nick LaPier, left, and Brian Dillon in their renovated space at 333 Elm St. in West Springfield.

Soon after taking ownership, they signed New Valley Bank, an emerging player in the region’s financial-services sector, to a long-term lease for what is now its third location. A solid tenant, the bank also brings potential new customers to both LaPier, Dillon & Associates and Paladin Wealth Partners, he said, as well as needed foot traffic in the city’s emerging downtown — a story both partners wanted to be part of.

“Elm Street’s a growing area; that’s another reason to invest here,” LaPier said. “There’s been positive growth on the street for the past 10 years, and it appears that the city wants to continue developing it as a business corridor; we want to be part of that story.”

West Springfield Mayor William Reichelt confirmed those aspirations. He said there has been significant progress made in making Elm Street more of a destination in recent years, especially through the redevelopment of the former United Bank Building, which is now home to several tenants, including Tandem Bagel Company, Future Health, Kindred at Home, and several others.

Having 333 Elm vibrant again, especially with service businesses that will have employees but also bring people to that location, will certainly bring more momentum to that central business district.

“Just to have more bodies in the downtown is good overall,” Reichelt said, referring to employees working at that location. “There are now more people who are going to go eat at Tandem, the Celery Stalk, or the other restaurants in the area. They’re going to bring customers and more foot traffic down here, and that’s what our downtown is going to thrive on.

“That building being vacant really hurt us — all those employees who weren’t there anymore,” he went on, adding that the property had been largely vacant for roughly two years.

The parking lot is filling back up again, a positive sign for the city and the start of another intriguing chapter in the story of a property with an already-rich business history.

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Tower Square Owners Add Neighboring 1550 Main Building

By

Building the Portfolio

 

Vid Mitta acknowledged that the emergence of remote work and its impact — still to be determined in many respects — on the region’s inventory of office space was certainly a consideration when he and business partner Dinesh Patel were deciding whether to submit a proposal for the purchase of the 1550 Main building in downtown Springfield.

But ultimately, this was just one of many considerations, he told BusinessWest, adding that the others — as well as his firm belief that business owners and managers will always see value in having people working together in one place — convinced the two serial entrepreneurs to move forward and answer the request for proposals sent by the property’s now-former owner, MassDevelopment, early last year.

Mitta and Patel eventually prevailed in the bidding to acquire the property — formerly occupied by the U.S. Federal Court and currently home to tenants ranging from Baystate Health to the Springfield School Department — for $6 million.

As he talked about its prospects for the future, Mitta focused on those other considerations that played into this decision, especially that age-old axiom when it comes to commercial real estate — location, location, location. Beyond that, though, the current tenant mix, the timeline on current leases, and the good overall condition of the building also played a factor in generating a green light.

“These properties are connected, and they are the two best buildings in Springfield’s downtown for class-A space.”

“Remote work is the main thing that comes to anyone’s mind when we talk about office spaces today,” he acknowledged. “But look at the location — this is what we were looking at, as well as the maintenance and good condition of the property. These factors led us to see this as a good investment. When vacancies arise, people have choices, and they’re going to move into the best building possible.”

Thus, another chapter has begun in what would have to be called a developing story, in every sense of that phrase. That would be the expanding portfolio of properties now owned by Mitta and Patel, either individually or collectively.

That list includes Tower Square and its recently renovated hotel, which has re-earned the Marriot flag, as well as several other hotels, 99 Restaurant & Pub locations, a Walgreens, three McDonald’s franchises, adult day-care facilities, early-education facilities, and more. These collective investments and entrepreneurial gambits earned Patel and Mitta BusinessWest’s Top Entrepreneur award just a year ago.

Mitta told BusinessWest that 1550 Main St. was a common-sense addition to the portfolio, one that gives the partners a property that is essentially full (97% occupancy), with a stable tenant base that also includes the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, regional offices for U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, the law firm Alekman DiTusa, and an attractive, well-maintained property in the heart of the central business district.

“These properties are connected, and they are the two best buildings in Springfield’s downtown for class-A space,” he said of 1550 Main and Tower Square. “With these properties, we’ll be well-positioned to attract new tenants looking for quality space.”

The property that has come to be known as 1550 Main was acquired by MassDevelopment from the federal government in 2009. At that time, it was roughly 70% occupied, said a spokesperson for MassDevelopment, adding that, after achieving all its stated goals for the property, the agency decided to put the property up for sale through a disposition process to allow it to refocus its efforts on other projects.

Dinesh Patel, left, and Vid Mitta

Dinesh Patel, left, and Vid Mitta, who together orchestrated a stunning turnaround at Tower Square, believe 1550 Main St. is a logical addition to their growing portfolio of commercial real-estate properties.

That includes an initiative in Greenfield, where MassDevelopment is partnering with the city and the Community Builders in the acquisition and redevelopment of the former Wilson’s Department Store property in the heart of the community’s downtown. The redevelopment will create roughly 65 mixed-income rental units and reactivate prominent first-floor and basement retail spaces through the relocation and expansion of Franklin Community Co-ops’s Greenfield store, Green Fields Market.

Referencing 1550 Main, MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera said, “working with tenants, partners, and the city of Springfield over the years allowed us to cultivate this property to its best and highest use. This type of focused teamwork is how long-lasting redevelopment takes root. It is what makes converting an old federal courthouse into a stunning multi-tenant office building possible.”

The property went on the market in the spring of 2022, and the request for proposals issued by MassDevelopment attracted a number of bids.

Moving forward, Mitta said several of the leases of current tenants will be expiring over the next several years. He expressed optimism for renewals, but also for new tenants looking to take advantage of the property’s location and other amenities.

“Tenancy is not a permanent thing — tenants come and go; we know that,” he said. “Some leases are going to expire over the next few years, but we know how to market, and we have a very strong team here.”

“Even those working at home still go to the office — businesses prefer the hybrid model. They need a place where people can collaborate, meet, greet, that kind of thing. That need is still there, and I don’t know if it will ever go.”

Elaborating, he said this team is hoping to attract some current occupants of class-B space to properties that are not much more expensive but bring a number of amenities that class-B properties do not, including parking garages, lighting safety, and that aforementioned location in the heart of downtown.

The property at 1550 Main differs from its neighbor, Tower Square, to which it is connected by a skybridge, in many respects, said Mitta. He noted that Tower Square required significant investment and “re-imagining,” a word he and Patel use often, such as with new tenants that include the YMCA of Greater Springfield. The newer 1550 Main will not require much of either, he said, which is another of those considerations that prompted interest in the building.

As for the trend toward remote work and hybrid work schedules, Mitta acknowledged that there is likely permanence attached to these trends, but, ultimately, he anticipates that there will still be strong demand for office space, especially in the class-A category.

“Even those working at home still go to the office — businesses prefer the hybrid model,” he explained. “They need a place where people can collaborate, meet, greet, that kind of thing. That need is still there, and I don’t know if it will ever go.”

For evidence of this, Mitta points to Tower Square, where he acknowledged that the number of people in the office tower on any given day may be lower than it was prior to the pandemic. But overall, space needs have not changed to a great degree, and new leases continue to be signed.

“Overall, rent is a comparatively small item on the P&L statement,” he said, adding that, for this reason, he has seen few if any tenants at Tower Square downsizing.

Business Management Commercial Real Estate Daily News News Real Estate

MassDevelopment Sells 1550 Main to Mittas Holdings and DGP Properties

By Ryan Leary

SPRINGFIELD — After 13 years of ownership, MassDevelopment announced it has sold 1550 Main in Springfield to Mittas Holdings, LLC and DGP Properties, LLC, owned by Vidhyadhar “Vid” Mitta and Dinesh Patel, respectively. 1550 Main is a 130,000-square-foot building with a highly visible public plaza and 103 parking spaces below grade, with physical connections via skywalks to adjacent garages.

“Revitalizing underused commercial properties helps bring additional jobs, foot traffic, energy, and economic growth to a neighborhood,” said Housing and Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealy, who chairs MassDevelopment’s board of directors. “MassDevelopment’s stewardship of 1550 Main has sparked new life in a prominent building in downtown Springfield and demonstrated the value of investing in and modernizing properties to meet the needs of communities today.”

MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera added that “working with tenants, partners, and the city of Springfield over the years allowed us to cultivate this property to its best and highest use. This type of focused teamwork is how long-lasting redevelopment takes root. It is what makes converting an old federal courthouse into a stunning multi-tenant office building possible.”

In 2009, MassDevelopment purchased 1550 Main from the federal government. On arrival, the property was 70% occupied and in need of significant upgrades. After exceeding all goals, including reaching a current occupancy level of 98%, MassDevelopment put the property up for sale to the CRE market through a disposition process to allow the agency to refocus its investment efforts elsewhere. Current 1550 Main tenants include the Springfield School Department, Baystate Health, the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and regional offices for U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. The new ownership group will assume all existing lease agreements.

“I want to thank MassDevelopment President and CEO Dan Rivera and his dedicated team for their continued belief and investment in our Springfield,” Mayor Domenic Sarno said. “The property at 1550 Main Street is a key piece to the economic stability of our downtown. Dinesh Patel, Vidhyadhar Mitta, and their team have a proven track record of property ownership, management, investment, and economic development, as they are also the owners of our Springfield Tower Square property at 1500 Main Street since 2018, and oversaw the grand reopening of our iconic Marriott Springfield Downtown Hotel. All of this makes them the ideal owners to continue the advancement and oversight of this important and vital economic-development property. I have the full confidence that they will continue to enhance our downtown Springfield footprint while providing the same quality of investment and management to the existing tenants of 1550 Main Street, including our Springfield School Department.”

Said Mitta, “I thank all public officials and local communities for supporting us to make such investments in Springfield. We will continue to do our best to match MassDevelopment’s role.”

Added Patel, “I am very excited to continue the fantastic job done by the MassDevelopment team. As a local real-estate developer, I also greatly appreciate Mayor Sarno’s support and trust in continuing the success at 1550 Main.”

Lambson Building
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Project is Transforming Westfield’s Historic Lambson Building

By

Furnishing the Future

 

Lambson Building

Lambson Building

Gene Borowski has a keen sense of history.

So he was especially intrigued by an old hydraulic elevator in the former Lambson Furniture building in downtown Westfield, which was manufactured at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the late 1800s and installed in the furniture business around 1896.

It was still operable, he said, but its cable shutoff system no longer meets modern building codes. So now, on the first floor of the building sits an array of 21st-century elevator parts, ready to be assembled — though Borowski still plans to use the original carriage in the new, modern shaft.

“It was one of the first hydraulic-powered elevators of its time,” said Phil Peake, one of Borowski’s co-investors on a project to rehabilitate the building. “And it actually worked.”

The development project known as Lambson Square includes both the four-story Lambson building at 89 Elm St. and the connected two-story building at 81-83 Elm St., which most recently housed Bentley Billiards, as well as a 15-space parking area in the rear.

“It’s quite a project. The goal is to take this business and turn it into some kind of resource for the town.”

Borowski bought the building in 2019 for $275,000, and has accessed $350,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) funds to painstakingly restore — as in brick by brick — the building’s Italianite exterior. Another award of $585,000 targeting underutilized properties in the downtown district will finish bringing the building up to code, including restrooms, handicapped access, and more.

“It’s quite a project,” said Peake, who is also a psychology professor at Smith College. “The goal is to take this business and turn it into some kind of resource for the town.”

Borowski plans to use the first floor of both buildings for restaurants, bars, and music and entertainment space. Among the items he’s secured are a chandelier from the old Union Station in Northampton and all the kitchen and furniture from the Sierra Grill restaurant in Northampton, which closed a few years ago. He also plans to turn a small roof off the second floor of 81-83 Elm into a courtyard and perhaps café space.

The second floor of 89 Elm will house small businesses and vendors and perhaps co-working space, while the third and fourth floors will feature a mix of residential units: two-bedroom, one-bedroom, and studio. Tenants will enjoy touches like the original, restored window trim and the original glass panes, all given a modern insulation seal — just one example of how “we’re trying to take this old building and bring it into this century,” Peake said.

Gene Borowski (left) and Phil Peake

Gene Borowski (left) and Phil Peake stand in one of the future living units in the Lambson building.

Borowski wants to rent the residential units for less than a typical rent in the district, as low as $900 a month, compared to a nearby building that was renting for $1,600 recently. The idea is to make the property as attractive as possible to residents, businesses, and hospitality entities alike as part of a revitalization of that stretch of Elm Street, across from the Olver Transit Pavilion and a plot of land the city plans to turn into an outdoor performance space.

“It is the intention of Lambson Square Properties to develop the shell of a building that was formerly the Lambson Furniture building into a vibrant, multi-use hub in a manner that we believe will catalyze the entire Elm Street business district,” Borowski and his partners wrote in their initial funding request from the city’s Community Preservation Commission.

“At present, there is limited foot traffic at Elm and Thomas streets in part due to the lack of compelling retail (and housing) options in the area,” they went on. “We believe the development Lambson Square will inspire redevelopment and spur occupancy rates throughout the Elm Street business district by re-establishing the Lambson Furniture building as a focal point for both attractive retail options and community housing.”

 

Historical Undertaking

Peake prepared a lengthy history of the Lambson property, which we’ll condense as much as possible.

The Lambson Furniture building was built at the corner of Elm and Thomas streets on a parcel of land that Clinton Lambson acquired from Reuben Noble, one of Westfield’s prominent early landowners and benefactor of what is now the Baystate Noble Hospital. Lambson had established the furniture company in 1860, began construction of the building in 1868, and occupied it for business in 1869.

In its early years, the building was the site of furniture manufacturing, and many would-be furniture makers traveled to Westfield to apprentice with Lambson and his partner, William Whitney. Over the years, the furnishings side of the business focused on the manufacture and sale of home-related items like baby carriages, bedding, and desk and parlor sets, all displayed on the expansive first-floor showroom of the building.

Also manufactured in the building were caskets, as Lambson also ran an undertaking business in the building. Historical records suggest that both the furniture and undertaking businesses were flourishing and highly competitive enterprises as industry — especially the whip industry — infiltrated Westfield in the late 1800s. The Lambson Furniture building continued to house the undertaking business until 1944.

second floor of the property

The second floor of the property is being envisioned as spaces for small businesses and/or co-working space.

“Back in those days, the furniture makers were also the undertakers. He also owned a piece of the cemetery,” Peake told BusinessWest. “He was a real entrepreneur.”

Around 1896, Lambson installed the hydraulic elevator, likely one of the first in operation in Massachusetts, and the first and only hydraulic elevator designed and manufactured at the Washburn Shops at WPI. The elevator was in continuous use until 1998.

Around 1910, a two-and-a-half-story warehouse was added to the rear of the building, probably serving as a shipping and storage facility for furniture that was shipped to the company. Finally, in 1924, a fourth story was added to the building.

After the furniture company closed in 2002, the building was purchased in 2004 by Brian Whitely, who operated Bentley Billiards on the first floor of the Lambson Building and the first and second floors of the adjoining building until it closed in 2007. During the 12 years that the property was unoccupied, Whitely upgraded many of the mechanical components of the main building.

In 2011, the city of Westfield purchased the rear warehouse, which had by then gone into disrepair, in an effort to develop increased public parking to support business in the Elm Street business district. Unfortunately, the demolition of the warehouse left the back wall of the main building physically scarred, while former egress points for the two buildings were eliminated, rendering the upper floors of the main building in code violation for occupancy. The access doorways were covered with plywood, and much of the brickwork on the rear of the building was damaged. In addition, both corners of the building suffered considerable damage. Finally, demolition of the rear warehouse removed the only directly accessible restroom facilities for the Lambson building.

“We are excited and already exploring design options that would allow us to use the space to support live music and arts events that are currently being initiated by other businesses in the Elm Street district.”

That exterior damage was repaired — and the aesthetics improved — with the help of that initial $350,000 grant, as well as investments by the Lambson Square Properties team. Besides Borowski, principal owner of Beyond Building Inc., and Peake, that team includes Eugene Borowski Sr., principal owner of Borowski Accounting Inc., and Tristram Metcalfe III, principal owner of Metcalfe Associates Architecture. Joining the Lambson Square Properties team for this project is Sidney Hubbell, construction manager with Jacobs Engineering Group.

Beyond the interior work, Borowski and the team see potential in developing the open space behind the building into a small public-park-like area that might be covered and provide public access to bench seating and perhaps some fixed-in-place board games.

One of the current tasks is modernizing the original, 126-year-old hydraulic elevator.

One of the current tasks is modernizing the original, 126-year-old hydraulic elevator.

“We see the back wall of the building as the least historically significant portion of the building, yet the part of the building that cries out most for creative planning and use,” the CPA funding application notes. “We are excited and already exploring design options that would allow us to use the space to support live music and arts events that are currently being initiated by other businesses in the Elm Street district.”

 

Spring Ahead

Before the pandemic, Borowski said, he had two restaurants lined up as first-floor tenants, but those plans later fell apart. He’s confident others will emerge, but at first, he might hire a general manager and open up a restaurant himself. “I know we would do well, and the city’s dying for some entertainment and good food.”

Meanwhile, professors from Westfield State University have visited, and ideas kicked around include a science museum or another educational project.

At any rate, if completion of the interior goes as planned, Borowski is looking at tenants moving in by the spring. “The sprinkler, electrical, water, sewer, all the infrastructure is done, and I can tell you, that’s the hardest thing.”

Borowski paused for a moment late in his tour of the buildings with BusinessWest and tried to capture what initially drew him to this investment.

“My father and I looked at this as a righteous project,” he said. “This is a Westfield jewel here. This is part of the community. I feel like we’re not the owners of this property; we’re simply the caretakers. And I am privileged to take care of it, to be able to do a project that means something, you know? There’s just something here.”

And soon, there will be much more.

 

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Willow State Building
Commercial Real Estate

SR Commercial Realty Is Finding Its Place in the Market

By

Making Some Noise

Jeremy Casey, managing partner of SR Commercial Realty

Jeremy Casey, managing partner of SR Commercial Realty

Jeremy Casey had decided it was time to move on from the banking business.

He had already been with several area institutions, working in commercial lending and, to a large degree, commercial real estate, and was seeing the industry change — and consolidate — around him.

He was with Chicopee Savings Bank and doing well there, but could see the handwriting on the wall in the form of a seemingly inevitable merger with Westfield Bank, one of his former employers.

“I didn’t want to be one of those people who jumped from bank to bank and to higher positions in those banks and then to another bank,” he said, adding that he had decided it was time to think about a change.

It would come first with some entrepreneurial undertakings, including an ill-fated venture called Name Net Worth, an app that would essentially measure what he called the ‘ripple effect’ from networking encounters. When that initiative failed, he took a big leap into commercial real estate and a managing-partner position with Springfield-based SR Commercial Realty, a company soon to mark five years in business.

It’s a growing, evolving venture that is making some noise in the market — figuratively but also quite literally. Indeed, Casey said that one trait that separates this company from other players in the market is its progressive and aggressive — some would say loud — marketing of properties.

“We’re noisy — you can’t get away from us,” he explained with a laugh, noting that the company has used large signs (the largest allowed by local ordinances), drone footage, videos, and other methods for bringing attention to properties in the portfolio, which is dominated mostly by industrial properties, retail, and land for development.

Many companies are using some of these tactics now, but Casey says SR Commercial Realty was breaking ground with such methods several years ago.

“Some brokers were actually mocking us at the time, but now, it’s the standard five years later,” he said, adding quickly that ‘noisy’ marketing is only one of three pillars that shape the company’s operating style. The others are communication and responsiveness, traits that have helped SR consistently build on its portfolio and add properties ranging from Thornes Market in Northampton to the former Channing Beete complex in Deerfield, sold to Treehouse Brewery; from the former Berkshire Industries property in Westfield to several properties in downtown Springfield and also downtown Hartford.

“Commercial real estate has been the same forever, but it will change, whether people like it or not. Technology will pay a huge role, and that gives us a good competitive advantage, because we’ve already been using it.”

Each of these properties is in some way unique, and they have been handled differently, he said, adding that this is one of the linchpins of the company’s operating philosophy.

“In commercial real estate, no building is the same, and no buyer is the same,” adding that this reality separates this sector from residential real estate to a large degree. “Residential is so black and white; with commercial, there’s very black and white and so much gray.”

Moving forward, Casey said the goal is to obviously continue to build the portfolio and expand the company’s reach — it has already added properties in the Boston area and on Cape Cod — while also being on the cutting edge of changes coming to the industry, not just in how properties are marketed, but to how business is done in general.

These are changes he believes are needed — and also inevitable.

“The industry needs to be disrupted,” he said. “Commercial real estate has been the same forever, but it will change, whether people like it or not. Technology will pay a huge role, and that gives us a good competitive advantage, because we’ve already been using it.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked at length with Casey, one of its 40 Under Forty honorees from his days in banking, about SR Commercial Realty and where he hopes to take this company in the years to come.

 

Building Momentum

The wall behind the desk in Casey’s office features a treatment depicting several of the landmark buildings in downtown Springfield — Tower Square, Monarch Place, the Colonial Block, the Campanielle, among others.

It’s one of the countless touches in the Willow State Building (so-called because it sits at the corner of Willow and State streets in downtown Springfield), which he co-owns with a few partners, that he did himself.

In fact, the partners did just about everything themselves, he went on, pointing to everything from the red, black, gray, and a little bit of green paint used on the walls in the SR Commercial Realty offices to the bathroom fixtures in all the suites; from the exterior façade (more black) to build-out for several new tenants, which range from Suit Up Springfield to HomeCare Hands to a new restaurant in the early stages of construction.

“We’ve put thousands of hours into this property — we’ve been working on it for three years straight,” he said, adding that he and his partners have succeeded in creating what he called a “community.”

Willow State Building

Renovating and securing new tenants for the Willow State Building has been one of Jeremy Casey’s passions. Growing SR Commercial Realty and expanding its portfolio and geographic reach has been another.

The Willow State Building has been a passion for Casey since he and his partners acquired it just prior to the start of the pandemic — or, more accurately, one of his passions, with SR Commercial Realty being the other.

Both have been works in progress and studies in entrepreneurship, resourcefulness, and well, different ways of doing things.

