Pieces Starting to Fall in Place for Downtown

UMass Amherst officials announced recently that they will be locating one of the university’s programs — an urban design center — in one of the buildings in Springfield’s Court Square early next year.

That was the good news.

The even better news is that UMass officials who discussed the venture said, in different ways and with different terms, that the university was really just getting started in its efforts to help stimulate economic development in the region’s largest city, located a good 20 miles from the Amherst campus.

They hinted strongly that there will be more initiatives in the future, including other potential developments in the long-vacant six-story office complex at 13-31 Elm Street, which has been identified as one of the most important, if not the most important, building blocks to a more-vibrant downtown Springfield.

The initial UMass move is not large in scope — it involves the small, three-story building at 3-7 Elm St., and will not include large numbers of staff, students, and faculty to start. But it could be the beginning of an initiative that will have huge implications for downtown, which, as we’ve said for some time, is in need of a spark, or several sparks — and this could be one of them.

And while we’ve said on many occasions that what downtown really needs is private-sector development efforts, sometimes a push from the public sector will get the ball rolling. Let’s hope that’s the case here.

Taking a step back and looking at the broad picture downtown, it appears that several pieces to what has been a frustrating puzzle are starting to fall into place. Beyond the UMass project, there’s movement at the old federal building in the heart of downtown. When federal court employees and other government offices moved into the new federal courthouse on State Street, the city was faced with the prospect of something it really can’t afford — to have a large, prominent building on Main Street go dark for an extended period of time.

Instead, a mix of public and private investment will keep the lights on at what is now known colloquially as 1550 Main St. Indeed, the city of Springfield will move its School Department offices into the building, while Baystate Health will move several offices there, and the General Services Administration will occupy some square footage. The sum of these moves will put hundreds of additional workers downtown, providing a potential — that’s potential — boost for current and future retail operations, support businesses, restaurants, and other hospitality-related ventures.

Meanwhile, a new restaurant, Hot Table, has located in the former Gus & Paul’s location in Tower Square, bringing a much-needed dose of vibrancy to Tower Square and supplying another reason for workers downtown to get out of their offices and venture out to Main Street.

In another development, an NBA Development League, or ‘D League,’ team, the Springfield Armor (see story, page 6), will start playing games at the MassMutual Center, providing, along with the AHL’s Falcons and other shows at the complex, more reasons to visit Springfield at night and on weekends.

And now, UMass will establish a small presence — again, to start — in the central business district. The Urban Design Center, which will provide a variety of programs in architecture, landscape architecture, conservation, and regional planning, will being more bodies downtown and is expected to become a resource for the city as it continues to reinvent itself.

Put all this together, and it adds up to a few big steps forward in the ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown. There is a long way to go — Tower Square remains a shell of the vibrant retail center it once was, and there remains a distinct lack of market-rate housing that everyone knows is needed to lure professionals into the CBD — but there are signs of progress.

Full recovery won’t come overnight or even in several years, but it will happen if city and economic-development leaders take it one piece at a time, and manage to have some of those pieces fall into place.