In many respects, anyway.

Indeed, Casey said the fundamentals of the commercial real-estate business, mostly the same as they are in banking, have not changed and won’t change.

Both sectors are grounded in relationship building and responding to the needs of customers, he explained, noting that he has taken these principles from his time in banking to this next chapter in his career.

This chapter started just after the demise of Name Net Worth, a very difficult time in Casey’s life, one when he looked inward and decided to move forward rather than look back or dwell on the present.

“I could have sat there and pouted and gone ‘poor me’ … it was a tough time, I had a newborn baby, we just bought a house, and we were gutting the house and redoing it, and I had no job, nothing,” he recalled, adding that he called his eventual business partner, who already had a small commercial real-estate business, and proposed a new venture.

“I linked up with him, and we took the same methodologies we used in the startup world and took them to commercial real estate,” he explained. “Specifically, that means listening to customers, not just coming up with what we think, but listening to where the pain points are in the industry.

“And, candidly, there were a lot of them,” he went on, adding that the company was founded with that focus on marketing, communication, and responsiveness.

With marketing, as he said earlier, the goal was to push the envelope and look for new, different, and more effective ways to do things.

“The way things were marketed before, you put a sign up, and you put the property on LoopNet or maybe that book you see in the convenience store,” he explained. “No one was using social media, no one was using video, no one was using professional photography.”

Partnering with Seven Roads Media (so named because it was based in East Longmeadow, where seven roads come together at that famous rotary), which is now a tenant in the Willow State Building, SR Commercial Realty worked to take commercial real-estate marketing to the proverbial next level with video and other strategies, including large signs.

“The largest sign we did was nine by 18 feet, and we did two of them — they were so large, they needed wind slits,” said Casey, referring to a property in Middletown, Conn. “We’ve painted buildings to bring attention to them … we try to get as much exposure as possible.”

This is what Casey meant by ‘noisy,’ which he believes is just one of the company’s attributes as it works to expand its portfolio and grow market share.

Others include the staff itself. It is young, with the average age of the brokers being in the 30s, and diverse, with brokers coming from different backgrounds in business, he said, adding that these various attributes are beneficial in this market and many others where demographics are changing.

“Not one person in this company had commercial real-estate brokerage experience prior to joining,” he said, adding that the different work experiences have brought fresh perspectives on how to do things.

Also beneficial, he said, is the high level of involvement, and communication, with clients, that has been the company’s MO.

“A broker is, by definition, someone who introduces two parties to consumate a relationship of a deal,” Casey explained. “But we’re very involved … the staff that we have here act like paralegals, so our deals don’t fall apart. We like to say that we provide a hands-on, white-glove experience with transaction coordination and transaction management; we work with clients so they truly get the experience they want.”

 

Signs of the Times

Like the lobbies of most all commercial-real estate firms, the one at SR boasts photos of properties it handles or has handled.

Casey pointed to framed aerial images of Thornes Marketplace, a section of downtown Hartford, and the Channing Beete property in Deerfield, before it was transformed by Treehouse.

The goal moving forward, obviously, is to build on this collection and fill more walls with pictures.

This can be done by focusing on the proverbial big picture, he went on, referring, again, to the company’s focus on listening to customers, hearing what they’re saying, and responding accordingly.

By continuing to do that, this growing company can make even more noise in this highly competitive industry.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate

Former Wilson’s Site to House 65 Apartments, Food Market

By Kailey Houle

Remaking History

The Franklin Community Co-op (FCC) announced on Nov. 16 that the former Wilson’s Department Store will be home to 65 mixed-income rental units and an expansion of the Green Field Market food store on the first floor and in the basement, under a plan announced last week by the city of Greenfield, MassDevelopment, and the Community Builders (TCB).

Mayor Roxann Wedegartner said that housing and maintaining a strong retail presence on Main Street have always been among her top goals since she took office.

The residential redevelopment of the historic property will be financed in part by a combination of federal and state low-income housing tax credits, new-market tax credits, and historic tax credits, pending approvals from relevant state agencies.

The city of Greenfield is also investing $300,000 in funds that must be used to create affordable housing. Wedegartner said the money comes from the city’s sale of the lease on another downtown housing development, the Mill House Apartments.

“Mixed-use buildings featuring housing and retail are a main ingredient for creating vibrant, walkable downtown neighborhoods.”

“Mixed-use buildings featuring housing and retail are a main ingredient for creating vibrant, walkable downtown neighborhoods,” added Housing and Economic Development Secretary Mike Kennealy, who serves as chair of MassDevelopment’s board of directors, in a news release.

The new placement of the retail store allows for new, full-service bakery, deli, meat, and seafood departments, as well as a large, on-site community room for public use and reservations for community gatherings, workshops, and events.

The co-op supports more than 220 local suppliers, including 40 local farms, producing $2.6 million in local sales in 2021 with two locations: Green Fields in Greenfield and McCusker’s Market in Shelburne Falls.

The 65 mixed-income rental homes for families will be one-, two- and three-bedroom units with a blend of workforce and income-adjusted units. Residents will be close not only to the co-op’s grocery store, but to healthcare, a pharmacy, the YMCA, the public library, and open green space.

“In addition to creating much-needed, high-quality housing in Greenfield, relocating and expanding Green Fields Market will provide the community with access to healthy food in an area of Greenfield currently without a full-service grocery store,” said Rachana Crowley, director of Real Estate Development at TCB. “We’re proud to be a part of this team which will create new housing, employment opportunities, and invest in a strong and robust Main Street in Greenfield.”

Wilson’s had long been an anchor downtown. The historical Wilson’s building was built in 1882 and was one of the last independent, family-owned department stores in the country before closing in January 2020. The building had supported businesses for 137 years before the closure.

“We’re thrilled we’ll remain a downtown anchor business,” said KC Ceccarossi, Franklin County Co-op board vice president. “We’ve been here for the last three decades, and it’s a critical part of our identity. We see this as such an important moment for the city. There aren’t a lot of towns that can boast a community-owned, full-service grocery store on Main Street.”

Owners of three businesses currently leasing space in the building were informed on Nov. 16 of the sale and told they needed to vacate by next spring, creating mixed emotions.

Kelly Archer, who has owned Lucky Bird on Main Street for five years, said she wasn’t sure yet what her next move was. “My time here has been awesome,” she said, but added that she needed time to process the information she’d been given earlier in the day.

Wedegartner said that the city and its partners will work with the businesses through the transition.

“We want them to stay in Greenfield,” the mayor said. “All of them — they’re all really important to downtown Greenfield. I’m hoping we will find each and every one of them the spot they want on Main Street to continue the business that they have.”

MJ Adams. Greenfield’s director of Community and Economic Development, said she was glad that, after a year of working out the details, the city was able to reveal the partnership, adding that “it’s going to be transformational to our downtown.”

Construction on the co-op is expected in 2023 and 2024, and the residential construction by 2025 and 2026.

 

Kailey Houle can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate

Holyoke to Launch ‘Permanent Pop-up’ Featuring Local Works

By

Art of the City

As part of transformative development initiatives and rapid-recovery tourism efforts to attract more visitors to downtown, the city of Holyoke, in collaboration with the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce and Print Shop Inc., will open the Artery, an art store and gallery at 289 High St., this month. It will run throughout 2023 and feature original and remade works crafted by a diverse array of regional talent. A grand-opening event is planned for Friday, Oct. 14.

“We are excited to see this project coming together,” said Aaron Vega, director of the Office and Planning Economic Development. “Our focus on tourism is supporting the economic development and future of the city. We are excited to invite people to visit the Artery and see for themselves the exciting things happening downtown.”

The Artery will be an assorted marketplace curating an eclectic mix of original and remade works of art and artisan products from creative makers from Holyoke and Western Mass. Shoppers will find unique, handcrafted, upcycled, and refinished pieces across a wide variety of disciplines and range of prices, including one-of-a-kind paintings and sculpture. The space will regularly feature local and visiting artists, hold openings and community events, and offer programming, workshops, and activities. Also functioning as an ad hoc tourism office, the Artery will promote and direct patrons to the other stores, galleries, studios, restaurants, and interesting spaces that can be visited while in the area.

The Artery will be adjacent to Cravo, a bustling restaurant, food truck, and catering business known for its fresh approach to hybrid cuisine. Owner and Head Chef Nicole Ortiz is excited to have a new neighbor, saying, “we’re elated to have this new art and culture hub right next door to our brick and mortar. This is something that downtown Holyoke has desperately needed for so long. We look forward to partnering with the space in any way possible.”

This project has been initially funded by a Massachusetts Regional Economic Development Organization grant managed by the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council. Organizers continue to seek additional grant funding and sponsorships for startup and operating expenses. Working with Arrow Properties Inc., organizers have secured the location for six months with plans to renew as earned revenue and additional funding allows.

The Artery will be managed by Print Shop Inc., a Holyoke nonprofit running the DIY makerspace and classroom at 62 Main St. As the city’s former Creative Economy Industries coordinator, Print Shop Executive Director Jeffrey Bianchine has layers of experience popping up vendor fairs and retail storefronts in downtown Holyoke since 2013. Many of the maker members producing some of their work at the Print Shop will be featured in the Artery. The nonprofit has also incorporated into its mission an involvement with civic event organizing, placemaking, and tactical urbanism activities to spur transformative development.

“We are thrilled to be helping with this. Arrow Properties has been great getting the space ready, and there is plenty of time to get the word out there for the holidays this year,” said Bianchine, citing the rushed and short nature of pop-ups in the past. “I am looking forward to making this one stick.”

Anyone interested in selling their work at the Artery may visit www.holyokeart.com and register their work, or email [email protected] with any questions.

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Law Firm Will Write the Next Chapter in History of the Alexander House

By

A Landmark Decision

The historic Alexander House

The historic Alexander House

Amy Royal first started taking notice of the Alexander House in Springfield when she was a high-school student at nearby MacDuffie, and soon became taken in by its beauty, 200 years of history, and place in the city. Later, she started viewing the property in a different light — as a potential home for her growing law firm. Earlier this year, that dream came true.

Amy Royal says she’s long had an affection for the historic Alexander House in Springfield.

She first took hard notice of it when she was in high school at MacDuffie, located a mile or so away from the home’s former location on State Street. Back then, she recalled, it was a beautiful home with a lot of history, and she’s always had a fondness for structures that fit that description and now lives in a home that is nearly 250 years old.

Later, after beginning her career as an employment-law attorney and eventually starting her own firm, she started looking at the 6,000-square-foot home, built in 1811, in a much different light — as a place to locate her business.

Amy Royal, seen at the grand staircase of the historic Alexander House, has long had her eye on the landmark as a home for her business.

“I’ve always really, really loved the building,” she told BusinessWest. “Everything about it — the design, its place in the city’s history … it’s magnificent.”

These thoughts only intensified after the Alexander House was moved from its long-time location around the corner to Eliot Street to make way for the new federal courthouse in Springfield that eventually opened its doors in late 2008. Royal had business in the courthouse, and eventually found parking a few hundred yards down Eliot Street, necessitating a walk past the Alexander House.

“At that point in time, it was beautiful, but you could tell that it needed a lot of help — even though it had been moved by the federal government, it needed a lot of love,” she recalled. “I remember thinking ‘I wish I could buy that building; I wonder if that building is for sale?’”

Today, Royal is living the dream, literally — the one about moving her growing business, the Royal Law Firm, into the Alexander House’s 14 rooms, and the basement as well.

She’s needed a new home almost from the day she moved into her now-former home, leased space in the large office building at 819 Worcester St. in Indian Orchard. She looked at both options, leasing and owning, and decided that the latter made far more sense.

But owning the Alexander House? Like she said, this was a long-held dream come true.

“I’ve always really, really loved the building. Everything about it — the design, its place in the city’s history … it’s magnificent.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Royal about how her affection for this historic home became a quest — and eventually a dream realized. We also got a tour, one that quickly revealed why this landmark has been a career-long pursuit for Royal.

 

At Home with the Idea

Royal said she’s looking forward to being able to walk to the federal courthouse when she has business there, especially when she considers the large amounts of paperwork she traditionally brings with her when she’s in court.

Which … isn’t very often at all, she told BusinessWest.

One of the 14 rooms at the Alexander House

One of the 14 rooms at the Alexander House has become home to the Royal Law Firm’s main conference room.

“We’re civil litigators … if I don’t see the inside of a courthouse in a year, that’s not unusual,” she said, adding that location, location, location, the driving force in many decisions concerning real estate, was only a minor factor in this case. It was the property that drove this decision.

Since launching her own law firm, Royal has had lengthy drives to that federal courthouse. After starting in a small office on Center Street in Northampton, she relocated to larger quarters on Pleasant Street, and remained there until moving her headquarters office — she has satellite locations in several other cities — to a suite of offices in the building on Worcester Street in March 2020, just after the pandemic found its way to Western Mass.

She wasn’t expecting to be looking for a new home so quickly, but rapid growth — traditionally put in the ‘good problem to have’ category, although it does present challenges — made a change necessary.

“I knew we were outgrowing our space where we were — I just didn’t expect to outgrow it as quickly as we did,” she explained. “I just casually started looking for something.”

In a nice twist of fate, this casual search coincided with the Alexander House being put on the market in June 2021, signaling the start of a new chapter for a home that had seen plenty of history and had become historic in its own right.

Designed by the prominent architect Asher Benjamin and built by noted builder Simon Sanborn, the Greek revival home draws its name from its fourth owner, Henry Alexander Jr., a mayor of Springfield who acquired the property in 1958. But it has another, less-known known name, the Miss Amy House, derived from Alexander’s daughter, Amy, who lived in the house for many years and was quite active in the community on a number of philanthropic fronts.

Rooms at the Alexander House have been converted into a small conference room and lawyers’ offices.

The home has had a relatively small number of owners over the years, said Royal, who has come to know the history of the property — she learned in high school that one of the dorms there was designed to reflect the Alexander House — and is always seeking to learn more about it.

When a search was commenced for a home for a new federal courthouse at the start of this century, those involved, and especially U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, became determined to find a location on State Street, long the cultural and historic thoroughfare in the city and home to several schools, churches, and government buildings.

The property on which the Alexander House stood became the preferred location, and to make it happen, a short but complicated — because of the size, age, and condition of the home — move had to undertaken, one that was well-chronicled and captured the attention of the city.

After the move, the home became to several small businesses, including an architect and an attorney, but much of it was unoccupied. As noted, it came on the market in the summer of 2021, and soon after, Royal commenced her pursuit of the home.

Because of that aforementioned move, the home now has a new foundation, one of many features that caught her eye when she toured the property after it went on the market.

“The foundation they put in is incredible — there must be 10-foot ceilings there,” she told BusinessWest, adding that her firm will use that space as a filing center but may eventually build it out.

“I’ve always really, really loved the building. Everything about it — the design, its place in the city’s history … it’s magnificent.”

But there was so much more, obviously.

“I thought it was magnificent — the spiral staircase alone just stood out to me,” she recalled. “But every facet of the architecture — the crown molding, the ornate craftsmanship in all of the trim work, the grand ceilings, the chandeliers, the fireplaces … to me, it just spoke of having a law-firm practice inside; it’s a magnificent place to have a law firm.”

Royal said she heard anecdotally that there were a number of other suitors for the Alexander House when it came on the market. She believes she prevailed because her passion for the property quickly became evident, and she convinced then-owner Thomas Schoeper that she would be a good custodian of the landmark.

“He really wanted someone who would be a good steward of the property and really cared about its history and character and the integrity of the building itself,” she noted. “I spent a lot of time talking with him about all that.”

Royal closed in February of this year and has spent the past several months giving the property that ‘love’ she said it needed. Improvements have included a new HVAC system, an alarm system, remodeling the kitchen, installing IT wiring throughout, and painting many of the rooms, she said, noting that the property is subject to historic covenants and monitored by Historic New England, and also subject to an annual inspection and historic preservation.

The firm moved in a few weeks ago and is still settling in, Royal said, adding that, with a property of this vintage, there will always be work to do.

“That’s going to be a never-ending project,” she said. “That’s the way it is with historic buildings.”

Meanwhile, her new mailing address is everything she hoped it could be and would be when she first started thinking about it as a future home all those years ago.

“Everyone here just loves it — it’s a great place to work,” she said.

 

Right Place, Right Time

Noting the continued growth of her law firm, Royal was asked if the Alexander House provides the requisite space for additional team members.

She said it did, but in a more emphatic voice, she noted that she would not be moving again — soon or probably ever.

“We may grow in other regions — that’s the plan — but this will be our headquarters building,” she said. “This is home.”

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

An architect’s rendering of the planned new Big Y market in Tower Square.
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Big Y’s Downtown Springfield Project Is a Different Kind of Venture

By

Urban Pioneers

Colin D’Amour says the planned downtown store is unlike anything Big Y has created before

Colin D’Amour says the planned downtown store is unlike anything Big Y has created before and is, in many respects, a pioneering endeavor.

 

Big Y Foods will soon begin the process of transforming the former CVS location in Tower Square into its latest market. The chain has been operating for nearly 80 years now and has expanded its footprint well beyond its roots at that now-famous intersection in Chicopee where the converging roads formed a ‘Y.’ But this venture is something completely different in terms of scale — and just about everything else.

 

In many respects, the new store that Big Y is planning for the space in Tower Square formerly occupied by CVS constitutes pioneering — for the company and the city.

Indeed, what is proposed, a scaled-down version of a Big Y supermarket in an urban setting — the heart of downtown Springfield — hasn’t been tried before, as far as anyone knows. And it certainly hasn’t been tried by Big Y, the chain of supermarkets started by brothers Paul and Gerry D’Amour in 1936.

“To the outside observer, they see us operating supermarkets and say, ‘this is just a smaller format,’” said Colin D’Amour, senior director of Big Y Express and point person on this project. “But it’s really a completely new venture for us, everything from distribution to operations to trucking … we’ve never operated a downtown, urban-format market before, so there are a whole lot of unknowns for us.”

So while there is a great deal of anticipation and excitement about the company’s plans — downtown Springfield has been a food desert for decades now, and the need for a supermarket in that area has long been a recognized need — there is also a great deal of uncertainty about just how this will all play out.

So much so that determining just what constitutes ‘success’ at this new and decidedly different location is a difficult assignment.

“We are flying the plane as we build it in many respects,” D’Amour explained. “We know how to operate a supermarket, and we’re constantly tweaking that model, but when we open a new store, we have a very good idea of what success in that store will look like and what we need to do to achieve it. With this model, we’re trying to be a lot more flexible, even from our design standpoint.

“To the outside observer, they see us operating supermarkets and say, ‘this is just a smaller format.’ But it’s really a completely new venture for us, everything from distribution to operations to trucking … we’ve never operated a downtown, urban-format market before, so there are a whole lot of unknowns for us.”

“We don’t fully know what our lunch business is going to be like in the area; we don’t fully know what our after-work, prime-time, rush-on-the-way-home-from-work business is going to be like,” he went on. “We’re trying to build in some flexibility that’s going to allow us to adapt, once we do open, to what the customers’ needs are.”

Overall, this story is an intriguing one on a number of levels. For starters, there is the obvious need for a grocery store being filled. Meanwhile, the recruitment of Big Y marks another imaginative reuse of space in Tower Square by owners Vid Mitta and Dinesh Patel, who previously landed the YMCA of Greater Springfield and White Lion Brewery, among others, as tenants. And this new development was made possible by federal COVID-relief funds, making this is an example of how those monies have been put to work by the city to improve specific neighborhoods, including downtown (more on that later).

For now, the plan is to have the store open by next spring, said D’Amour, adding that there are some challenges to meeting that timeline, including supply-chain issues that make getting needing materials and equipment, like shelving, somewhat of an adventure.

An architect’s rendering of the planned new Big Y market in Tower Square.

An architect’s rendering of the planned new
Big Y market in Tower Square.

As for the store itself, it will feature most of the same departments as a typical Big Y World Class Market (there will not be a pharmacy), but, obviously, a smaller volume of items.

As for customers, Big Y believes it will draw from several different constituencies, including those living downtown, those working in both Tower Square and other surrounding office buildings, those coming to Tower Square on other business, such as daycare services at the Big Y, and others.

“We think there’s going to be a good mix,” he noted. “Tower Square is a pretty robust facility, and there are a lot of people who work there who may be living in Springfield or commuting from outside the city who may be looking to grab something after work for dinner or grab something to help fill the fridge, and it saves them a trip to a traditional supermarket. There’s also a good number of residents that live right downtown as well. We think there will be a healthy mix.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked at length with D’Amour about how this concept came together and why the initiative represents pioneering on a number of levels.

 

Location, Location, Location

D’Amour said Big Y has been looking at downtown Springfield with an eye toward possibly opening some type of store there for some time now.

“It’s fair to say that it’s been decades,” he noted, adding quickly that, while the company hasn’t been actively pursuing something all that time, it has long understood that there is both need and opportunity involved with such an undertaking.

“We’ve had a very long, positive relationship with the city of Springfield, being headquartered here, and we’ve got a great relationship with the mayor’s office,” he went on. “So there’s just been a constant dialogue about what opportunities are there.”

“We’ve tried to take little bits of what we like from some different markets out there. But we think downtown Springfield is a bit unique, and we think that we understand the Western Mass. customer and the Springfield customer, and we’re trying to blend our brand with what we’ve seen other folks do in other environments and come up with something we think will work in this setting.”

Matters moved beyond the dialogue stage thanks to a number of puzzle pieces coming together, he went on, noting that the first was the location that became available when CVS vacated its longtime home in Tower Square for a location about a half-mile south on Main Street.

“The new owners of Tower Square came to us with this opportunity — everything just came together at the right time,” said D’Amour, noting that the company not only recognized an opportunity, it was prepared to take full advantage of it. “We were able to pull it together and make it work.”

Prepared, yes, but still moving into what would be uncharted territory for this company — and many supermarket chains, for that matter. Indeed, the location would be in the middle of the city’s downtown, with no on-site parking and certainly no loading dock.

The new market will serve people who work in the office towers

The new market will serve people who work in the office towers, as well as residents who live downtown.

These unknowns, along with uncertainty about just how much traffic this site will generate, made it enough of a risk that the project required an investment from the city, said D’Amour, adding that this investment has come in the form of $1 million in federal COVID CARES Act funding.

“That funding allowed us to answer some of those unknowns,” he said. “It solved some unsolvable challenges around distribution and issues like that, and it allowed us to see a pathway to a financially viable market in this location. I don’t think we would have been able to get there — what with rising construction costs and trying to figure out an entirely new model — without that federal money.”

Elaborating, he said the traditional Big Y model, one seen across this region and now far beyond, into Connecticut, Central Mass., and now Eastern Mass., is the suburban World Class Market, usually in a larger shopping center, with acres of parking; the company just unveiled its latest plans to build a store in Middletown, Conn. The Tower Square store is a much different model, one that, as noted, comes with a large supply of unknowns.

“There’s nothing close to this in terms of the urban setting, and there’s nothing close to this in terms of size,” he said. “This is maybe one-fifth the size of one of our traditional supermarkets. Obviously, all of our stores are unique in size and layout, but this is certainly an outlier.”

Thus, the team at Big Y has looked at models that would be considered similar in other urban markets, including New York and Boston, as well as some smaller cities in upstate New York, he said, adding that the chain is essentially creating its own model with this initiative.

“We’re having supply-chain challenges everywhere, and we’re working through them as best we can, and we think we’re doing a pretty good job with it.”

“We’ve tried to take little bits of what we like from some different markets out there,” he explained. “But we think downtown Springfield is a bit unique, and we think that we understand the Western Mass. customer and the Springfield customer, and we’re trying to blend our brand with what we’ve seen other folks do in other environments and come up with something we think will work in this setting.”

The plan, as noted, is to offer most of what would be found in a traditional Big Y market, he said, adding that patrons can do what he called a “full shop” at the downtown location, with fresh meats, bread, produce, and other items, just not in the variety to be found in the larger-model store.

Work has yet to begin on site, he said, but the plan is to open the store late in the first quarter of next year, and he believes that timetable can be met, despite those aforementioned challenges, including construction lead times and simply getting needed materials and equipment.

“Supply chain continues to be a challenge, both from a construction standpoint as well as from a product standpoint,” D’Amour explained. “But it’s nothing we’re not tackling, like everyone else in this late-pandemic, post-pandemic world, whatever we’re calling it these days. We’re just continuing to try to find innovative ways around it and fill our stores.

“With respect to this Tower Square downtown location, it’s really no different than what we’re tacking in all of our stores,” he went on. “We’re having supply-chain challenges everywhere, and we’re working through them as best we can, and we think we’re doing a pretty good job with it.”

 

Food for Thought

As D’Amour noted, it is difficult to make projections for the planned new market, and equally difficult to get a firm grasp on just what will constitute success.

But in an area that has been devoid of anything like this for as long as anyone can remember, there are great expectations and high hopes that the new store will be an important addition to the mix in Tower Square and the central business district as a whole.

In short, there is a good deal of anticipation about what’s in store for this location — figuratively, but also quite literally.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Matt Flink Takes the Helm at Appleton Corp.

By

Building on a Solid Foundation

Matt Flink was recently named president and CEO of Appleton Corp., the real-estate and property-management arm of the O’Connell Companies. He brings with him considerable experience in this field — and the football field, as a coach. He intends to lean on both as he takes the helm of the company with a solid foundation and opportunities for growth in a number of established niches.

Matt Flink enjoys going to the office every day.

But he especially likes Thursdays. That’s the one day of the week when all employees at the O’Connell Companies are asked to be in the office, with most of them working remotely at least a few of the other four days.

“I love Thursdays — all my friends are there, my colleagues are there — there’s a sense of energy and a liveliness and a vitality that I don’t necessarily get the other days of the week,” he explained, before adding a large-sized ‘but.’

“It’s not about me and what I want, it’s about what’s in the best interest of the company and the best interest our employees,” he went on, adding that remote work is popular, it has become a benefit — and an expectation — at O’Connell, and, as he put it, “the work gets done.”

This same dynamic is playing out in businesses large and small across the region and across the country, and that’s just one of many issues and challenges Flink is facing as he takes the helm at Appleton Corp., the division of Holyoke-based O’Connell Companies that provides property-, facility-, and asset-management services, along with accounting and financial services, to managers and owners of commercial and residential properties across a wide swath of New England.

“We can’t get caught up in old-school thinking that says, ‘it’s always been this way, so it has to continue to be this way.’”

He now presides over a portfolio of managed properties that includes everything from several transportation centers, including Springfield’s Union Station, to the Springfield Technology Park, retail shopping centers, medical offices, and industrial properties. It also includes a number of residential properties, including senior-living facilities.

The broad goal moving forward, said Flink, who was named successor to the now-retired Paul Stelzer last month, is to maintain and grow that portfolio and specific niches within it, such as those transportation centers. There are now several in the portfolio, including 12 in Connecticut, he noted, and the company will aggressively work to build on its track record of success in that realm.

As for the phenomenon of remote work and what it means to office properties here and elsewhere, Flink said property owners and managers, including Appleton, must be imaginative and open to alternative uses for those facilities, because he just doesn’t see things going back to the way they were.

“We can’t get caught up in old-school thinking that says, ‘it’s always been this way, so it has to continue to be this way,’” using that phrase to describe both the office setting and remote work, and how property owners should be looking to fill their spaces.

Flink brings more than 30 years of experience to his new role, a diverse résumé that includes work in Illinois, Colorado, Florida, and 10 years with O’Connell, during which he has served in various roles, including director of Capital Project Management.

 

He intends to tap that reservoir of experience, which includes work in construction, real-estate development, property management, and sales and leasing, while leading O’Connell to what he expects will be continued growth in an evolving, highly competitive marketplace that is acting and reacting in response to a number of forces, everything from shifting dynamics in the workplace to a still-changing retail landscape to the aging of the population and the need for more senior housing.

He also intends to borrow from his experience coaching youth football, especially when it comes to management and helping team members “understand that they’re probably even better than they think they are,” as he put it (more on that later).

“This opportunity with O’Connell gives me an opportunity to bring all that experience to bear in one location and participate in leading not only what we do Appleton, but in the larger effort that we make with our parent company, the O’Connell Corp.,” he said. “To me, it’s the most logical place for me to land at this point in my career.”

 

Space Exploration

The Appleton Corp. is approaching its 50th birthday, said Flink, noting that it was launched in 1974 by the O’Connell Companies, a Holyoke fixture for more than 140 years now. The larger corporation also includes Daniel O’Connell’s Sons, a large regional general contractor; Western Builders; the O’Connell Development Group; and New England Fertilizer Co.

Appleton is the property- and facility-management company in what Flink called a “vertically integrated stack.” Appleton manages commercial properties, industrial buildings, warehouses, educational facilities, and multi-family housing properties, including many that are subsidized, especially to senior populations, although some are market-rate.

“We manage properties that we own,” he explained. “But we also manage a lot of properties for third parties that own buildings; we do a lot of management of facilities owned by government entities, such as the technology park and the rail stations.”

It’s a diverse portfolio, as he noted, and it includes everything from an Amazon ‘last-mile’ facility in Holyoke to a biotech research facility on the campus of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. There are some established niches the company has developed, he said, adding that senior housing has long been one of them.

“The things that I learned about coaching my players transfer so wonderfully to our life at the office. I learned that I can’t coach every player, and every employee, the same way; people respond to different types of motivation, different types of stimulation.”

Meanwhile, transportation-facility management has become another niche, he said, adding that there are unique qualities to managing such properties, including the “interface between the public and private,” as he called it.

“Springfield’s Union Station is a perfect example; you have users of the bus facilities here — the PVTA, Peter Pan, Greyhound — and you also have Amtrak and CT Rail bringing people in on the tracks overhead, and all the people using those facilities circulating throughout the concourse,” he explained. “At the same time, you have several businesses that function there, so you have private folks parking in the garage, walking through the concourse, grabbing something at Dunkin’ Donuts, and then going upstairs.

Springfield’s Union Station.

Matt Flink says Appleton has developed a solid niche managing transportation centers, including Springfield’s Union Station.

“Maintaining safe conditions, clean conditions, secure conditions, is an important element in managing those types of facilities,” he went on. “For us, it is a niche market, and one we will continue to pursue.”

Moving forward, and from a strategic perspective, Appleton is focused on two key areas — business development and continuous improvement of the service provided to customers.

Overall, Flink said he has inherited a strong foundation and healthy portfolio from Stelzer, so he doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, just maintain and build what is in place, with a focus on people and giving them the tools they need to succeed.

“It comes down to keeping our current portfolio stabilized, looking for continuous process improvements along the way, making better use of technology to better serve our customers, and making better use of technology so we ourselves can become more efficient,” he said. “And, at the same time, continuing other lines of our business and, as with those transportation facilities, looking outside of our traditional windows of opportunity. I think we’re well-positioned and well-placed to do that kind of work.”

the Springfield Technology Park.

The Appleton portfolio includes a diverse mix of properties, including the Springfield Technology Park.

As he goes about all this, he will call on not only previous work experience — and there is plenty of that — but also time spent coaching, especially football, at both the youth and high-school levels.

“The things that I learned about coaching my players transfer so wonderfully to our life at the office,” he said, by way of explaining how his work on the sidelines has shaped his management style. “I learned that I can’t coach every player, and every employee, the same way; people respond to different types of motivation, different types of stimulation.

“Some just need me to sit and listen to them and hear them and not even comment much, but just know that I’m hearing them,” he went on. “Some want a really deep and intense dialogue and to take a deep dive into the issues, and want me to act as a sounding board and really spend time devoted to solving problems or envisioning problems and coming up with mitigation strategies. As much as anything, I’ll be a coach trying to help each of our employees find a better version of themselves every day, with the goal of being a little better today than I was yesterday. And tomorrow, I really hope I’m better than I am today.”

 

Changing Dynamics

Returning to the subject of the office market and what will happen moving forward, Flink said there are many unknowns when it comes to this issue, and it will certainly take some time for the market to fully shake out.

By that, he meant everything from whether office workers will return and when — some are back, but across the country, many are not back or are working in hybrid arrangements — to how properties might be repurposed if they are not used for offices moving forward.

It’s a complex matter, he said, using the O’Connell family of companies as an example of how businesses managed to get work done, and done well, during the pandemic with almost all employees working remotely.

“For 475 days, plus or minus a day or two, we were essentially shut down in our corporate offices with just a few of us there,” he recalled. “What we learned in that period of time is that we can do that very successfully. We can allow people to work at home, we can give them the time they need to attend to things in the middle of the day, but all of us got our work done; we paid bills on time, we responded to requests for proposals on time … we did everything we needed to.

“Our experience in that space is similar to what we’re seeing around the country in that space,” he went on. “The pandemic forced people to rethink how they deliver their work product, what vehicle they use to deliver their work product; at the same time, there began to be a demand, a desire, to stay home once the pandemic eased up and people could return to their office space.”

This concept of remote work has turned into a benefit, he told BusinessWest, much like a 401(k), a vacation, or health insurance. And there is an expectation for it among job seekers and existing employees alike.

These factors have collectively reduced the demand for office space, he went on, adding that there are a few cases within the Appleton portfolio where tenants, specifically large call centers, have contracted substantially.

In one case, space was successfully backfilled, largely with government entities, Flink noted, adding that this may prove to a blueprint for many properties moving forward.

“Repurposing some of those commercial spaces for other user groups is going to be important,” he said. “Going forward, owners and managers of commercial real estate, at least for the short term, and maybe for the long term, depending on how the market responds to this concept of remote work, are going to be clever in how they look at various user groups.”

Imaginative reuse has been the watchword in retail for some time, he went on, noting that, as more shopping is done online, there has been less need for bricks-and-mortar facilities. Larger properties such as indoor malls and strip malls have adjusted by repurposing space for bowling alleys, laser tag, trampoline facilities, and more. Meanwhile, the cannabis industry has had a profound impact on the commercial real-estate landscape, absorbing large amounts of different kinds of spaces, from old mills in Holyoke and Easthampton to storefronts in many communities to a portion of the Springfield Newspapers building.

“Whether it’s that [cannabis] or seeking government entities where you may have looked to place a private tenant before, all this speaks to the need to be clever and really think outside the box and be open to other possibilities in that commercial marketplace,” said Flink, noting that the tech park at STCC is an example of this dynamic. A large call center has moved out, but over the next few years, he expects those spaces to fill back to something close to pre-pandemic levels.

 

Goal to Go

Getting back to football coaching and how it influences how he manages people, Flink summoned that often-used saying — among coaches and business owners alike — about people needing to give 110%.

“You don’t have to be a math major to know that this is literally impossible — you can’t give more than 100%,” he told BusinessWest. “What it comes down to, whether you’re coaching young athletes or spending time with senior-level executives on our staff, is redefining for people what their true capacity is. Very rarely do we operate at our true capacity; we’re blocked at times by our own negativity or the negative thinking of others. But we’re all capable of being more than we think we are, and helping people to understand where their 100% exists, and how they can live in a world that touches on that more often, is something that I’m passionate about.”

That’s one of many passions, and lessons, from past experiences that Flink will bring to his challenge, one that, as he said, is the logical place for him to be.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate Daily News News Real Estate Real Estate

MassDevelopment Puts 1550 Main St. on the Market

By

SPRINGFIELD — Colliers Capital Markets announced that it has been retained by MassDevelopment, to sell 1550 Main Street, the 128,900 square-foot office building in Springfield’s downtown corridor.

Colliers Executive Vice President Jeanne Pinado will lead marketing efforts of 1550 Main, with Vice President Rob Schlesinger providing additional support, and the firm will issue a call for offers in mid-July.

The five-story office building is 97% leased and underwent a complete $9 million renovation in 2010. Capital improvements included creating a high-quality building entrance with an open atrium with 70-foot ceilings, as well as building an outdoor plaza and improving landscaping, elevators, restrooms and more.

Formerly a federal courthouse, 1550 Main St. is home to tenants such as the administrative offices for Springfield Public Schools, the United States General Services Administration, and BayState Health. The building has a 103-space below grade garage and connects via a pedestrian skywalk to the 28-story Tower Square, an office, retail, hotel and parking complex. MassDevelopment purchased 1550 Main from the federal government in 2009 and revitalized the campus to position it as a Class A office building with an expansive public plaza as part of an economic development initiative.

Pat Goggins, left, and Brian Megliola
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Merger of Coldwell Banker, Goggins, Creates New Dynamic in the Market

By Kailey Houle

Union Forces

 

Pat Goggins, left, and Brian Megliola

Pat Goggins, left, and Brian Megliola

 

Pat Goggins and Brian Megliola say the talks concerning an acquisition and merger of their companies began more than a year ago. They started — and then continued to a successful conclusion — because of similar philosophies and the shared belief that a union made sense on many different levels. The new company, with two divisions based in Northampton, will emerge and “be right at the top of the agencies in this area,” said Goggins.

By Kailey Houle

Brian Megliola says he considers Pat Goggins a role model.

“I’ve always had so much respect for Pat and what he’s achieved in the Northampton, Hampshire County area,” said Megliola, owner of Coldwell Banker Community Realtors. “He showed me what I wanted to be as a business owner.”

Elaborating, Megliola said that it was Goggins’ success in business — he and the company he started have been a force in commercial and residential real estate in and around Northampton for 40 years now — as well as his commitment to the community that made him not only a role model, but a logical business partner.

Indeed, Coldwell Banker Community Realtors recently announced the acquisition and merger of Goggins Real Estate, a transaction that will bring together two of the longest-running family-owned real estate companies in Franklin and Hampshire Counties. The union that will create a larger, more powerful force in the local market, and one that is expected to balance an already-formidable residential real estate book of business with growth on the commercial side of the ledger.

“When I started talking with Pat about the acquisition and merger more than a year ago, our companies were just so aligned in our values and culture,” said Megliola. “I’ve always seen Pat as a heavily involved community figure and he’s always been a role model for me. His involvement with the community made sense that he would be the right person. It was a perfect scenario — there was no other company we could blend with so well.”

The 112 Main St., Northampton office of Coldwell Banker Community Realtors will be the main office for the residential company. Coldwell Banker’s commercial division will move to the present Goggins office at 79 King St., Northampton. “This separate franchise with Coldwell Banker Commercial will also have a name change to Coldwell Banker Commercial-Goggins Associates.

“I’ve always had so much respect for Pat and what he’s achieved in the Northampton, Hampshire County area. He showed me what I wanted to be as a business owner.”

“We felt it was important to continue the legacy that Pat has created in commercial real estate in the Northampton area and fitting to rename our commercial company to include the Goggins name.”

Pat Goggins will continue on as the manager of the commercial side, building on four decades of work that have seen the ‘Goggins’ name attached to a large portion of the commercial transactions that have taken place since the Northampton market started booming in the early ’80s.

“I plan to remain very active in real estate and look forward to running the commercial company”, said Pat Goggins.  “I look forward to this new partnership, as it enhances our ability to provide even better service to our clients with the added tools and systems we will now have available to us through Coldwell Banker.

“They are an impressive organization and bring a lot to the table, both for our residential clients and our commercial ones as well,” he went on, adding that the acquisition came about after lengthy talks — and, unlike many such deals, it is a true acquisition.

“This was something that Brian paid for; it was a reflection of his interest and determination on his part as to where the value was,” he explained. “If you’re buying anything, you have to figure out what makes that particular purchase valuable. And I think that he felt that we were not only compatible, but he was also intrigued by the market share that we have had for many years.”

“When I started talking with Pat about the acquisition and merger more than a year ago, our companies were just so aligned in our values and culture.”

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Megliola and Goggins about how this important deal came about and what it means moving forward.

As noted, the two companies that came together in this merger have long histories in this region.

Goggins got his start in 1982, and over the ensuing 40 years, the firm has handled some of the Northampton area’s biggest residential developments, including Bear Hill, Village Hill, Parson’s Brook, Baker Hill, and is presently handling the new development Hawley Manor on Hawley St. in downtown Northampton.

But the firm has made perhaps an even bigger influence in the commercial market, handling handing many of Northampton’s biggest commercial deals over the years, including countless transactions in the downtown area, which has remained consistently vibrant.

Over the past four decades, Pat Goggins has been a go-to source for BusinessWest and other media outlets on what was happening in the Northampton commercial market and the forces that were driving it.

As for Coldwell Banker, Coldwell Banker Community Realtors of Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties originally started as Upton and May Real Estate in 1987 in South Deerfield, with Christine Aubrey, and Steve Upton, who were both teachers. When they got laid off from teaching in Turners Falls, Upton decided to make real estate a full-time job and asked Aubrey to help run the office. They built their own properties and soon after that, people asked them to assist in selling their own homes. They then merged with Massamont Real Estate in Shelburne Falls, and became Upton Massamont Real Estate. They later franchised with Coldwell Banker in 2006 and have grown to four offices, located in Northampton, South Deerfield,  Shelburne Falls and Amherst.

They also have a commercial office in Greenfield, and they’ve handled many residential developments throughout Franklin and Hampshire counties, including Emerson Way, Silvercrest, Ridgecrest, most of the condominium developments in South Deerfield and, currently, The Residences in Shelburne Falls. 

“We’re going to see something emerge that is going to be right at the top of the agencies in this area.”

Megliola, who has been with Coldwell Banker for 13 years now — the first seven years, he worked in IT and worked his way up to operations — will be the sole owner of Coldwell Banker Community Realtors and Coldwell Banker Commercial-Goggins Associates, and will oversee all aspects of the new entity. Besides Megliola, there are nine other full time support staff and a total of 45 agents, many of whom have been Realtors for over 25 years.

The name “Coldwell Banker Community Realtors” will remain as the name of the residential real estate company.

“Pat, Christine and I share a strong commitment to the communities we serve and feel that name speaks to our style of doing business,” said Megliola. “We have all been very active in supporting our communities and although we have a national brand that brings us a higher level of service for our agents and clients, we are still a locally owned company that has deep roots here in the Valley. That will never change.     

“Community is really important to my team and I,” he went on. “We decided community is what needs to be not only the center of what we do, but also the center of our name. Our name changed to Coldwell Banker Community Realtors about 15 years ago. We knew franchises were going to come and we were getting tired of having to reinvent the wheel every time so we decided we would look into the best franchise out there. We settled on Coldwell Banker for a couple reasons- there is a long history of ethics and at the time they had been around for about 90 years.”

Returning to the subject of the talks that led to the acquisition and merger, both Goggins and Megliola said they came about because of the synergy between the companies, shared philosophies, and timing.

“One of the oddities of this sale was the fact that it occurred 40 years to the date of me starting the business — it was kind of like an anniversary and at the same time, a sale; it was kind of interesting,” said Goggins. “The main motivation is the fact I’m 74 years old and have been doing this for about 50 years. My wife kept kicking me and saying, “Come on — sell this.”

Moving forward, both Goggins and Megliola believe the combined names on the door, but more importantly what’s behind those names, especially the decades of experience in both the commercial and residential markets, will make the firm a force within the region.

“Brian is extremely energetic and with his approach to the business, there’s no doubt that he will blend our experience with his energy,” Goggins said. “And we’re going to see something emerge that is going to be right at the top of the agencies in this area.”

Megliola agreed, and noted that in order to build the brand, there will be a strong focus on growing the commercial side of his business, an assignment that should be helped by the Goggins name, but also Pat Goggins’ desire to continue building on the foundation he has laid over the past 40 years.

“I’m going to remain as active as I want to be, and I still find the work stimulating. I enjoy being engaged in it,” he said. “I’ve been very actively involved in it for 50 years so, I don’t have any plans of moving permanently to Florida — but don’t get me wrong, I will be spending time down there! It just seemed like it was the right time.”

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Eastworks at 25

By Contributor

This Community Within a Community Is a Constantly Changing Picture

Back in 1997, Will Bundy and his wife, Paula, had a vision for the sprawling vacant mill in downtown Easthampton that had most recently been home to Stanley Home Products — to not only lease space to wide array of businesses, but create both a destination and a community. That vision has become reality, but this canvas, known as Eastworks, is still being filled in.

By Elizabeth Sears

The mill at 116 Pleasant St. in Easthampton was looking for a new purpose when Stanley Home Products shut down after 40 years of operation. The former mill had seen a variety of owners throughout the century, starting with West Boylston Manufacturing Co. in 1908. General Electric and even the U.S. Department of War had at one point called this building theirs.

Over the past quarter-century, 116 Pleasant St. has transformed into something entirely new, and it is a picture that is constantly changing and adding new dimensions.

“When we started, 25 years ago this March, the idea of the mill district was a very distant thought and idea, and so I feel like the artists and businesses and residential tenants who took a chance on Eastworks in its bare-bones stages really helped to form and define what the mill district could become,” said Will Bundy, owner and managing partner of Eastworks, referring to the broader effort to transform a number of Easthampton’s old mills into a home for artists and an eclectic mix of businesses.

When Bundy and his wife, Paula, bought the property, their vision was a broad one, and it involved not only filling its vast spaces, but creating both a destination and a community. And while the vision has become a reality, it is still very much an intriguing work in progress.

Heather Beck

Heather Beck says she’s developed not only a gratifying business at Eastworks, but many meaningful relationships.

Certainly one appeal of Eastworks, where it all started, is the sheer amount of space offered in the building. The former mill has nearly 500,000 square feet of space, most all of it with high ceilings and large windows, many with views of nearby Mount Tom. The property has become home to a wide range of businesses looking for room to grow in unique, comparatively inexpensive spaces.

Ventures like Easthampton Clay, a pottery school and studio that set up at Eastworks late last year. It offers classes, individual and private group lessons, workshops, and memberships that rent out shelf space and allow people 24-hour access to the studio.

“When we started, 25 years ago this March, the idea of the mill district was a very distant thought and idea, and so I feel like the artists and businesses and residential tenants who took a chance on Eastworks in its bare-bones stages really helped to form and define what the mill district could become.”

“We had four studios at one point, but they were all little spaces, and I just felt like that wasn’t conducive to community,” said Liz Rodriguez, owner of the venture. “I wanted us all together; I felt like the students really benefited from seeing what the members were doing. We occupy a lot of space in the building now.”

Eastworks is assuredly more than just an awe-inspiring building. What really brings the structure to life is the people who are occupying the space — a quality that has continued to grow and thrive throughout the years — as well as the sense of community that prevails, as we’ll see.

And while Eastworks has become a unique success story, there are chapters still to be written, said Bundy, noting that he still has roughly 100,000 square feet to be developed.

Efforts to bring that space to life are gaining momentum, most notably with the addition of another restaurant, Daily Operations, which opened its doors on Feb. 11.

“The mill district is becoming so vital and is changing so much that we, at least Eastworks, were looking at how do we finish our work,” said Bundy, noting that he is looking to meet an emerging need within the region by adding more residential units at Eastworks, complimenting the artists’ lofts on the top floor.

“We have a model that works; we have a very dynamic arts and entrepreneurial community, we have a significant nonprofit community,” he said of the current mix of tenants. “The next phase is … trying to create some additional housing in Easthampton, which is a really critical and important issue. Somewhere on our property, we’re looking at bringing in up to 150 units of housing.”

Easthampton Clay to Eastworks

The large amount of space available was a big selling point in bringing Easthampton Clay to Eastworks.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest revisits Eastworks 25 years after it was conceptualized to see how this community within a community continues to grow and evolve.

 

Golden Opportunity

Heather Beck is a fine jeweler, metalsmith, and educator who runs Heather Beck Designs at Eastworks. A highlight of Beck’s business is something she calls “legacy jewelry” — made from family heirlooms that are repurposed into new pieces. Her clients get to carry the memory of their loved one with them through the new piece of jewelry while also helping to positively contribute to the environment through ethically sourced, recycled jewelry.

Beck is one of many tenants who spoke of the closeness that can be felt in the Eastworks community, and how she is aware that many tenants have become friends with each other and have stuck together through all the happenings of both the pandemic and regular work life.

“Erin McNally of Tiny Anvil, she’s down the hall, she’s one of my best friends … I get to have lunch with her and Trevor of Healy Guitars,” she said. “We get together almost every day for lunch, and we talk about our days, what’s going on with clients. We call ourselves the ‘lunch bunch.’ It’s an invaluable resource to have them in the building and down the hall for support.”

Beck said most of her custom clients are people who were referenced to her from other businesses at Eastworks or people she was able to meet at the property.

“Eastworks has such a great vibe … you’re always meeting new and interesting people,” he said. “I also love to ask people if they’ve been to Eastworks, because if you haven’t been here and seen the grandness of this old mill building that’s been converted into all these spaces, it’s just a really neat space to walk through.”

After a single visit and a few conversations with tenants at Eastworks, what becomes clear is a synergetic relationship between the businesses and their clienteles. The strong community aspect of Eastworks is abundantly apparent and reflects the spirit of the city of Easthampton itself.

“There are a lot of very dynamic parts in the puzzle that make us even stronger. That has to do with Easthampton, and it also happens to do with us having the kind of space people are seeking out,” said Bundy, adding that the unique, wide-open spaces have attracted many different kinds of businesses, many of them not exactly arts-related.

Like YoYoExpert, which has been at its Eastworks location for almost a decade. This venture brings yo-yo toys in from all over the world and teaches people how to use them through the internet.

André Boulay of YoYoExpert spoke enthusiastically of both the lively community experience at Eastworks and the impressiveness of the physical building itself.

“Eastworks has such a great vibe … you’re always meeting new and interesting people,” he said. “I also love to ask people if they’ve been to Eastworks, because if you haven’t been here and seen the grandness of this old mill building that’s been converted into all these spaces, it’s just a really neat space to walk through.”

The wide range of businesses at Eastworks lends itself to visitors enjoying a one-stop trip to complete many of their day’s errands.

“I get my hair cut in the building at the Lift. If I’m hungry, I just go upstairs to Riff’s,” Beck said. “I get my acupuncture done at the Easthampton Community Acupuncture with Cassie. I go to yoga classes upstairs at Sacred Roots.”

 

Passing the Test

The community at Eastworks has certainly been tested by the pandemic. Many of the businesses rely on foot traffic, and they have been impacted by a distinct lack of it since March 2020. And while the pandemic may have slowed the pace of new arrivals and expansions to some degree, there have been some notable additions, such as Peacock’s Nest Studio, a henna and body-art business at Eastworks that moved into the building in March 2020, right at the start of the pandemic. Since then, it has actually expanded its offerings, including a line of body-care products and different fabric projects like face masks.

“Coming out of COVID, one of the more vital parts of the building seems to be our creative community,” Bundy said. “Our maker community is very solid … it’s a reflection of the Easthampton arts community.”

André Boulay, who has been at Eastworks for almost a decade

André Boulay, who has been at Eastworks for almost a decade, praised the facility’s physical features, community experience, and “great vibe.”

After a long stint of ghost-town hallways and virtual everything, the maker portion of the Eastworks community came together for a vibrant event in early November of last year: Open Studios. This is an annual event during which all the art studios at Eastworks come together for an open house, allowing the public to come in and experience the breadth of what the local artists at Eastworks are doing by participating in a variety of activities.

Easthampton Clay’s first open-house event at Eastworks was part of Open Studios; it was an Empty Bowls event for the Easthampton Food Bank that drew more than 300 participants.

“We had lines out the door waiting for people to come in and throw bowls for charity, which was so sweet and amazing … it was really a mind-blowing experience,” Rodriguez said.

Lauren Grover, owner of Peacock’s Nest Studio, fondly recalled selling masks at Open Studios and spoke about how nice it was to finally have an in-person event after everything was held up by the pandemic for so long.

“It was a lot busier than I expected it to be; it was lovely,” she said. “As the pandemic eases, I look forward to having more events like that.”

Grover also noted the abundant amount of precautions that were taken by Eastworks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which was echoed by Rodriguez of Easthampton Clay.

Another sentiment shared by several tenants at Eastworks was that the Open Studios event was important because it helped them gain more exposure to Western Mass. locals after the pandemic hampered their visibility in the community for a long time.

“No one had seen my work in almost two years, and then we finally did Open Studios in the fall,” Beck said. “I had a lookbook created, and our entire community came out for that event. It was probably the best-attended Open Studios we’ve ever had … people were able to finally see the work that had been hidden away behind my doors for two years.”

She noted that the exposure she received from Open Studios led to a complete turnaround in her business, and now she is busier than she has ever been, with a waitlist of orders.

 

Art of the Matter

What started as a vision for a vacant, 500,000-square-foot mill building back in 1997 has become a reality.

As it turns 25, Eastworks has become everything Will and Paula Bundy had hoped it would. It has become a destination, certainly, and a community — a bustling space for artists, entrepreneurs, innovators, and more — within a community.

The best part is the fact that the picture keeps changing, and the canvas continues to add more features and more color.

Which certainly bodes well for the next 25 years.

 

Evan Plotkin
Commercial Real Estate

Battling Cancer, Evan Plotkin Continues His Revitalization Efforts

By

Fighting the Fight

Evan Plotkin

Evan Plotkin says a mural planned for this wall near Stearns Square will pay homage to that area’s important role in Springfield’s history.

Evan Plokin was joking — well, sort of — about just how well his team seemed to manage while he was home battling mesothelioma and rehabbing from complicated surgery to help rid his body of cancer.

“I learned that this place could function just fine without me,” he said, tongue in cheek, noting that his company, NAI Plotkin, completed several deals during those weeks while he was out, putting a cap on a busy year, despite damage done to the economy by the pandemic. “The four months I was pretty much out of action I was thinking the worst, but when I came back, all the deals that were in the pipeline that I thought were never going to close … things suddenly started to happen.”

Overall, this lengthy, ongoing ordeal — he was officially diagnosed with mesothelioma in March 2021 — has been a learning experience on many levels, starting with the disease itself.

Plotkin confessed to knowing little about it when he was diagnosed, other than the only way to be stricken with it is through prolonged exposure to asbestos — or, as he has learned since, through heavy use of talc. And a “review of his life’s story,” as he called it, revealed that he falls into that category.

“I had rashes when I was a youngster, throughout my elementary schools, and I can always remember my grandmother putting the powder on me,” he recalled. “As I got into sports, when I would sweat a lot, I would break out, and the baby powder helped. And I remember when I was playing football in high school, I would douse my shoulder pads with it before every practice and before every game.”

This review of his life and has led to a different kind of learning experience, this one concerning ongoing legal action against Johnson & Johnson — maker of the baby powder he put on those shoulder pads — which he is now a big part of.

“I’m on the creditor’s committee — we just had a meeting recently; five of us are representing 40,000 claimants in this litigation,” he said, noting that these claimants are pushing back hard on J&J’s efforts to form a separate company to capture all asbestos claims related to its baby powder and then, presumably, file bankruptcy. “Every one of us who has this disease wants our day in court, and not have this piled into a bankruptcy settlement.”

While waging battles on these various fronts, Plotkin, who firmly believes he’s on the road to recovery and is now back in his office several days a week, is continuing another fight — his decades-long struggle to return downtown Springfield to the vibrancy he knew when he was young.

Long a staunch advocate for the city and firm believer in the power of the arts as an economic-development strategy — he’s one of the organizers of the annual summer jazz festival in the city — Plotkin said considerable progress has been made in recent years to make Springfield a more attractive place to live and work, but there is still much to be done.

He talked about the need to become creative with the hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacant office space in the city (again, see the story on page 38), to renew and escalate efforts to revitalize the properties on Main Street across from MGM Springfield, and to continue work to use the city’s open spaces, especially its parks, to draw new residents — and businesses as well.

With that, he turned his attention to his latest project, a giant mural that will occupy a wall facing Stearns Square on Worthington Street.

Working in tandem with John Simpson, an art professor at UMass Amherst whose murals grace Elm Street and the I-91 viaduct, as well as the Springfield Improvement District, Plotkin, through a nonprofit he created called City Mosaic, won a grant to transform that wall — currently featuring faded images of cameras and related products sold at a store there in the 1940s — into a history book of sorts.

“It’s going to be a composition — we’re going to give a nod to many of the historic and important people from Springfield, right up to the present,” he said. “It’s going to be the largest mural in the city.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked with Plotkin about the many battles he’s waging, and the progress he’s making with what could be considered the big picture — figuratively, but also quite literally.

 

Joining the Battle

Plotkin, who has long prided himself on taking good care of his body, exercising, and eating the right foods, said his cancer diagnosis nearly a year ago caught him off guard and left him searching for answers.

“To suddenly be told that you have this terrible disease … that was very traumatic,” he said, adding that, while he became consumed with understanding how he contracted mesothelioma, the more immediate concern was confronting the disease.

He underwent what is known as a HIPEC (hyperthermic chemotherapy) procedure in August. After removing visible tumors through standard surgical procedures, a surgeon will administer HIPEC treatment, during which a heated sterile solution — containing a chemotherapeutic agent — is continuously circulated throughout the peritoneal cavity for up to two hours.

The 10-hour procedure was followed by three months of rehabilitation, said Plotkin, noting that he lost more than 50 pounds through the ordeal, suffered a few setbacks while recovering, and endured a few trips to the emergency room.

But he believes the worst is over and that he is on the road to recovery.

“I’m feeling really good right now, so I’m very optimistic about my future,” he said. “I feel almost as good as I did before the surgery; I just have to watch it … but I’m back to normal, and everything is good for me.”

While knocking on the nearest available wood, Plotkin noted there isn’t much available data on HIPEC. “And the doctors and the oncologists — they don’t have any predictions for you,” he went on. “They just say they want to take film every six months and go from there.”

Meanwhile, he said many others in his situation have not been as fortunate in their fight.

“You hear some of the stories from some of the people you meet, and their stories are not as good. I just learned about a 28-year-old boy who had the surgery who died from complications — kidney problems after the surgery.”

Such stories put more emphasis on the ongoing lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson, which, by many accounts, involve more than 38,000 claimants and nearly $4 billion in damages being sought.

At present, that fight is on a pause of sorts after a bankruptcy judge in North Carolina halted the lawsuits against J&J after that company formed a subsidiary in Texas, known as LTL, to absorb the parent company’s asbestos liabilities. LTL promptly filed for bankruptcy in North Carolina.

The move, known as a ‘divisive merger’ as well as a ‘Texas two-step’ (because that’s where LTL was formed) has been slammed by lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Plotkin said claimants in the various suits are girding for a protracted battle.

“Everyone is lawyering up, and they’re ready to have hearings,” he said. “All this is going to be hopefully resolved, one way or another, in February.”

While the court fight against J&J is now capturing some of Plotkin’s time, he also has his work — a broad phrase, to be sure — keeping him busy.

He said he worked remotely for some time but is now back in his office at 1350 Main St., the one with the view facing south toward MGM Springfield. And he referenced what he can see out his window when talking about the major challenges still facing Springfield.

He said that, when MGM was originally proposed, the thinking — if not the promise — was that the casino, with its front door on Main Street, would bring more vibrancy, not to mention additional commercial development, to both sides of the street and that broad area.

That hasn’t happened yet, in part because most all casino visitors have been entering and exiting through the parking garage (especially during the pandemic), leaving little foot traffic on Main Street and, therefore, a minimal trickle-down effect.

“People go right back in the garage, and they’re out of here,” he said. “And that needs to be fixed; we need to get those people into the downtown.”

Turning his attention back to Stearns Square, he said that area has seen progress on several fronts in recent years, including the park itself, which underwent major restoration efforts a few years ago. Around it are new businesses, including Dewey’s, a jazz club; the promise of new restaurants; and prospects for that area once again being the centerpiece of a walkable city.

The new mural will be part of all this, he said, adding that it will turn back the clock in many respects.

“In one part of the mural, there’s going to be an image of what Stearns Square looked like more than 100 years ago,” he explained, noting that this look back will show how the ‘Puritan’ statue now at the corner of Chestnut and State streets near the Quadrangle was originally in Stearns Square, with the Puritan facing a globe at the turtle fountain in the south end of the park.

“The narrative behind that is the fountain has a giant globe on it with fish and turtles around it, and there’s water,” he explained. “It was the Puritan looking at the new world, and he knew he had to cross over the water to get there.”

 

Body of Evidence

As he related the history of the park and spoke about his mural project, Plotkin said he’s always believed the Puritan statue should return to its original setting.

He admits he’s probably not alone with that view, but he acknowledges that such a move would certainly be a longshot at this point and an uphill battle.

Speaking of uphill battles … he’s been involved with many of them lately, from his fight against mesothelioma to the drawn-out court skirmishes with Johnson & Johnson, to his campaign to revitalize downtown Springfield.

All of them are ongoing to one extent or another, and Plotkin is waging them the only way he knows how: with passion and determination.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate

It May Be Wise to Consider Whether to Appeal Your Assessment

By Contributor

COVID and Property Value

By Laura Bellotti Cardillo

 

Laura Bellotti Cardillo

Laura Bellotti Cardillo

When property-tax assessments in Massachusetts came out at the end of 2020, many business owners were surprised to find their values had stayed the same or increased. Those assessments were premised on income and expense data from calendar year 2019, and therefore did not factor in the beginnings of the economic impact of the pandemic.

Now that property-tax assessments for fiscal year 2022 are being determined, commercial property owners whose real-estate assets were negatively impacted by the pandemic should take another look. Assessors must rely on calendar year 2020 income and expense data to determine current values and assessments, and after almost two years of living with COVID-19, the question remains whether the pandemic is a temporary anomaly or the economic impact will be of longer duration.

If your commercial real estate has been hit hard by the pandemic, here are some best practices that could help you achieve a reduction in your property assessment and lower your real-estate taxes.

 

Provide Extra Data and Projections

If the pandemic has continued to hamper your property’s performance through 2021, provide data through the third quarter of this year. While the assessment is based on numbers through year-end 2020, proof that things have not improved undercuts the argument that the pandemic is merely a blip.

Projections for 2022, 2023, and 2024 can be helpful in this regard as well. Many industries anticipate that a full recovery will take years. Demonstrating that you are not anticipating a swift bounce-back can support your argument that a reduction now is warranted.

“If the pandemic has continued to hamper your property’s performance through 2021, provide data through the third quarter of this year. While the assessment is based on numbers through year-end 2020, proof that things have not improved undercuts the argument that the pandemic is merely a blip.”

 

Document Use of PPP and Other Relief Funds

In some cases, assessors have asked if businesses received funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) or other relief initiatives. It is highly unlikely that these funds would have been used in a way that would increase the value of your real estate, so they should not factor into the fiscal year 2022 assessment.

Because PPP was designed specifically to cover payroll, utilities, and operating expenses, demonstrating in detail how these funds were spent (using materials you likely already have from your loan-forgiveness application) should help assessors put the receipt of these funds in proper context.

 

Values and Assessments Can Change Annually

Municipalities in Massachusetts have the ability to adjust assessments annually. Because values can be recalibrated year to year, now is the time for assessors to lower the values for the commercial property types hit hard by the pandemic.

Assuming certain commercial real-estate markets have begun to tick back up already or will begin to do so in 2022, assessors can make the necessary adjustments if and when the various sectors of the commercial property market roar back to life.

 

Laura Bellotti Cardillo is vice chair of the property-tax and valuation practice at Pullman & Comley. She heads the law firm’s Springfield office.

Mitch Bolotin, left, and partner Kevin Morin
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Commercial Real-estate Market Sees Movement in Many Categories

By

Activity Report

 

Mitch Bolotin, left, and partner Kevin Morin

Mitch Bolotin, left, and partner Kevin Morin stand near the entrance to 11 Interstate Dr. in West Springfield, which recently welcomed a new tenant, Millipore Sigma, which absorbed 27,000 square feet in the office building.

Looking back, area commercial real-estate brokers, managers, and developers said 2021 was a busy year with activity across all sectors and especially the retail side and the white-hot industrial segment of the market. On the office side, there was less movement and more question marks due to COVID-19 and uncertainty about when and under what circumstances workers will return to the office. The expectation for 2022 is for more of all of the above.

Area commercial real-estate brokers, developers, and property managers spoke with one voice when they told BusinessWest that there can be activity in their sector — and sometimes lots of activity — even when the economy is not hitting on all cylinders.

And this fact of life certainly helps explain why most brokers said 2021, year two of the pandemic, was one of the busiest years they’ve seen recently.

Indeed, there were some business closures and companies moving on from their leases, said those we spoke with, and other businesses downsizing for one of many reasons — all of which created movement in the market.

But there were many other forces contributing to this movement, and most of them were positive, said Mitch Bolotin, a principal and vice president of Springfield-based Colebrook Realty Services.

Listing them, he noted everything from low interest rates to the continued growth of the state’s cannabis industry, which has been absorbing industrial and retail space in communities across the region; from the improved health of the manufacturing sector, which has also contributed to the white-hot market for industrial spaces (more on that later), to the continued growth of delivery and warehousing operations, which has created ever more demand for those spaces. There’s has also been a noticeable increase in the amount of entrepreneurial activity in the region, inspired in part by COVID-19, which has created interest in retail space and some of the restaurants that have fallen victim to the pandemic.

“There is going to be some creative reuse of office space, and retail space, in this region.”

“This past year was one of our busiest years, and there was a lot of activity on all ends of the marketplace,” Bolotin said. “We’ve had deals in the retail world, the industrial market has been very active, the office market has been active, and there have been some development deals. We’ve seen it all across the board.”

Evan Plotkin, president of Springfield-based NAI Plotkin, agreed, noting that some of the movement on the retail side and office side has been as a result of COVID and its ill effects, but there has been positive movement as well, especially on the industrial and multi-family residential sides of the ledger, where the laws of supply and demand have forced prices higher as competition for available properties escalates.

There has even been some movement in the office market, said those we spoke with, but overall, this is the category still clouded by question marks. Large question marks.

Indeed, while all those we spoke with expressed the opinion (and we’ll paraphrase) that many workers now toiling remotely will eventually return to the office because employers realize there is more and better collaboration and more productivity when a team is in one place, there was also something approaching general consensus that things won’t be like they were before the pandemic.

And this means that some office space — just how much comprises one of those question marks — must be repurposed.

“There is going to be some creative reuse of office space, and retail space, in this region,” said Ken Vincunas, president of Agawam-based Development Associates. “I don’t know want it’s going to be or who is going to do it, but the malls and some office buildings are going to turn into something that no one foresaw, something they weren’t designed for.”

Paul Stelzer, president of Holyoke-based Appleton Corp., which currently manages more than 2 million square feet of property in the region, agreed.

Citing a movement to convert large amounts of office space to lab facilities in Boston, Cambridge, and Worcester to feed a biotech sector ravenously hungry for space, he said this might be one possible course for Western Mass. … if it can attract workers for that sector.

“We need to look at how we can maybe take two floors of a building that might never be leased again and convert to some type of bio, some type of medical, some type of related spaces,” he said, “because when you talk about quality of life, we have an incredible quality of life here in Western Mass., and I think there’s some desire for people not to be going up and down a 30-story elevator every day or taking the subway to work.”

For this issue, BusnessWest talked at length with area brokers and property managers about the current scene and what they project for the future, both short- and long-term.

 

Moving Story

As he talked about the commercial real-estate market and the year that was, Bolotin said there was considerable movement across the region — and in all sectors.

And he pointed to properties Colebrook handled in 2021 — and is still handling in many cases — as evidence. The portfolio includes:

• The leasing of 27,000 square feet at 11 Interstate Dr. in West Springfield to Millipore Sigma. The company, a life-sciences R&D firm and subsidiary of Merck, was in a small office in Wilbraham and expanded into the space;

• The sale of the industrial property at 2024 Westover Road in Chicopee, one of many such properties that saw considerable interest, went fast, and sold for a good price;

• The successful leasing of the property at 95 Elm St. in West Springfield, formerly home to United Bank. The large office complex is home to a broad mix of tenants, including Tandem Bagel;

• The sale of 100 Water St. in Holyoke, a large former mill complex, to GFI, one of the many cannabis companies that now call Holyoke home;

• The sale of 5 South Maple St. in Hadley, once a PeoplesBank branch, a sign of continued movement in the retail market;

• The sale of the former Troy Industries property on Capital Drive in West Springfield; and

• The sale of the 68,368-square-foot, fully leased warehouse space at 87-147 Avocado St. in Springfield to Woodrow Studios LLC, a deal that closed roughly a month ago. “That’s an example of an industrial investment property that had a strong amount of activity,” Bolotin said.

Collectively, these transactions speak to those many forces mentioned earlier — everything from the cannabis sector to tremendous growth of warehousing, distribution, and delivery businesses to growth within the manufacturing sector — that made 2021 one of the busiest years the company has seen recently.

“And 2022 is shaping up to be more of the same,” he told BusinessWest. “There’s a lot of demand, a lot of positive activity; we see the market being resilient, and, overall, there is a good deal of optimism.”

Plotkin agreed, citing his company’s portfolio of activity in 2021 as more evidence of what has been happening, even with some sectors struggling to fully recover from the pandemic and its many side effects.

Paul Stelzer

Paul Stelzer

“We need to look at how we can maybe take two floors of a building that might never be leased again and convert to some type of bio, some type of medical, some type of related spaces, because when you talk about quality of life, we have an incredible quality of life here in Western Mass., and I think there’s some desire for people not to be going up and down a 30-story elevator every day or taking the subway to work.”

On the industrial side, the company handled the sale of a large property in South Deerfield being leased by Yankee Candle, and Plotkin said it continues to receive calls from companies actively seeking warehouse or light manufacturing space with highway access in Springfield and surrounding towns.

On the retail side, it handled a number of transactions, from the former Hafey Funeral Home in Springfield to the former Manchester Hardware store in Easthampton to the Golf Acres recreational facility in Westfield. It is also negotiating the sale of a large shopping center in Pittsfield. There has been less activity on the office side, but the company did handle the sale of 480 Hampden St. in Holyoke to Girls Inc., among other deals, and has handled several leases and a few sales for companies reorganizing or downsizing space.

Overall, the two sectors seeing perhaps the most activity are retail and industrial, said those we spoke with, with cannabis impacting both in a positive way, although there are other factors as well.

Pat Goggins, president of Goggins Realty in Northampton, said the cannabis sector has certainly helped that city’s downtown, one that has seen several stores close due to the retirement of long-time owners, but also complications from COVID. But there have been other types of entrepreneurial activity, including some new restaurants and clothing stores.

Overall, he said it was certainly a much more “nervous time” in Northampton a year or so ago as vacancies started piling up in and around the downtown in a way that hadn’t been seen in decades, and there was uncertainty concerning when and under what circumstances those vacancies would be filled. Now, with many of those storefronts leased or under contract, including the Silverscape Designs property, there is far more stability.

“We’re making some nice progress in the level of activity that we’re seeing downtown, and it’s something that more closely mimics what we had been accustomed to,” he said, adding that, while there are still some vacant storefronts to be addressed, the overall tone is much more positive than it was a year or 18 months ago.

Plotkin agreed, noting that, overall, while retailers are seeing increasingly higher volumes of online sales, most of them still need a bricks-and-mortar presence, and this is contributing to ongoing movement in that segment of the market.

Ken Vincunas says the market for industrial properties is white hot

Ken Vincunas says the market for industrial properties is white hot, with immense competition for available properties pushing prices higher.

“They may shop for something online, but they want to go to the store to try it on,” he explained. “And that’s why I believe retail will remain strong.”

But it is the industrial market that is seeing the most activity, said Bolotin and others — and it would see considerably more if there was inventory.

At present, there isn’t much, said Vincunas, noting that what exists generally goes quickly and at high prices, which makes this category much like the residential real-estate market (see story on page 6).

“The industrial market has very little inventory, and for the few things that come up, there are a lot of takers, and the pricing has increased significantly, because people have products that people want, they’re making money, and they need that new building,” he said. “There’s been a lot of demand, things don’t stay on the market for long, and prices are way up.”

“There’s a lot of demand, a lot of positive activity; we see the market being resilient, and, overall, there is a good deal of optimism.”

As just one example, he cited the former home of Work Opportunity Center in Agawam, an 18,000-square-foot industrial space, which was under contract just a few weeks after it went on the market. Many other properties have moved in similarly quick fashion, and at prices — and here’s another parallel to the residential housing market — that have prompted buyers to also become sellers.

“We’re actually selling properties, which we hardly ever do, because the pricing is so high that you have to take some chips off the table and reposition the properties you want versus the ones that are in your past,” Vincunas said, noting that the company is in the process of selling a multi-tenant property in Chicopee.

“The price seemed right, and we thought it maybe it was time to change that in for something else,” he explained, adding that many property owners are thinking along similar lines to take advantage of the white-hot market.

 

Space Exploration

As noted earlier, it’s the region’s office market that has perhaps struggled the most, and it’s the one confronting an uncertain future.

Vincunas, whose company manages several office facilities, including the Greenfield Corporate Center, said the past 23 months have been a struggle on many levels, especially as companies find new ways to do business, with many employees working remotely.

Like others we spoke with, he believes employers will eventually bring workers back the office, for reasons involving productivity, communication, efficiency, and other factors, and when that day comes, the market will see a surge in activity.

Pat Goggins

Pat Goggins

“We’re making some nice progress in the level of activity that we’re seeing downtown, and it’s something that more closely mimics what we had been accustomed to.”

In the meantime, this will remain a tenants’ market, with many of the companies looking to downsize or just reduce their monthly rent expenditure finding landlords willing to make attractive deals, another trend that is expected to continue into 2022 and perhaps beyond.

As for the longer term, those we spoke with said that some (again, how much remains to be seen) of the traditional office space in the region will need to be repurposed, and it is incumbent upon those who own and manage it to start looking at viable options.

Stelzer noted that biomed is simply one of many possible alternatives.

“We have to do a really good job moving forward of cataloging what we have available, what we can pivot, what’s available for us, what the economic-development agencies can push,” he said, “because the days of the 200-person call center or 300-person call center are probably gone.

“So we have to turn around and figure out where people have to congregate, and lab space is one of them,” he went on. “There’s also an incredible demand for social services and mental-health space, which is partly driven by COVID and partly driven by the large amount of funding available for it; you may see some of these nonprofits that would typically be in a class B space or in space that doesn’t work as nicely for them taking the plunge and coming downtown or coming to a class A building; they can afford to do it, and demand for their workers is high.”

Stelzer said he’s already seeing such movement at one of the properties managed by Appleton, the Technology Park at Springfield Technical Community College. One of its major tenants, Liberty Mutual, has moved out of most of its space in the park (47,000 square feet) — part of a larger movement to have employees work remotely — and new tenants that have moved in include Mental Health Associates and Clinical & Support Options.

Since almost the very beginning of the pandemic, Plotkin has noted that, in this region, where the office market has traditionally had a comparatively high vacancy rate, the additional stress from COVID will force some property owners to think outside the box and find new uses for their square footage.

For the building he co-owns, 1350 Main St. in Springfield, and others, he has proposed housing or perhaps a hybrid concept, what he calls a “remote-work hub,” a facility in which people would live and work.

“There would be a living space, something like a dormitory, but done in an upscale way, with a lot of amenities,” he explained. “And then you have a work hub. The idea is to have a living space and then a floor where you can lease an office, so you’re not working at your kitchen table.”

Whether the remote-work hub is the answer remains to be seen, he went on, adding that, from his view, it’s clear that something — and something imaginative — needs to happen within the office market, especially in downtown Springfield.

“We have to look at the half-million square feet of vacant office space that we have and examine how we repurpose and reposition that,” he went on. “We also need to look at what kind of help we need from MassDevelopment and the state to incentivize business owners — people like me — to take a building like 1350 Main St. and convert half of it to co-living space.”

 

Bottom Line

Looking ahead to the rest of 2022, those we spoke with said that COVID makes it difficult to project exactly what will happen. Stelzer equated the landscape in the sector to “shifting sands,” and said that, until the ground stabilizes, more uncertainty will prevail.

Overall, the experts are predicting more of the same for the foreseeable future, meaning this will continue to be a tenants’ market in the office realm, and the laws of supply demand will create more movement in the industrial and retail segments of the market.

And it means more hard thinking — and some action — when it comes to deciding what can and will happen within the office market.

In other words, it’s shaping up to be another busy year.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Communities Ponder How Best to Spend and Invest Infusions of Federal Money

By

A Time to Think Big

 

With more than $3 billion being directed to area cities and towns through the American Rescue Plan Act, there is no end to speculation about these funds should be put to use. While infrastructure projects and other municipal needs certainly need to be addressed, area economic leaders and developers are urging communities to think big and make investments that will spur additional private-sector development and allow these cities and towns to take full advantage of the changing times and the opportunities they present.

‘Unprecedented.’ ‘Once in a lifetime.’ ‘Once in a generation.’ ‘Transformative.’ ‘Totally unique.’

These are just some of the words and phrases people are using to describe the federal money now flowing into the state and its individual cities and towns from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to help them, their residents, and their businesses recover from the hard sting of COVID-19. Area communities are in line for windfalls ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars for the smallest of towns in Franklin and Hampshire Counties to more than $130 million for Springfield. And the state itself is receiving more than $5 billion.

By and large, there are few strings attached to this money, so the $64,000 question (or the ‘fill in an amount’ question, as the case may be with individual communities) concerns how this windfall will be spent.

Keith Nesbitt

Keith Nesbitt

“There are very safe investments that can be made, and everyone would benefit. But there are game-changing investments that can be made, and I hope that they are.”

The debate is continuing on Beacon Hill and all across the region as mayors, city and town councilors, selectmen, and town administrators mull myriad options for spending these funds — and how other federal money, such as that included in the infrastructure bill recently passed into law, might be put to use.

Much of the talk on the local level concerns infrastructure — roads, bridges, sewer and water lines — as well as new roofs, HVAC systems, and more for municipal buildings, new parking garages, parks, etc., etc., etc.

And while these options have merit, those who spoke with BusinessWest on the broad subject of how this spending spree, especially the ARPA money, should be conducted said that, from an economic-development standpoint, area cities and towns — and the state itself — would do well to think bigger, and more long-term, with an eye toward using this money in ways that justify that word ‘transformative,’ and also spark private-sector development in housing (especially market-rate housing), new businesses, and more.

“These can’t be ‘bridge-to-nowhere’ kinds of investment — they have to be meaningful investments that all of us can benefit from,” said Jeff Daley, president and CEO of Westmass Development Corp., who also warned against a rush to commission studies that would likely yield reports that sit on shelves for years.

Keith Nesbitt, Berkshire Bank’s senior vice president for Business Banking for the Pioneer Valley and Connecticut, agreed.

“There are investments that are needed, and I think they come in a variety of forms,” he said. “I don’t know how we’re going to attract significant private investment without that pump priming that government resources are going to provide. I think this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and I really hope that local leaders are bold enough to dream big when it comes to how we use these funds.

“There are very safe investments that can be made, and everyone would benefit,” he went on. “But there are game-changing investments that can be made, and I hope that they are.”

What falls in that category? Nesbitt, who is also hiring manager for the bank and understands the workforce issues facing area businesses and the lack of qualified talent across the board, cited a community in Minnesota that is earmarking some of its federal money to ensure that all high-school graduates can attend community college.

Joy Martin

Joy Martin

“You do have a unique opportunity that you didn’t before because you have money to offer people to come in and develop in your area.”

“They recognized that need to prepare our young people for the jobs of the future,” he said. “The investment in free, two-year community college is what they’ve decided to do, and I’d love to see something that like here.”

Meanwhile, Joy Martin, director of Asset Management with Davenport Companies, which has worked on MGM Springfield, recently converted the former Willys-Overland property on Chestnut Street into market-rate apartments and is redeveloping the former Registry of Motor Vehicles building on Liberty Street, said Springfield and other communities need to think about investing the federal money in ways that would make it easier to undertake such projects.

“You do have a unique opportunity that you didn’t before because you have money to offer people to come in and develop in your area,” she said, adding that many projects need help from state and local government to make the numbers work for developers.

Rick Sullivan, president and CEO of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, who can speak to this subject from various perspectives (he’s the former mayor of Springfield and a current city councilor), concurred, and also stressed the need to invest the money and not just spend it.

“I do think it’s a chance to look at the bigger picture and look down the road,” he told BusinessWest. “And not just fill a gap that might exist today, or not just make some repair that might be necessary, but really further your economy or the quality of life in your community you’re living in.”

 

Money Talks

While certainly advocating for longer-term thinking when it comes to how the ARPA money should be apportioned, Sullivan and others noted there are some immediate concerns that may also have some ramifications down the road.

That’s especially true when it comes to existing businesses and especially the smaller ventures across many sectors that are still struggling from the effects of not only COVID but some of the side effects from treating it as well.

“With the pandemic, the small, mom-and-pop, downtown, core-district businesses are still hurting,” he told BusinessWest. “They have supply-chain issues, they have employment issues … so I think some of these monies should go to the small, the really small businesses that make up the fabric, the fiber of your downtowns and your communities.

“And it can’t be loans because loans come with interest,” he went on. “It has to be either grants or no-interest loans that have a forgiveness provision — it goes away after a short period of time, be it two years or three years or five years; if you stay open and you’re moving forward, the obligation to pay goes away. Some of this money needs to go to your smallest businesses.”

Rick Sullivan

Rick Sullivan

“With the pandemic, the small, mom-and-pop, downtown, core-district businesses are still hurting. They have supply-chain issues, they have employment issues … so I think some of these monies should go to the small, the really small businesses that make up the fabric, the fiber of your downtowns and your communities.”

That said, Sullivan and others stressed repeatedly the need to think big when it comes to ARPA, meaning a focus on investments that will pay off the long term, with benefits for generations of residents of a given city or town. That could mean investments in everything from education and training initiatives to faster and more reliable internet, to initiatives that will unlock the development potential of unused and underutilized properties.

Seth Stratton, a business lawyer and managing partner of East Longmeadow-based Fitzgerald Attorneys at Law, said the focus should be on economic-development-related investments, a broad term to be sure.

“The programs and initiatives that should be funded with these resources should be intentional, impactful, and innovative — all with an eye toward a continuing spark; it has to be transformative,” he said, putting support for new housing projects high on his list of priorities. “We want to see economic development and a rising tide that lifts all boats. If we just do one-off projects here and there, that can be helpful, but it won’t have this comprehensive effect of economic development in what many of us see as somewhat of a new economy.

“What do restaurant, food and beverage, and entertainment venues look like going forward?” he continued. “We ought to be thinking about what they look like moving forward and how to embrace that and use funds in a smart way that would have exponential impact, rather than talking about one-off items.”

Daley agreed, and mentioned, as one example, Ludlow Mills, the sprawling former jute-making complex along the Chicopee River that Westmass now owns. He said investments made there by the state and perhaps the town of Ludlow could bring property in line for development and create jobs for several generations of area residents.

“We have several under-underutilized and undevelopable properties, and I think this one-time type of money coming in could help put us over the top to redevelop Ludlow Mills and other projects,” he said, adding that he hopes the ARPA money and funds in other federal programs, such as the infrastructure bill that was recently signed into law, trickle down to Western Mass. and help it attract the attention of the development community, which has often found it difficult to take on projects here for a number of reasons, including the market lease rates and the costs of renovating old mills and other properties.

“With a small investment — small relative to the numbers they’re talking about Congress and feds giving the state — we could recapitalize those dollars and give a return on investment that would be a million times what they would give us,” Daley said. “We have very, very large properties in Ludlow, specifically, that, without an infusion of cash, it’s going to hard to redevelop. With a small infusion of cash, several million dollars, we can generate a return on investment of $300 million or $400 million, realistically, within five to 10 years — and create a lot of jobs and tax dollars; there are three or four projects we could do that would change the face of Ludlow.”

Jeff Daley

Jeff Daley

“We have several under-underutilized and undevelopable properties, and I think this one-time type of money coming in could help put us over the top to redevelop Ludlow Mills and other projects.”

Martin concurred, noting that this infusion of federal money comes at an intriguing time, as many forces are coming together to make Western Mass. a more attractive option for individuals and businesses alike. These include the much higher cost of living in other areas such as Boston and New York and the opportunity to now work in those areas but live in a lower-cost region like the 413.

“Western Mass. is getting more attractive to investors and to people in general. Overland Lofts is 97% leased, and it has been 97% leased for some time,” she told BusinessWest. “We thought we were going to have a problem leasing these apartments, and we have not, and what surprised us is that we’ve attracted a lot of residents from the Worcester and Boston areas, because this location is near things that are about to happen — it’s not far from the casino, it’s near the train station … it checks a lot of boxes for urban living at a much lower cost than living in Boston or Worcester.”

Elaborating, she said one of the units is being leased by an executive with a Boston-based firm who is now able to work remotely, and chose to do so in downtown Springfield.

With these trends, or developments, in mind, those we spoke with said area cities and towns need to be thinking about ways to utilize the ARPA funds to take full advantage of the opportunities currently presenting themselves.

 

Impact Statement

Returning to that town in Minnesota using ARPA money to send young people to community college, Nesbitt said this is the kind of long-term, high-impact investing that state and area leaders should be thinking about as they consider options for allocating funds in the broad realm of economic development.

“These kinds of human-capital investments need to be prioritized,” he said, adding that the workforce crisis now impacting every sector of the economy must be considered a long-term problem and not one that will correct itself in a quarter or two or with the end of additional unemployment benefits.

Seth Stratton

Seth Stratton

“We have to have more market-rate housing in the region and be creative about it, and that’s where we talk about downtown developments. We can leverage Western Mass. and our lower cost of living by investing in market-rate housing, and such investments will help our businesses, because they are struggling to find and keep employees, and if we have robust market-rate housing, that will certainly help.”

Stratton agreed, noting that expanding vocational-education programs to assist the trades and the region’s large manufacturing sector should also be a priority. Meanwhile, he noted that other forces are converging that might bring more people into the local workforce, such as the ability to work remotely. He said there are more individuals like that executive now living in Overland Lofts, and, moving forward, they will need places to live.

“We have to have more market-rate housing in the region and be creative about it, and that’s where we talk about downtown developments,” he said. “We can leverage Western Mass. and our lower cost of living by investing in market-rate housing, and such investments will help our businesses, because they are struggling to find and keep employees, and if we have robust market-rate housing, that will certainly help.”

Meanwhile, with these changes in how and where people work, communities like Springfield have to think about the large amounts of office space currently unleased and the potential for those numbers to climb, he went on, adding that some thought should go into repurposing some of this space into flexible workplaces.

Getting projects like these off the ground is often difficult because it’s not easy to make redevelopment projects like the Overland initiative “pencil out,” as developers say, meaning make the numbers work. Often, historical tax credits or other forms of funding are needed to bridge gaps, said Martin, adding that the state and individual communities should look at using the federal funds flowing to them to make such projects more feasible and doable.

“We thought we were going to have a problem leasing these apartments, and we have not, and what surprised us is that we’ve attracted a lot of residents from the Worcester and Boston areas, because this location is near things that are about to happen — it’s not far from the casino, it’s near the train station … it checks a lot of boxes for urban living at a much lower cost than living in Boston or Worcester.”

“We run into a gap between the cost to build something and the actual asking price for something,” she said, citing the Overland project as an example. “We got 60 apartments out of it and rents that fit the area, but none of that would have happened without historical funds and state housing funds. So if the city had something that could bridge some of the financial gap between new-build and the current economic conditions in Springfield, that will help to bring developers here.

“It’s hard to justify an $18 million project with $2-per-square-foot rent,” she went on. “But if there’s some way to help bridge that gap, I think you’d see more developers willing to come in and give you a good product.”

Daley agreed, noting that the developers of the so-called Clocktower Building at Ludlow Mills, another housing project, have had to wait the better part of six years for the historical tax credits needed to move that initiative off the drawing board.

“We have another mill that’s 600,000 square feet; if we were to start today and try to get those kinds of tax credits, it would be 12 to 15 years before they were all distributed,” he said. “If the state wanted to have an impact on development of those kinds of projects, it should make more money available for good projects that are shovel-ready.”

Martin said the gap in funding facing those looking to develop existing but older and challenged buildings is one of the key factors impeding redevelopment of the buildings across Main Street from MGM Springfield.

“It’s not that people don’t want to be there,” she said. “It costs a lot to redevelop these buildings, and then to charge a rent that fits the community … it doesn’t pencil out without some kind of help,” she said. “Using these funds in a smart way like that would help bring back the Main Streets in Western Mass.”

Sullivan agreed, and said such investments are part of that process of looking beyond today and to tomorrow, and what communities want and need to look like in a rapidly changing landscape.

“I do think this is an opportunity for communities to look at the bigger picture regarding where they want their communities to be 10 years down the road, what they want their downtowns to look like, and what sectors — be it a restaurant district or an entertainment sector, travel and tourism, for example — they want to attract,” he said. “It’s about determining what you want your future to look like, and investing in it.”

 

Paying It Forward

Summing things up, Sullivan said these are what he hopes are once-in-a-lifetime windfalls that have come to area cities and towns.

“Hopefully, we won’t ever have to go through this again,” he noted, adding quickly that this unique moment in time represents an opportunity to pause, think about the future, and make some investments in it.

Fixing a bridge or putting a new roof on the fire station might be a suitable use for some of the money, he went on, but overall, cities and towns have to think bigger. Much bigger.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Springfield’s Historic Trolley Barn Finds a New Life

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A Blast from the Past

Springfield’s Trolley Barn, the property at the corner of Main and Carew streets, has had an important place in the city’s history since it opened back in 1897. It was long home to the Springfield Street Railway Co. and, later, Peter Pan’s Coach Builders operation. Today, it has a new life as home to J.D. Rivet, a roofing and sheet-metal company, thus ensuring that this link to the past will have a place in the city’s future.

At top, the Trolley Barn sign

At top, the Trolley Barn sign is joined by others announcing the newest owners. Above, past and present come together in the second-floor conference room.

Jim Trask says the search took the better part of four years.

That’s because, as he and other members of the leadership team at JD Rivet & Co. Inc., a roofing and sheet-metal company, went about looking for a new home to replace the one on Page Boulevard in Springfield, they had a lot of boxes that needed to be checked.

Chief among them was — and is — location, said Trask, the company’s president, adding that several crews hit the road for jobs each day, and easy access to highways is a major consideration. But there were others, including large open space for a warehouse, parking, and more, as the company, working with a broker, considered a number of options, including property at the Deer Park Industrial Park in East Longmeadow.

Eventually, the search ended at a rather intriguing place, the corner of Main and Carew streets in Springfield, home for nearly 125 years to a building known as the ‘Trolley Barn.’

“That’s a nod to the days when there were actual stables for horses that would pull carriages,” said Trask, adding that the property certainly has seen a great deal of history and change; from the horse-drawn cars to the electrically powered trolleys of the Springfield Street Railway Co., to far more recent uses. These include it being home to Peter Pan Bus Lines’ Coach Builders repair and restoration facility, and, simultaneously, a methadone clinic in the front-office section of the facility.

Trask and Sean Gouvin, the company’s vice president, recalled that, when they were first introduced to the property by Brendan Greeley, a broker at R.J. Greeley Co., they saw both opportunity and challenge, in perhaps equal amounts.

The former was represented by those aforementioned boxes being checked, especially the location part; the property is just a few hundred feet from an on-ramp to I-91, a few blocks from I-291, and a just a few minutes from the Mass Pike. The latter came in the large amount of work that needed to be undertaken to ready the property for the planned new use, especially transforming the portion occupied by the methadone clinic into modern office and warehouse space.

“I liked the building — I could tell it was really strong,” Trask said. “I loved the space in the warehouse, but the office at the time was all broken up and I didn’t really like the office space at all.”

Eventually, though, they decided seizing the opportunity was worth the challenge. Thus commenced more than six months of cleanup and restoration work that yielded some surprises — sheetrock was covering original brick and intricate woodwork in that office area — as well as a few artifacts, and a workspace that speaks to the early 20th century but certainly works in the early 21st century.

At left, from left, Robert Ostrader, Sean Gouvin, and Jim Trask in the new first-floor conference room.

“There are a lot of reasons why we’re here — location, price, everything,” Trask said. “But I love old buildings, and this is one of the most historic buildings around.”

And it provides what the company needs most — a long-term solution to its space needs, he added, noting that JD Rivet has worked through the many hurdles created by the pandemic (although some stern challenges remain, especially supply-chain issues) and is in a growth mode.

Founded in 1960, the company specializes in the installation and maintenance of commercial, industrial, and residential roofing systems. The company has worked on everything from churches to hangars at Westover Air Reserve Base.

From its new headquarters in Springfield’s North End, it can see the past — and the future as well.

 

Pulling Out All the Stops

As for those artifacts … there are several of them, including old pictures of the trolleys that were once housed there (one now graces the second-floor conference room), a boiler alarm bell (just like it sounds, it’s a bell that would ring if there was a problem with the boiler) that dates back to the turn of the 20th century, and some old fire-insurance maps, found on the property, that offer a glimpse of the dramatic growth that came to that section of Springfield in the early 1900s.

These items would be considered a bonus, said Bob Ostrander, JD Rivet’s chief financial officer, adding that what the company really wanted from its new home was a chance to consolidate operations — it was spread out in several different buildings on Page Boulevard — as well as have better, easier access to highways and that room to grow.

“The office was so chunked up, you couldn’t really get a feel for what it was because you couldn’t see more than a few feet without a wall.”

It got all that and more at an address — Carew and Main — that has seen a lot of history and certainly changed with the times. Indeed, the owner for decades was the Springfield Street Railway Co., which opened in 1870, and originally operated a single line of track — served by four cars and 24 horses — that ran from the North End of the city down Main Street, past State Street.

The original line soon expanded to other parts of the city, and by 1891, the lines were all electrified to run trolleys. By the end of the century, the network had extended to several area communities, and connections were made to other networks in other cities, including Holyoke, Westfield, Northampton, and Hartford. To handle all this growth, the company built the facility, named the Trolley Barn, at the corner of Main and Carew.

Like all trolley lines, Springfield’s became obsolete in the 1950s as cars and buses became the dominant modes of transportation. The Trolley Barn would eventually be acquired by Peter Pan Bus Lines to house its Coach Builders operation, which painted and repaired buses.

When the management team at JD Rivet first looked at the property, Coach Builders was still occupying the large area formerly used for housing and maintaining trolleys, and a methadone clinic had recently moved out of the office portion of the property. That later operation required privacy for its clients, said Ostrander, adding that the relatively large area had been carved up into many smaller spaces covered by sheetrock.

Before-and-after shots of the office area show the amount of work needed to restore the historic Trolley Barn to its former luster.

Before-and-after shots of the office area

“The office was so chunked up, you couldn’t really get a feel for what it was because you couldn’t see more than a few feet without a wall,” he said, adding that their collective imaginations managed to see through all that. And they liked what they saw.

“We had a demolition contractor, Associated Builders, come in and tear down all that sheetrock, and when they did, it revealed all this beautiful wood,” he told BusinessWest, waving his hand across the space that has become his office. “So we decided to restore all that wood — the floors, the wainscoting on the walls, the ceilings, the doors.”

Only small portions of those hardwood floors could not be fully restored, said Ostrander, adding that the company has effectively blended the past — specifically those floors, walls, and ceilings — with the present, including a new, glass-walled conference room created on the ground-floor office area.

Gouvin agreed. “From the beginning, we treated it as historic renovation — every turn was thoughtful,” he said of the efforts to preserve historic qualities of the property (and there are many of them), yet make the property suitable for modern office and warehouse operations.

Elaborating, he said the structure is in a historic district, so any alteration to the building that faces Main Street had to be approved by the Historic Commission. That includes the windows and the front door, which had to be restored and not simply replaced.

The past and present come together in a number of spaces within the building — the warehouse still bears evidence of where trolley cars were kept and maintained, but the there’s now high-efficiency lighting there and elsewhere — but perhaps none better than the second-floor conference room, which takes advantage of large windows, more of that ornate woodwork, and a fireplace (one of several in the building) to provide a unique, homey setting.

“I don’t think we’ve had to turn the lights on in there yet — the windows let in a ton of light,” said Trask, adding that it’s the same throughout the office portion of the property.

 

Past Is Prologue

The business cards for those at JD Rivet list 2257 Main St. as the address.

That’s a location steeped in history, one that brings three different centuries together in the same building.

Those at the company are proud of how they’ve blended the past with the present. But mostly, they’re excited about the future and the opportunities presented by this new facility.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

WestMass CEO Jeff Daley (left) and Sean O’Donnell (right), the agency’s Economic Development planner and leasing manager, with metal sculptor Kamil Peters, who relocated to Ludlow Mills last summer.
Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Westmass Strives to Become a More Impactful Force in Economic Development

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Getting Down to Business

WestMass CEO Jeff Daley (left) and Sean O’Donnell (right), the agency’s Economic Development planner and leasing manager, with metal sculptor Kamil Peters, who relocated to Ludlow Mills last summer.

WestMass CEO Jeff Daley (left) and Sean O’Donnell (right), the agency’s Economic Development planner and leasing manager, with metal sculptor Kamil Peters, who relocated to Ludlow Mills last summer.

The primary role of the Westmass Area Development Corp. — as the agency recently stressed in a letter to area stakeholders — is to “to manage the entire economic-development process — from conception to completion.” How it performs that role is changing and expanding, however — not just in its portfolio of development and property reuse, including its industrial parks and the ever-intriguing Ludlow Mills project, but as a valuable consultant for businesses and communities with a vision.

The letters, 150 of them, went out earlier this month.

They were sent to mayors, economic-development leaders, and other officials in communities across the four counties of Western Mass., dozens of area cities and towns, and served as introductions, invitations, and reminders all at the same time.

Officials in those communities were and are being invited to take full advantage of the talent and resources available at Westmass Area Development Corp. — the not-for-profit economic and real-estate development firm established in 1960 by state-enabling legislation — to help with a wide range of projects, from urban-renewal plans to environmental permitting; from complex site-related issues to specialized tax incentives.

The reminder part? Well, Westmass has been offering this kind of assistance to area communities almost from the start, but under the leadership of Jeff Daley, who took the helm at the agency in the summer of 2019, consulting work has become a much larger part of the business plan for the agency, which is promoting such services more heavily — and in a number of ways.

Like with those those letters, which quickly get to the heart of the matter.

“Every community, no matter its size or complexity, requires an ongoing economic-development effort to ensure financial stability of that community,” it reads. “Ideally, through the public-private partnership process, commonly shared economic-development goals can be identified and ultimately achieved. The primary role of Westmass is to manage the entire economic-development process — from conception to completion — and [be] engaged throughout all stages.”

“Westmass has always had some foot in the consulting business, helping communities and developers. But given my background, what I want to bring to the table is really opening the door for businesses and communities with economic and real-estate development projects; we’re really ramping things up.”

There are already some good examples of how Westmass with worked with area communities to achieve stated goals, said Daly, citing assistance with managing grants that helped land the Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke and some similar assistance with bringing the Holyoke Community College MGM Culinary Arts Center to reality.

The goal moving forward is to add to the portfolio and become more of a contributing force when it comes to economic development and property reuse in the region.

“Westmass has always had some foot in the consulting business, helping communities and developers,” he explained. “But given my background, what I want to bring to the table is really opening the door for businesses and communities with economic and real-estate development projects; we’re really ramping things up.”

That background he mentioned includes his own private consulting firm, CJC Development Advisors, and a stint as director of the Westfield Redevelopment Authority, during which he worked on several projects in the city’s downtown. He is now part of a team that also includes Sara la Cour, vice president of Operations for Westmass, and Sean O’Donnell, Economic Development planner and leasing manager for the agency.

Nick Moran, founder of Iron Duke Brewing

Nick Moran, founder of Iron Duke Brewing, is expanding his operation at the Ludlow Mills, making the complex more of a destination.

Overall, this consulting arm is now one of three main prongs to the Westmass operation, with the others being industrial-park management — the agency oversees several parks, including facilities in Agawam, Chicopee, East Longmeadow, Hadley, and Westfield, most of which are fully leased — and redevelopment of the Ludlow Mills site, a 15-to 20-year project that Daly believes can serve as a model for what other communities can do with old mill buildings and complex brownfield sites.

The mill now boasts 30 tenants, including a senior housing complex, a rehabilitation hospital, and a host of smaller businesses, including several recent arrivals. That list includes Kamil Peters, a contemporary metal sculptor who relocated to the mill from Holyoke (more on him later); Westnet Inc., a medical-supplies distributor, which moved in earlier this year; and Herron Automation, a machinist and CNC operator.

It also includes a tenant that isn’t new but is intriguing nonetheless. That would be Iron Duke Brewery, which almost left the mill in the protracted legal battle over whether lease conditions were violated, but wound up staying and is now in an expansion mode, with work on a new beer garden slated to begin later this year.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at how Westmass intends to broaden its impact in the region by helping area cities and towns take complex projects off the drawing board and make them reality.

 

Not Run of the Mill

Returning to that letter sent out to area communities, it’s part of a larger effort on the part of those at Westmass to create more visibility for the agency, make its expertise and resources known to more municipal officials and developers, and, in general, tell its story. A move downtown, to offices in Monarch Place, is part of that initiative.

“We’ve certainly experienced enough in this now that we can go in and help cities and towns with buildings like this, whether they’re mills or old dilapidated structures; we can help them go in and see what can be done.”

Other components, part of a new multi-year strategic plan being reviewed by the Westmass board, include a revamped, far more modern website and more extensive use of social media, said Daly, adding that many in the region believe Westmass is only in the business of developing industrial parks. That’s a big part of the mission, he noted, but it’s not the whole story.

And he wants to write more chapters in the broad realm of consulting, where, he believes, there is considerable room for growth. That’s because of the wide range of experience the agency can bring to the table, including assistance to both communities and developers in many realms.

These include everything from business-improvement districts (la Cour ran the Amherst BID for many years) to district-improvement financing, one of Daly’s areas of expertise.

“When I started my own private business, it was a shot in the dark because I saw what communities didn’t have and what developers were missing,” he explained. “And it proved to be very successful very quickly. I’m taking the same passion I had for that kind of work in my private practice and rolling it into Westmass’ purview to help area communities, because that’s what we’re here to do — develop properties, help communities, and create jobs.”

Daly said Westmass is targeting all communities west of Worcester when it comes to its consulting arm. And while smaller communities without economic-development staffs can certainly benefit from such services, larger municipalities can as well, and some already have.

Kamil Peters is one of a number of new tenants at Ludlow Mills

Kamil Peters is one of a number of new tenants at Ludlow Mills that are giving the complex a different look and feel.

The full list of areas for which Westmass can assist developers and municipalities also includes strategic planning for integrated project permitting, project financing and incentives, public procurement and grant management, and site acquisition and redevelopment of historic buildings, greenfields, and brownfields.

That last category brings us back to Ludlow Mills, which encompasses all three of those types of property. It is certainly historic — the mills played a huge role in the growth and development of Ludlow, and there is a large mix of brownfields and greenfields being redeveloped.

And with its experience in redeveloping the mill complex, Westmass has established itself as a leader of sorts in this kind of large, very complex redevelopment.

“This is the biggest mill in the region, and it’s very time-consuming and capital-intensive,” he noted. “But we’ve certainly experienced enough in this now that we can go in and help cities and towns with buildings like this, whether they’re mills or old dilapidated structures; we can help them go in and see what can be done.”

Often with such projects, environmental issues are a key consideration — and a major stumbling block, he went on, adding that this was certainly the case with Ludlow Mills. Over the past 11 years, Westmass has applied for and received several million dollars worth of grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the state to clean the site and make it ready for redevelopment.

The latest EPA grant, totaling $461,000 (word of approval was just received), will enable Westmass to clean 10 buildings on the site with roofs loaded with asbestos, preparing them for eventual demolition and redevelopment of five to six acres of property.

“It was a competitive and comprehensive program that we applied for,” said Daly, “and we’re grateful to the EPA to get selected for exactly what we asked for.”

The property in question, just south of the Ludlow Senior Center, includes several of the stockhouses that populate the site. Some may remain standing, said Daly, but the ‘clean dirt’ that will result from demolition of those deemed unsavable will give Westmass a real opportunity to add to its eclectic mix of tenants in the mill complex.

“I was in Holyoke for 10 years. My space was starting to close in on me a little bit. I was invited to take a look here and found it had ample power, the price was reasonable, and there were already things going on here, like Iron Duke. I decided I wanted to be part of it.”

That tenant base has evolved over the years, said O’Donnell, and now includes a number of storage-related ventures, several light manufacturers, the brewery, a battery sales and servicing company, the senior housing complex, and even a wholesale florist.

Then, there’s Peters, who has transformed one of the high-ceilinged stockhouses into a new studio. On the day BusinessWest visited, he was working on a number of wooden benches (he does woodworking as well) for a new client that is transforming what was the late actor Christopher Reeves’ estate in the Berkshires into a mix of Airbnb and event space. He was also doing some work for Harold Grinspoon, one of BusinessWest’s recently honored Difference Makers, who is, in addition to being a successful business owner and philanthropist, a prolific sculptor.

Known for his metal masks, Peters said he found Ludlow Mills at the suggestion of a few friends and colleagues who thought the space would provide him space to work — and grow.

“I was in Holyoke for 10 years,” he noted. “My space was starting to close in on me a little bit. I was invited to take a look here and found it had ample power, the price was reasonable, and there were already things going on here, like Iron Duke. I decided I wanted to be part of it.”

The plan moving forward is to make the mill more of destination, which could attract many different kinds of businesses, said Daly, adding that, as noted, this is both a brownfields project — redevelopment of the old mill buildings — and greenfields, specifically 37 acres of undeveloped land which is drawing considerable interest and will certainly attract much more when a private road to that property, one of many priorities for Westmass at this site, is constructed.

Meanwhile, a $7 million project to construct a public road along the Chicopee River, which will create frontage for several properties, should also put the mill property on more radar screens.

Overall, the evolving mix of tenants is “changing the dynamic” at the mill complex, said Daly, adding that, with the beer garden and tenants like Peters, who has a goal to create an artists’ gallery in his space, the mill does become a destination.

“Businesses like this are bringing people here after work, on weekends … it’s not just a 7-to-3 manufacturing facility anymore,” he told BusinessWest. “It’s driving a different economy of scale with who comes here and the money they’re spending. It’s a neat concept that we’ve stumbled into, if you will.”

 

Bottom Line

It’s the kind of concept that Westmass would like to help other area communities stumble into.

With those letters that went out earlier this month, as well as other initiatives undertaken recently to improve its visibility, Westmass is not exactly broadening its mission, but rather putting more emphasis on what could be called another ‘growth area’ for the agency.

It’s all part of a larger strategic plan aimed at making an agency that has been a driving force in economic development in this region an even more powerful engine.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate Special Coverage

Commercial Market Shows Movement, but Questions Linger

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Progress Report

Roughly 14 months after COVID-19 arrived in Western Mass., the commercial real-estate market is showing some signs of life, especially with industrial properties, which are in considerable demand, with limited supply. But as companies start to return to their offices, questions remain concerning just how much space businesses will need long-term and how much demand there will be for the large inventories of space now, or soon to be, available.

Pat Goggins has been selling and leasing real estate in and around Northampton for almost a half-century now. It’s very safe to say that he knows that market better than anyone.

And he feels comfortable now, a full year and change after COVID-19 first arrived in this region, in saying that the Northampton market has “bottomed out, and is starting to work its way back to what it had become.”

He bases this assessment on a number of things — from new leases being signed for some vacated properties downtown to interest in some other buildings for sale and lease, to the lease rates themselves, which, he said, haven’t changed appreciably in 20 years now.

“We’re seeing some new activity that is creating some positive vibes,” said Goggins, president of Goggins Real Estate Inc., adding that, while challenges remain and COVID continues to take a toll on Northampton, there are many signs that a corner of sorts is being turned.

Using slightly different words and phrases, other commercial real-estate brokers and managers we spoke with said essentially the same as Goggins, that the market is moving back toward — here comes that phrase again — ‘something approaching normal, or a new normal.’ Meaning, they believe, that the worst is likely over.

“We still have a ways to go, but there is movement back to normalcy,” said Mitch Bolotin, a principal with Springfield-based Colebrook Realty Services, who is using, among other things, the parking-lot test when it comes to what’s happening within this market.

Pat Goggins

Pat Goggins

“We still have a ways to go, but there is movement back to normalcy.”

Indeed, he said the parking lots at the PeoplesBank building in Holyoke, 1441 Main St. in Springfield, and the Basketball Hall of Fame complex in Springfield, just some of the properties managed by the company, are more populated than they were just a few months ago, and much more full than last fall. The cars in those lots are evidence that businesses are, in fact, returning to their offices and the buildings are moving closer to pre-COVID levels of occupancy and vibrancy.

Still, hard questions remain about just how many more cars will be returning to those lots — and when. And these questions — which are being asked in urban areas across the Northeast and, indeed, across the country — will likely determine to just what extent the market fully recovers. Indeed, as leases have expired over the past year, some companies have downsized, said Bolotin, a few have actually upsized to give employees more space in the wake of COVID, and others are essentially standing pat.

Meanwhile, when it comes to negotiating new leases, most tenants have been able to take advantage of a market that favors them and secure a number that certainly isn’t higher, and in many cases is lower.

Ken Vincunas, president of Agawam-based Development Associates, which manages several office buildings in this region, including the Greenfield Corporate Center and Agawam Crossing, said that nearly 14 months after COVID forced many people to work remotely, questions linger about when and if businesses will summon employees back to the office, and how many will actually come back.

“I think people like to work at home,” he said. “Businesses want them to come back, but I’m not sure the employees will want to go back.”

Meanwhile, some segments of the commercial market, especially industrial properties, are vibrant, if not white-hot, said Vincunas, noting that there isn’t enough inventory to meet a growing need.

Ken Vincunas says, others, like industrial, have been very active

While COVID has slowed some segments of the commercial real-estate market, Ken Vincunas says, others, like industrial, have been very active, with inventories struggling to meet demand.

“The bulk of our portfolio is industrial, and that’s all pretty strong right now — inventory for that is very low, and prices are very high,” he said, adding that the market for medical real estate — and his company has some of it in the portfolio as well — remains strong.

For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at what’s happening within the local market and what may happen as the region continues its pursuit of ‘normal’ — whatever that means.

 

Down on Main Street

As he talked about the Northampton market and what has happened within it over the past year or so, Goggins used the word ‘generational’ to describe the changes to the landscape.

By that, he meant many of the businesses that have become synonymous with Paradise City were started by people his age — Baby Boomers at or now approaching retirement.

“Downtown Northampton took off in the ’70s, and it was fueled by people who were contemporaries of mine who came into town or who were part of the community and decided to open restaurants and shops,” he said. “It was fueled by the Baby Boom generation.”

And what COVID did was push some of those entrepreneurs into retirement maybe a little sooner than they were planning, he said, adding that this led to some high-profile vacancies on Main Street, a phrase he uses to connote both that specific thoroughfare and the whole of the downtown. Those vacancies include the massive Silverscape Designs building, a former bank; 147 Main St., formerly Cathy Cross; 162 Main St., formerly Artisan Gallery; and others.

In recent weeks, though, new tenants have been secured for many of these properties, he said, noting that Rebekah Brooks Jewelry has moved into the Cathy Cross space, 25 Central has taken the Artisan Gallery space, and Cotton Gallery has moved into 153 Main St., formerly Thelo. This movement reflects his earlier-stated sentiments that the market has, in fact, bottomed out and is moving back up again, although there is still work to do.

“The vacancy rate is higher than what we would prefer, but we’re nipping away at it,” he said, adding that the emerging cannabis industry has played a factor in these efforts, and it could play a still-larger role moving forward, with nearly a dozen ventures at some stage of the permitting process.

As for the Silverscape property, he said there has been some interest expressed in it, but it is a large space with some accompanying challenges when it comes to a new use.

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, while the former bank spaces, like teller windows, were imaginatively integrated into the jewelry store’s design, they may in some ways limit what can easily be done with the space now.

The Silverscape Designs building in downtown Northampton

The Silverscape Designs building in downtown Northampton, now on the market, will present opportunities and challenges to its next owner, said Pat Goggins, adding “it’s not for the feint of heart.”

Assessing the office market, Goggins echoed others in noting that, while more businesses are returning to the spaces they completely or partially vacated last March, there are questions about whether businesses that had to rely on people working remotely will bring everyone — or anyone — back to the office.

Vincunas said he has a diverse list of tenants at the Greenfield Corporate Center, including some state agencies that he is not concerned about when it comes to downsizing or not renewing, but also some financial-services and technology-related tenants for which there are some questions moving forward.

“People have learned to work outside the office, so we can’t be sure what will happen long-term,” he said, adding quickly that, for the short term, the property has benefited from COVID in one respect — the regional jury-pool operation has moved into 25,000 square feet of space at the facility for at least a year.

“They couldn’t space people out for jury-pool selection at all the courthouses — there just wasn’t room — so they created an off-site central-clearinghouse type of space,” he told BusinessWest. “We had a big piece of space, so they took it.”

Boloton said he’s seeing some evidence that, while the experiences of the past year have shown that remote working can be effective, most businesses want their workers back together in one place.

“I’ve seen it with a number of businesses … they’ve said, ‘we’re working at home, we’ve figured it out, but there’s still a need to be in the office, and, over time, people want to be in the office,’” he said, adding that the parking-lot test, as unscientific as it is, provides some evidence that companies are working their way back to their office spaces. “It’s a matter of want to, and need to, and there’s a slow progression back. There’s a steady return toward coming back to the office; we’re not there, but we’re getting closer every day.”

For other evidence of progress, he cited the recent closing of a deal with a business to lease 27,000 square feet of office space in a property at 11 Interstate Dr. in West Springfield. He could not disclose the new tenant, but said it was an existing Western Mass. business that is expanding.

“It’s a market that has some areas of slowdown reaction to the pandemic,” he said, listing retail in that category. “But there are other areas that are busy, and we can’t find inventory. Industrial is very strong, and we have a lot of transactions for users buying buildings, so we have a number of properties under contract.”

 

Bottom Line

Between the parking-lot test, some new leases being inked, and tight inventories in the industrial market, the commercial real-estate landscape seems to be changing in this region — and for the better.

That said, many questions remain about the market and especially the office buildings that are not only home to many types of companies, but also generate business at neighboring service- and hospitality-related enterprises.

It may be some time before all those questions are answered, but for now, it seems the worst may well be over and, as Goggins and others noted, this sector is moving steadily closer to something approximating normal.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Ned Barowsky
Commercial Real Estate Coronavirus Special Coverage

Questions Cloud Future of Commercial Real-estate Market

By

A Matter of Speculation

Ned Barowsky

Ned Barowsky is transforming 14,000 square feet of what was retail space into Venture X, a co-working concept, one of many signs of change within the region’s commercial real-estate market.

It was time to face facts, Ned Barowsky recalled.

For six months, two brokers assigned by a large, national real-estate firm had been trying to fill the vacancies left at Barowsky’s property at 98 Lower Westfield Road by the departure of Pier One Imports and Kaoud Oriental Rugs. And they had gotten … nowhere.

“I met with them on the phone weekly, and they sent me a sheet of everyone they talked to and e-mailed, and all the responses they got,” he said. “For six months prior to COVID, not one bite. And they worked it. I felt bad for them; I wanted to pay them, but they didn’t get me anybody.”

Faced with this handwriting on the wall and an uncertain future for the Holyoke property he has owned for nearly 35 years, Barowsky is doing what so many are doing in the midst of COVID-19, and in general. He’s pivoting — big time.

Indeed, he intends to remake those vacated storefronts, and some additional space at the complex, into a franchise for the emerging co-work concept known as Venture X, which bills itself as “the future of workspace” (more on that later).

This intriguing pivot is just one indication that the local commercial real-estate market is in a state of flux, if you will, with perhaps profound changes to come as the pandemic continues and its impact on this sector grows.

Indeed, there is already significant movement in the market when it comes to additional vacancies and properties becoming available. Meanwhile, there is widespread speculation that the office market in particular may see considerable disruption as businesses with some or most of their employees working remotely consider making such arrangements permanent.

“A remote work hub is basically converging living space with working space; you’re allowing people to get out of their house and into a work place that’s safe — and in close proximity to where they live.”

And even if they don’t swing that far when it comes to working arrangements, there are questions about how much of their present space they’ll retain when their lease is up.

“We have lost a few tenants, mostly due to non-renewals as companies look for ways to be more efficient and perhaps consolidate if they had multiple locations,” said Evan Plotkin, president of NAI Plotkin and co-owner of 1350 Main St. in Springfield, noting that Bay Path University, which occupies roughly 12,000 square feet, is one of these tenants.

But as some are downsizing or not renewing, others are actually taking more space to accommodate pandemic-era guidelines on social distancing and keep employees safe, said Plotkin, noting that he’s already seen such upsizing from a few tenants and expects more in the months to come.

In the meantime, new leases are being signed, and properties are being acquired, said Demetrios Panteleakis, a principal with MacMillan Group LLC, which has authored what could certainly be called a stunning turnaround at Tower Square in downtown Springfield.

Over the past 24 months or so, Panteleakis said, MacMillan has successfully backfilled roughly 80% of the 150,000 square feet of office space in the complex that MassMutual vacated, with about a third of that coming in just the past few months.

The latest additions in the office tower include Wellfleet and Farm Credit Financial Partners, which moved into 37,500 square feet on the sixth floor, but also a few law firms and a civil-engineering firm. Meanwhile, on the retail side, the Greater Springfield YMCA moved several of its operations last winter, White Lion Brewery is completing work on its brewery and eatery in the former Spaghetti Freddy’s space, and a nail salon has moved in. And all this is on top of a massive renovation of the hotel on the property into a new Marriott.

“Tower Square is absolutely on fire,” he said, adding that he believes the success at that address has been a function of providing an attractive product in a good location, in this case an urban area in the midst of what has been called a renaissance.

Demetrios Panteleakis says activity has been strong at Tower Square

Demetrios Panteleakis says activity has been strong at Tower Square in recent months, with new leases signed for both retail and office space.

Mitch Bolotin, a principal with Springfield-based Colebrook Realty Services, agreed that there has been activity within the market despite the pandemic, noting that his firm has completed a number of transactions, including the sale of the property at 95 Elm St. in West Springfield formerly occupied by United Bank, the Newman Center on the UMass Amherst campus, and lease of the former Chandler’s restaurant space at the Yankee Candle complex in South Deerfield, among others.

The $64,000 question is … what happens now?

No one really knows the answer. Many brokers are encouraged by numerous stories in recent weeks about both productivity being down as a result of remote working and pent-up desire to return to the office. But these sentiments are juxtaposed against others indicating that remote work has been a success and, as a result, less office space will be leased in the future.

Speaking for others, Panteleakis said there will likely be a lull or pause in the action until perhaps the end of the first quarter of next year as business owners sort some things out.

Work in Progress

Plotkin calls it a “remote work hub.”

That’s a term he borrowed from a request for proposals he’s likely to respond to, and it describes … well, a place where people can both live and work. But not like the current work-from-home environment many are now experiencing.

“A remote work hub is basically converging living space with working space; you’re allowing people to get out of their house and into a work place that’s safe — and in close proximity to where they live,” said Plotkin, adding quickly that he’s thinking hard about whether 1350 Main St. can be shaped into one of these remote work hubs. He thinks it can.

“I have a design here that works great,” he told BusinessWest. “We have some empty floors, and if we created maybe 20 units per floor and used the three floors that are empty, that would be 60 market-rate housing units. And if you had another floor that was a COVID-19 pandemic remote work space, which has yet to be designed, I think you’d have something very attractive.

“The idea is to make people feel that they can go someplace to work and not be in their kitchen, not be in their living room, and actually have some socialization and see other people,” he went on, adding that such a facility would help attract people of all ages, but especially young people, to downtown Springfield.

The fact that Plotkin is thinking about such a dramatic pivot provides more evidence that the commercial real-estate market is changing and there are certainly question marks about how — and how profoundly — the landscape may change.

The remote-work phenomenon, if it can be called that, is certainly at the heart of much of this speculation. Indeed, as more workers toil from home for longer periods — some of the massive tech companies have told employees they won’t be coming back for a year, at least — questions are raised about whether such arrangements will become permanent, and what this means for major urban centers and individual office facilities.

Barowsky, for one, believes that companies will be less likely to want to tie themselves down with long-term leases for large amounts of space. And that’s one of the reasons why he’s moving forward with Venture X.

A Holyoke native who has seen a number of economic cycles and an ongoing evolution of the area’s retail scene, Barowsky believes this co-work space is certainly the right concept at the right time — and especially the right place.

“I don’t think you get this energy that you have when people are working together in one office, and you don’t see the productivity.”

Indeed, the site, just a few hundred yards from the Holyoke Mall, is right off I-91 exit 15 and only minutes off exit 4 of the Mass Pike.

“This is literally the crossroads of New England,” said Barowsky, adding that this address makes the Venture X facility attractive for businesses across a number of sectors.

Add all these factors up, and Barowsky doesn’t see this dramatic pivot — away from retail and into co-working space — as much of a gamble. And if it is a gamble, it’s one he believes will pay off eventually, perhaps sooner than later.

Indeed, he said the current timeline doesn’t have him opening the doors for another six months, but he’s already received a number of inquiries about his concept.

Questions and Answers

While Barowsky doesn’t have any doubts about his new development, there is a growing amount of uncertainty when it comes to the larger commercial real-estate market.

And it crosses many of the sectors within that realm, including retail — which was already under considerable stress before COVID-19 due to online buying and now is under even more — and especially the office market because of questions about the future of work.

“At this point, I think the jury is still out — the verdict is not in yet,” Plotkin said. “There’s been an abrupt change in how we work, and it has required us to work remotely. It’s been a complete lifestyle change, and it’s created a fair amount of fear. And those converging factors may prevail over a long period of time; we just don’t know.”

Panteleakis agreed to some extent, but said he concurs with JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, who recently told American Banker that he sees economic and social damage from a longer stretch of working from home.

“Between 2002 and 2005, there was a big movement happening — commercial real estate had become so expensive that everyone was trying remote working,” he recalled. “Jamie Dimon is saying the same thing that everyone was saying back then — that they see a decrease in productivity. So I think real estate is coming back; I don’t think you get this energy that you have when people are working together in one office, and you don’t see the productivity.”

Plotkin concurred. “Today, people can work from anywhere, and it’s appealing to people to work from anywhere. But the reality is that working from home is isolating, and I don’t think that’s a long-term solution.”

Added Bolotin, “there is a lot of speculation on both sides of that fence. I believe that the office market will still have a future — there will still be demand. Working from home is fine on a limited basis, but people will eventually migrate back to an office setting.

“Needs might change,” he went on. “They may need to consolidate, or they may wish to add more space for social-distancing purposes. But what the net effect of this will be … time will tell.”

Returning to the present, those we spoke with said there are certainly some deals getting done, and the market remains active. Panteleakis cited not only Tower Square, but also neighboring 1550 Main St., which he also handles, and which is fully occupied.

Bolotin, citing those recent transactions in West Springfield, Amherst, South Deerfield, and other communities his firm was involved with, said they provide evidence of a resilient economy and an equally resilient commercial real-estate market, one that has seen a number of downturns — and recoveries.

“We’re very active, we’re busy, there are transactions happening,” he said of his firm but also the market overall. “Over the past few months, we’ve had deals close across a number of categories — office, retail, industrial, land, investments. We’ve had activity in all segments.”

Some of these transactions bode well for the region and some of its individual communities, he noted, such as the sale of 95 Elm St. in West Springfield. Considered a key to development of the downtown area, the property is being targeted for a mix of office and retail, said Bolotin, and his firm is currently negotiating several potential leases in that building.

Meanwhile, other deals have been closed involving retail (two Family Dollar stores), industrial (more than 500,000 square feet in total), and even a few church properties.

“It is certainly a challenging time, and there are people who have been negatively impacted,” he stressed. “But there is still activity within the marketplace.”

Bottom Line

As for the immediate future … Panteleakis said a pause, or lull, is common just before presidential elections. And this year, COVID-19 has given business owners and managers more reason to be cautious.

“People are in a wait-and-see mode,” he explained. “Most of the executives that I’ve spoken with are waiting to see what happens in the first quarter of 2021. So I think the jury will be out until that first quarter of next year.”

After that … no one really knows when the jury will actually be back and what the verdict will be.

But some are already anticipating long-term changes to the landscape. That’s why Venture X is taking shape in Holyoke and why Evan Plotkin is drafting plans for a remote work hub.

Plenty of questions remain about the future, and the answers won’t come easily.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate Sections Special Coverage

Real-estate Market Slows as Landlords, Tenants Face New Realities

By

Hitting ‘Pause’

 

 

Evan Plotkin calls it the “trickle-up effect.”

He was referring specifically to the pressures placed on the owners of multi-family dwellings and apartment complexes — and also to those landlords’ vendors — when, as a result of job losses forced by COVID-19, tenants cannot pay their rent, yet they’re protected from eviction by state and/or federal legislation.

“Multi-family property-management companies and landlords may be impacted disproportionately to the extent that there are forgiveness rules being discussed that would loosen rent-payment obligations and allow residential tenants to defer rent payments,” he said. “Clearly, unless there are provisions for the property owners to be made whole on the deferral or forgiveness of rent, it could create a variety of economic hardships to those property owners.”

But the trickle-up effect applies to virtually all types of commercial real estate and fallout from COVID-19, said Plotkin, president of Springfield-based NAI Plotkin, who tragically lost his mother to the virus earlier this month. He and other property managers who spoke with BusinessWest noted that the pandemic has forced the closure of all kinds of businesses and severely impacted the cash flow of almost all others. And this has obviously made it difficult for some to the pay the rent.

Some tenants have requested deferrals or other forms of help, but others didn’t exactly ask. They essentially just took them.

“I have some tenants, large, strong companies, that have sent letters saying they have stopped all payments to all vendors, landlords, etc. — period, without any time frame,” said Ken Vincunas, president of Development Associates, which has co-developed and now manages a number of office and retail properties in Western Mass. and Connecticut. “There was no explanation, really, just ‘we’re strong and we’ll be back, but … we’re not paying you.’”

Vincunas, who was in the process of writing e-mails to those at the top levels of those companies saying that such tactics were “un-American, like hoarding, and not the right thing to do,” said many other large companies have been far more diplomatic, with actual requests for 50% of rent payments, with offers to pay it back over the next six to 12 months.

Meanwhile, others we spoke with said they are working with tenants while also introducing, or reacquainting, them with the phrase force majeure (more on that later).

Ken Vincunas

Ken Vincunas

“There was no explanation, really, just ‘we’re strong and we’ll be back, but … we’re not paying you.”

But issues with collecting rent comprise just one of the many COVID-19-related challenges now facing commercial real-estate brokers and managers. Others include trying to do business differently, with many people working remotely; a dramatic slowing of activity within the market as companies pause to assess the damage and debate whether to move forward with planned deals; and emerging concerns that, as time goes by and companies see the advantages to having people work at home, companies may adjust their needs for space downward in the years to come, creating more problems for building owners.

“Businesses are getting a test run right now with working from home,” said Plotkin. “And if that works for them, there’s a strong possibility they might want to continue that, which would create havoc in the office-leasing market — and the office-investment market.

“Everything flows from the occupancy of your building,” he went on. “If your building becomes less occupied, it’s worth less, the market value goes down, and it triggers all kinds of things that are not necessarily good for the office-business market; that’s a clear fear that we have.”

Jack Dill, a principal with Springfield-based Colebrook Realty Services, which manages a number of properties across the region, agreed, but offered the hope that these ongoing experiments will lead some to conclude, as he has, that having people working in one place promotes collaboration.

“Work is a social enterprise — it’s about relationships, and it’s about trust,” he told BusinessWest. “It’s about the free flow of information, and that’s a lot harder when people are disbursed.”

Vacancy Signs

As he talked with BusinessWest in mid-April, Vincunas noted that he had recently sent in his application for relief from the SBA-administered Paycheck Protection Program.

The application was made to essentially cover the costs of keeping the staff at Development Associates’ small office in Greenfield — located at the Greenfield Corporate Center, which the company manages — on the payroll.

And that’s just one of a long list of COVID-19-related hardships that the company is coping with. Indeed, Vincunas noted that one staff member, concerned about the health risks associated with coming to work, abruptly retired several weeks back, prompting some shuffling of duties and leaving the company generally short-handed.

“She didn’t want to leave the house,” he noted. “And that really set us back. She retired, and that was that, leaving us to pick up the slack.”

The story is generally the same with other property managers and brokers, who are, like businesses in virtually every other sector, coping with new realities when it comes to where and how work is being conducted.

Evan Plotkin

Evan Plotkin

“Businesses are getting a test run right now with working from home. And if that works for them, there’s a strong possibility they might want to continue that, which would create havoc in the office-leasing market — and the office-investment market.”

As for business itself … on the brokerage side, things have slowed considerably, as might be expected given the vast amounts of disruption, fear, and general uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

But some deals have been completed. Vincunas said he signed on a new tenant at the beginning of the crisis, and some smaller build-out efforts — being undertaken “slowly and carefully to ensure social distancing” — are in progress.

Dill said the ‘deal flow,’ as he called it, is still moving, and his company closed on a few leases early in April. Properties are still being shown, he went on, albeit carefully, and while observing certain protocols, such as frequent use of hand sanitizer and sanitizing frequently touched surfaces.

But, like others we spoke with, he noted that, as the crisis has continued, the pace of business has slowed, and many who were in the exploratory stages of a potential move have backed off, waiting for the skies to clear.

“We’ve had some say, ‘interesting, attractive property, we’re interested, but things are so unsure, let’s let this settle down and we’ll re-engage at the other end of this.’”

Vincunas agreed. “At the beginning of this, I lost three hot deals that were going ahead, and none of them have come through,” he said, noting that one involved a building in Agawam he was going to buy and lease to an interested tenant. That interest is now gone.

“I had two other tenants who were going to lease space in a building we own already, and both of them said, ‘we have to slow down, things are changing … we don’t know,’” he went on. “Everyone has this uncertainty, and they’re thinking, ‘let’s not do anything for a while.’”

As for existing tenants, while some are experiencing something approaching business as usual — Vincunas has a kidney-dialysis venture and an ambulance company in his portfolio of tenants, and they certainly fall into that category — many have been forced to close their doors because they’re not essential, and most others are hurting to some degree.

Therefore, property owners are working with these tenants, offering some deferrals on at least a portion of their rent, Plotkin explained, noting that there is what amounts to a ‘base rent’ amount in each lease, as well as an additional amount to cover operating expenses, including security, cleaning, utilities, and others.

“The base-rent amount can be deferred, not abated, for a period of time,” he explained. “But the amount for operating expenses can’t, because we still have to keep the lights on, and we still have to pay the bills.”

Extraordinary Times

This brings us back to ‘force majeure,’ a common clause in contracts that essentially frees both parties from liability and obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance — such as a war, riot, hurricane, or flood — prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract.

A pandemic certainly fits that description because some businesses have been forced to close by state decree, and almost all others have been negatively impacted in some way. It’s the force majeure clause that no doubt prompted those letters that Vincunas described earlier.

Dill said Colebrook is working with clients on a case-by-case basis, and is working with tenants experiencing hardships. Like the others we spoke with, he referenced the trickle-up effect, or the ripple effect, that tenants not being able pay some or all of their rent will generate.

“When you go to the next circle out … if landlords have tenants who can’t operate and therefore don’t have the cash flow to pay rent and other changes, that immediately impacts landlords and their ability to meet their obligations, including debt service,” he explained.

While coping with the present, those we spoke with are also looking to the future, and they project that the pandemic will change the landscape in perhaps profound ways.

For starters, Vincunas believes that the current trend toward more purchases being made online, with items — from groceries to books to sporting goods — being delivered to the home will continue, and it will drive need for additional warehouse space.

“So many things are drop-shipped,” he explained. “The warehouse and logistics business is due for a big infusion of activity, just by the nature of a growing reluctance among people to leave the house.”

Conversely, this trend will negatively impact the retail side of the business, a trend that’s already playing out on Main Streets and in malls across the country.

But it’s the office sector that has those looking down the road most concerned. Indeed, those we spoke with said it’s possible, and perhaps likely, that companies will learn from this pandemic that there are advantages to having some people working at home and fewer people at the office. And, eventually, this will lead to downsizing and less overall demand for office space.

“The office market, and retail, are the two sectors of real estate that will be most impacted by this,” said Plotkin. “In the case of office, we were seeing some pretty good momentum right before COVID-19 — Springfield usually lags behind, but nationally, the office segment was doing very well. That has come to a complete standstill.

“And the fear amongst my colleagues is that people are starting to realize that this home-work model works for them, and will this replace the need for office space?” he went on. “It remains to be seen how this is going to play out, but that’s a real fear out there; as leases renew, those tenants might be evaluating whether they need the amount of space they occupied. They may do a home/office model that would reduce the amount of space they need.”

Those we spoke with are certainly hoping that, while businesses get this ‘test run,’ as Plotkin described it, they decide there are advantages to having co-workers in one place.

“That collaborative model is important for innovation,” said Plotkin. “Having people together in close proximity offers the sharing of ideas and collaboration in ways you can’t get with a Zoom meeting.”

Dill agreed. He said companies, and his is one of them, are experimenting with having workers dispersed and working from home, and some of the results are trickling in.

“It’s working pretty well,” he said. “But it’s not the same as having your people together, where they can meet casually, sit down in the same room, and solve a problem.”

Time and Place

Just what will come of the ongoing ‘test run’ of remote working remains to be seen.

What’s clear now, though, is that this pandemic is having a significant impact on the commercial real-estate market locally, and across the country.

The ‘trickle-up’ effect, as well as the trickle-down effect, are real, and as the crisis continues, the toll it is taking on this important sector continues to mount.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Jeff Daley, CEO at Westmass Area Development Corp
Commercial Real Estate

To Jeff Daley, Healthy Development Means Healthy Communities

By

Developing Story

Jeff Daley, CEO at Westmass Area Development Corp

Jeff Daley, CEO at Westmass Area Development Corp

Jeff Daley boasted a long career in development, with experience on the municipal, state, and private realms, when an intriguing opportunity came about last year: the role of CEO at Westmass Area Development Corp., which oversees a number of newsworthy projects in the region, most notably Ludlow Mills. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to connect municipalities and developers on a larger scale — and help generate the sort of economic activity and job creation that makes communities strong.

Jeff Daley was working for the state in 2005 when it created a district improvement financing (DIF) program, essentially a tool that enables towns to capture incremental tax revenues from new private investment to pay for public improvement projects.

A decade later, while leading his own development firm, CJC Development Advisors, he put that knowledge to good use on the Longmeadow/East Longmeadow line. It’s the sort of experience — working with muncipalities and developers — that he brings to his latest role as CEO of Westmass Area Development Corp., which he took on last summer.

The project he referenced was a campus of sorts being developed by two entities — Baystate Health, which was building a multi-practice healthcare center on the Longmeadow side, and Berkshire Healthcare, which was building East Longmeadow Skilled Nursing Center on that town’s side of the line.

“I looked at this as a challenge. Westmass has been around for 60 years, and certainly there’s still a lot of good left that needs to be done — there are a lot of good projects out there.”

“They needed about $3 million in public infrastructure to make those projects work,” Daley recalled, referring to the extensive road, water, and sewer work undertaken a few years ago along the Dwight Street corridor. So CJC put together a DIF by which new tax dollars from the two developers’ private investment paid for the debt service for the $3 million worth of public infrastructure.

“It was the first municipal DIF in the state,” he recalled. “And it’s a huge success. Those projects would not have come to fruition, either the larger Berkshire Health building out back or the Baystate Health facility up front. They just couldn’t make it work if they had to put $3 million into public infrastructure.”

Daley wants to bring that problem-solving spirit into his current role leading Westmass, where his responsibilities include negotiating corporate acquisitions, land sales and leases, and incentive proposals; applying for grants; and marketing resources and development services to organizations and businesses considering investment in the region, as well as evaluating opportunities for new industrial-park development and coordinating federal, state, and local economic-development grants and resources.

“If there are projects that need to be done, communities may not have the staff on hand to manage projects, and we can provide services for the development of projects,” he told BusinessWest. “And, in concert with that, we’re working with developers. They may not know all the programs that are out there, and those are the kinds of programs I want to instill at Westmass. When communities and/or developers have questions about development and how to go about programs, I want them to think of Westmass first. And if we can’t do it, we’ll tell you we can’t and set you up with who can.”

After all, development is good for communities, in many ways. But his passion is more organic than that, because when Daley sees development, he sees jobs.

“I believe the creation of good, stable jobs is really most impact you can have on communities. If people are working, they have money to spend, which is good for the economy. But it’s also providing a stable environment for kids to grow up in, when mom and dad are working and able to pay the rent. I look it as more granular economic development, as opposed to just building buildings and putting people to work. It affects everybody down to young kids in our communities, and that’s important to me when we’re doing developments.”

Park Life

The former executive director of the Westfield Redevelopment Authority, Daley worked on several projects in the downtown area, which certainly needed more energy and vibrancy. He left that job in 2014 to work for a couple of construction companies before launching his own company in 2016.

“At CJC, I worked with a lot of clients, including municipalities and private developers, working on putting financial plans together for public infrastructure, commercial-development projects, and such,” he explained. “We did construction management for private developers, did a couple of urban-renewal plans, and strategic planning for those projects.”

When the opportunity arose to head up Westmass following the untimely death of its former CEO, Eric Nelson, the job seemed to mesh well with Daley’s experience and passions.

“My business was going very, very well, I had very good clients, and it was a hard decision to make,” he recalled. “But I looked at this as a challenge. Westmass has been around for 60 years, and certainly there’s still a lot of good left that needs to be done — there are a lot of good projects out there.”

Like Ludlow Mills, one of the agency’s signature projects. Last summer, Westmass announced state and federal funding to construct Riverside Drive at the rear of the complex, making the development accessible to substantially more development. The site already includes 75 Winn Development apartments in Mill 10 for those over age 55 and is host to Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Western Massachusetts.

Creating a city street behind the property creates frontage for several properties and makes it more palatable for companies to access water and sewer, which makes the sites more attractive to lease, he explained. That project is scheduled to wrap up later this year.

In all, about 35% of the 7 million square feet at Ludlow Mills is rehabbed and active. “There’s a lot of activity,” Daley said, noting that Westmass moved its main leasing office to the site in December. “Additionally, we have about 80 acres off the east side of the back road, Riverside Drive, that is high, dry, and flat. There are some wetlands, but about 50 or 60 acres that are developable out there, and by doing this new road, it’s going to get them frontage in order for us to go out and market it to companies. So that’s really exciting.”

Meanwhile, Ludlow Mills is waiting for historical tax credits on the clock-tower portion of the development, a $20 to $30 million investment that will be what Daley called “the showpiece of our investment.”

“We’re really excited about that,” he added, noting that Ludlow is building a new senior center at the site. “That’s going to be a beautiful building to showcase the property from the eastern side. So there’s a lot of momentum, a lot of people are interested, and it’s not just storage facilities; there’s a lot of jobs in there. These people are coming in and creating jobs in machine shops and other facilities that really attract businesses. This is one of our marquee projects we’re looking to grow for a long time.”

A few miles away, the Chicopee River Business Park, which Westmass has owned for 25 years, tells a different story. Harvey Industries purchased a parcel a number of years ago, but Westmass is still looking to market the mostly vacant, 170-acre complex.

“We really want to look out for the long-term benefit of the park. We are selling it as a bulk sale for 170 acres, but we’ll work with people to do what’s best for them,” he explained, noting that the location is attractive for industry, with its proximity to I-291 and the ability to get trucks in and out without disturbing residential neighborhoods.

On the other hand, Westmass’ other industrial parks — in Hadley, East Longmeadow, and Westfield — are full, Daley noted. “We continue to build parks and take on projects that benefit Western Mass., both with jobs and creating quality of life for people. That’s the endgame of Westmass; we work to get parcels ready for sale and make sure the right businesses go into them.”

Step by Step

Westmass made a real-estate deal of a different kind in December, moving its corporate offices to Monarch Place in downtown Springfield, which Daley sees as an opportunity to raise the organization’s brand and presence, while continuing its work connecting developers, municipalities, and other entities.

“We can work with towns and cities and private developers as well, and act as their economic-development arm, whether it’s putting together public infrastructure financing, putting together urban-renewal plans, putting together plans for strategic development in communities — all that is needed out there,” he told BusinessWest. “That’s the exciting part. A lot of cities and towns don’t have the ability to do that because they don’t have the staff or the means to take on those sorts of projects. We can, here at Westmass.”

He harkens back to his time in Westfield, when the city tapped into numerous funding sources to develop urban-renewal projects downtown and elsewhere.

“We just dug deep and figured out what we could do. There are more programs out there than people realize. They go about their daily business and it’s not their job to know about the programs, but Westmass can help them see what’s available for public infrastructure programs, for land deals — we can put together the infrastructure to get their project done.”

Which is good — not just for communities, but the individual families living in them.

“I believe everything good starts with people working, and the things we do to help projects get to the finish line and get developed really impact thousands of people around Western Mass. every day,” Daley said. “That’s what I’m passionate about. If people are going out to work and working hard every day, it’s a different life at home. Every little bit helps.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at businesswest.com

Commercial Real Estate

Republican Building Becomes Part of the Story Involving Newspapers, Real Estate

By

Sign of the Times

Republican Publisher George Arwady says the newspaper’s staff can fit into perhaps one-third of the space in the building on Main Street, prompting an effort to sell or lease that real estate.

The sign just went up on the top of the structure a few months back. But the Republican building on Main Street in Springfield has been for sale or lease, on one level or another, for the better part of a more than a decade now.

Thus, it has become part of a regional and national story involving newspapers and commercial real estate. Technology has changed, papers have consolidated operations, and staffs have become smaller — those last two trends accelerated by a sharp decline in the fortunes of most all newspapers as interest in print advertising has waned. Thus, those papers’ real-estate needs have changed accordingly. And sometimes dramatically.

So it is in Springfield and at the Republican, part of Advance Publications, where publisher George Arwady estimates that the business — meaning the non-commercial-printing side of the venture (he stressed that repeatedly) — now requires not even half, and perhaps not even a third, of the roughly 64,000 square feet in the office building opened more than a half-century ago.

“We had maybe 500 people working in this building in the heyday — that’s when we were producing three newspapers, the Daily News, Union, and Republican, that were all competing against each other. There were competing newsrooms, competing circulation departments … they threw things over the fence at one another,” said Arwady, who came aboard as publisher nine years ago but certainly knows the history. “We might have 100 non-production people here now; we certainly don’t need all this space.”

Which brings us back to that sign. It announces loudly what has been widely known for years now — that there are large quantities of what Jack Dill, a principal with Colebrook Reality Services, which is now marketing the property, described as flexible, conveniently located space available for lease or sale as business condominiums.

And if someone wanted the whole building (again, not the huge commercial-printing operation), they can have that, too, if the price is right, said Arwady.

Indeed, he said the staff at the paper could easily be relocated into 20,000 square feet of space, and perhaps even less, in any of a number of downtown office buildings.

The fact that there are a number of properties that could accommodate them, including all the major office towers and several other buildings, including Union Station, helps explain why there has been little movement on the Republican space over the years, and why the sign has gone up on the property.

“It’s a buyer’s market, and certainly not a seller’s market,” said Arwady, noting, as area commercial real-estate brokers and managers have for some time now, that there is what amounts to a relative glut of office space in downtown Springfield, at least when compared with much hotter markets such as Boston, Cambridge, and even Cleveland.

In that last city, another Advance newspaper, the Plain Dealer, has relocated to smaller quarters, and its now-former headquarters has been sold and redeveloped. Something similar has happened at a number of other Advance publications, said Arwady, including the one in Grand Rapids, Mich. (the Press), and the Gazette in nearby Kalamazoo, where he once worked, where the newspaper property was acquired by a hospital group.

“They kept a portion of the old building, designed by a famous architect, and they built a large addition with offices,” he explained. “And the paper moved into nice space three blocks away in downtown Kalamazoo.”

And in Grand Rapids, he went on, the Press building was sold and redeveloped; it is now part of what’s known as the Medical Mile, a renowned healthcare destination.

“We’ve done this stuff all over the country, so we’re experts,” Arwady said of the Advance group, noting that the story has been replicated, to one degree or another, with newspapers — and communities — of all sizes.

The pattern has continued regionally as well, with a number of newspaper properties, perhaps most prominently the Boston Globe’s former headquarters building on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester being sold and redeveloped.

The Globe left its 700,000-square-foot complex in 2018 after nearly 60 years at that location, and took up residence on Washington Street — not far from where it had operated starting in 1870. It sold the Dorchester property to developer Nordblom, which is reshaping it into something called BEAT (Boston Exchange for Accelerated Technology). Plans call for 360,000 square feet of office and 300,000 square feet of flex, light industrial, and lab space that will likely include a craft brewery.

“It’s a massive project; the site is being totally redeveloped,” said Dill, who attended Boston College High School across the street. “That’s an example of what’s happening in cities across the country.”

And the Republican almost had a success story to top all these others. That’s almost.

“The solution for each market has been different. And at the end of the day, all real estate is local, as Tip O’Neill said about politics, and you have to find solutions that are available and practical and economical in the place that you happen to be located.”

Flash back to 2013 when there were briefly three Springfield casino proposals vying for the coveted Western Mass. license. In addition to the South End blocks now occupied by MGM Springfield and a short-lived proposal to build where CRRC is now assembling subway cars, Penn National, which now operates the slots casino in Plainville, wanted to build a casino on a large parcel that included both the Peter Pan bus terminal (now home to the Way Finders headquarters under construction) and the entire Republican parcel, including the massive printing operation.

“Somewhere, I have an option to buy that’s this thick from Penn National,” said Arwady, placing his thumb and index finger roughly two inches apart. “They were going to take the whole shooting match and build me a new production facility — the city was trying to get me to go into the industrial park; we were going to move all the office people downtown. And they were going to pay for the whole thing.”

Since the MGM plan got the nod in Springfield and then with the Gaming Commission, Arwady has essentially been trying to forge a successful plan B, and he acknowledged that doing so will be somewhat challenging because the market remains soft in Springfield. But he nonetheless remains optimistic that the property can regain the vibrancy it had 30 and even 20 years ago.

This optimism is based on a number of factors, starting with that prime ingredient in commercial real estate — location. Indeed, the property is visible from — and lies almost underneath — I-91, and also just off 291. Meanwhile, the bus and train stations are right across the street.

Beyond location, the building, described by Arwady as a “concrete fortress,” has abundant free parking (a rarity in the downtown area) and flexibility in that he believes it can accommodate everything from retail to professional offices to a variety of different cannabis-related businesses.

“We even have a large vault,” said Arwady. “And a vault is the most attractive thing you can have, from a commercial real-estate perspective, for a cannabis company, because it’s still an all-cash business and they can’t use the banks.”

Dill told BusinessWest that he can envision a number of different potential redevelopment opportunities at the site, including office space, education-related uses, and perhaps co-working space. And flexibility — meaning the ability to respond to a market’s needs — is an important quality when redeveloping such structures, because each real-estate market is unique.

“The solution for each market has been different,” he explained. “And at the end of the day, all real estate is local, as Tip O’Neill said about politics, and you have to find solutions that are available and practical and economical in the place that you happen to be located.”

Over the past several years, a number of entities, from law firms to education-related facilities, have toured the property, said Arwardy, adding that he believes this interest will eventually translate into a transformation of the property into other uses — perhaps several of them.

This has been the trend — or the story — when it comes to newspapers and commercial real estate, and the story is ongoing. u

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Commercial Real Estate

Atwood Drive Complex Has Become a Healthcare Destination

By

Changing the Landscape

An aerial drone shot of the Northampton/I-91 Professional Center on Atwood Drive.

Ken Vincunas says he started getting into drone photography years ago — well before most practitioners.

There was a lengthy learning curve, and in some ways it’s still ongoing, he acknowledged, but overall it’s been a fun, intriguing experience as the technology has improved and its capabilities have grown. Meanwhile, it’s become a very practical — and much-needed — work tool for Vincunas, president of Development Associates, the Agawam-based commercial real-estate management firm and developer.

Indeed, he uses drone shots to help market the myriad properties in the company’s portfolio from Greenfield to East Granby, Conn.; shots from above often provide a unique perspective.

Shots like the one on this page, which Vincunas took last fall — probably in the early morning, by the looks of the parking lot and the lack of traffic on nearby I-91. Perhaps better than any thousand words could — even these — the picture tells how the development on Atwood Drive in Northampton, known officially as the Northampton/I-91 Professional Center, has changed the landscape in that area, once home to the Clarion Inn and Conference Center (Vincunas told BusinessWest he has some powerful drone shots capturing the demolition of that facility).

Today, the site has become home to a wide range of businesses and institutions, including the Massachusetts Trial Court, now a major tenant in the third building to be developed on the property, known as 15 Atwood, the large one in the center of the picture.

But Cooley Dickinson Hospital (CDH) is the dominant tenant on the property, with facilities in all three buildings and a presence summed up with the collective ‘Atwood Health Center.’

The hospital, a Massachusetts General Hospital affiliate, has its name on 22 Atwood (Cooley Dickinson Health Care), which houses a number of facilities, from Atwood Internal Medicine to Hampshire Cardiovascular Associates; from integrated behavioral-health services to women’s health. Meanwhile, at 8 Atwood, the first building developed, CDH has located its occupational-therapy, physical-therapy, and speech-language facilities, and in 15 Atwood, opened last spring, CDH has placed general surgical care and infectious-diseases facilities and Oxbow Primary Care.

Thus, the facility has become a true healthcare destination, similar to the Brightwood section of Springfield’s North End, although, as Vincunas noted, it is home to a wide variety of tenants, including an engineering firm and an accounting firm slated to move into 15 Atwood later this year (buildout on the latter is much further along than the former).

Which means the parking lot generally doesn’t look anything like it does here. And it’s likely to become even more full in the coming months as Vincunas looks to fill the remaining spaces in 15 Atwood, roughly 8,000 square feet in total.

“We’re seeing a good amount of interest in this space,” he said while sitting at a table in one section if it. “We had one caller interested in the whole thing and several others interested in pieces of it.”

But he’s already looking beyond those spaces — both literally and figuratively — to the undeveloped property at the back of this parcel, adjacent to the highway. There is room for additional development there, he said, and already a search is underway for the anchor tenant or tenants needed to greenlight new construction.

“We have site-plan approval for another building, which is a significant milestone,” he said, adding that the permit will allow something between 40,000 and 50,000 square feet, somewhat smaller than the 66,000-square-foot 15 Atwood. “We’ll need someone there to be the anchor, as it was with these other buildings.”

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at the Atwood Drive complex and how it remains an important work in progress.

A Vision Comes into Focus

Despite how it might look to some, Vincunas stressed repeatedly that this venture was certainly not an overnight success.

Indeed, it’s been more than a decade in the making, he said, and the story really begins when the Clarion property, located on the north side of Atwood Drive, was acquired at auction by the O’Leary and Shumway families in the early ’90s. Other sites on both sides of the street were acquired over the ensuing years, and eventually a vision developed for a professional office complex, said Vincunas, one that would be built in stages as need — and anchor tenants — emerged.

“We’re seeing a good amount of interest in this space. We had one caller interested in the whole thing and several others interested in pieces of it.”

Redevelopment of the south side of the property, undertaken by a partnership of the O’Leary and Shumway families, with Development Associates as leasing agent and construction property manager, began with 8 Atwood, with construction commencing in 2011. It is now home to Clinical & Support Options, several CDH facilities, as noted, and New England Dermatology. The building known as 22 Atwood was built in 2012. It is now home to 17 different CDH services, including the diabetes center, fertility services, geriatrics, podiatry, radiology and imaging, rheumatology, and spine medicine.

Construction on 15 Atwood — led by the O’Leary family as managing partner, again in partnership with Development Associates — began in 2017, with the trial court as the anchor tenant; the facility had been located in cramped quarters in downtown Northampton and needed an upgrade.

Ken Vincunas stands in the space being built out for the construction firm BluRoc in 15 Atwood, the latest addition to the complex just off I-91 in Northampton.

The court, now occupying roughly 22,000 square feet, moved in last February, and since then, a number of additional tenants have signed on, including Cooley Dickinson, which moved in last fall; the state Department of Developmental Services; Assurance Behavioral Health; Staffier Associates, a mental-health clinic; OnaWay, LLC, an accounting firm relocating from Holyoke; and BluRoc, a construction firm now located in Hadley.

This diverse mix of tenants was drawn to the Atwood Drive complex by a number of factors, but especially accessibility (the site is just off exit 19 of the highway), parking, the large footprints available, and the ability to shape these spaces to fit specific needs.

“One of the big draws is the parking — it’s very hard to find a very large space with this kind of parking in Northampton,” Vincunas explained. “And it’s very accessible, which makes it attractive to a wide range of businesses and facilities like the courthouse.”

And also BluRoc, which will soon be occupying more than 6,000 square feet of space on the third floor of 15 Atwood.

“They have three offices in three different buildings in one little area, and they needed a consolidated office; they’re going to have 30 people here,” he said, adding that buildout of the space should be completed by late spring.

With the third and first floors fully leased, there are now just those two spaces remaining on the second floor, he said, adding, again, that there has been a good amount of interest expressed in those footprints.

Looking ahead to the last remaining parcel and development of that space, Vincunas said there is no definitive timeline on construction, but he believes there is solid demand.

Shutter to Think

The accounting firm OnaWay has its own aerial shot of 15 Atwood on its website, accompanied by the words “our new home in 2020 is underway, and we’re stoked to live and work where we call home.”

There’s a growing list of companies saying similar things about this location, which has been completely transformed over the past decade — from unused property and a tired hotel and conference center into a state-of-the-art professional complex and healthcare destination.

As Vincinas said, it wasn’t an overnight success, certainly, but it has developed — yes, that’s a photography term — into one of the better development stories in the region.

As that drone shot clearly demonstrates.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]