Page 11 - BusinessWest April 27, 2026

Greenfield >>Continued from page 9 approach that’s different.”
To that end, a downtown business
meet-up group will gather for the first
time on April 30 to crowdsource what’s
keeping people from going out, she
added. “It’s not just marketing. Clearly
we see more traffic to the websites, but
attendance is still shaky.”
In this latest installment of our Com-
munity Spotlight series, we take a look
at progress being made in Franklin
County’s largest municipality — and
how local leaders plan to generate
more.
On the Move
Another of the GBA’s buckets
of focus is economic development;
Rechtschaffen and her team are work-
ing closely with the Office of Commu-
nity and Economic Development and
its executive director, Amy Cahillane,
as well as with the Franklin Regional
Council of Governments. The GBA
also recently hosted Aaron Vega,
president and CEO of the Western
Massachusetts Economic Develop-
ment Council, for a day visiting local
businesses.
“That was amazing,” Rechtschaffen
said. “We’re working to make sure
Greenfield gets attention and gets
focused on. We’re proud to be the
heart of Franklin County, but we
oftentimes fall outside certain advo-
cacy efforts and funding efforts. We’re
not a rural place, in a county that’s
largely rural, so Greenfield doesn’t
fall under certain funding structures,
and we need to step up our advocacy
for Greenfield and our connection to
Franklin County in a healthy way.”
She told BusinessWest there’s
been a national trend of people mov-
ing to rural and bucolic places, but
in many cases, they’re moving out of
urban areas in Massachusetts to Con-
necticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey,
and elsewhere.
“They’re looking for the kind of
life that we offer in Western Mass.
— and they’re leaving the state for it.
So it would be wonderful to see the
state looking at how they can lever-
age Western Mass. to solve one of our
major issues, which is people leaving
the state.”
Mayor Virginia Desorgher recently
wrote on Greenfield’s website that
expanding the city’s tax base through
development is its best long-term
solution for stabilizing taxes and
stimulating the economy, and housing
is one place where the city is making
significant strides.
That includes the continuing
development of the former Wilson’s
department store into a mix of retail
and housing, as well as a project
undertaken by Rural Development
Inc. (RDI) — an arm of the Greenfield
Housing Authority — to develop 32
“We have 100 units of affordable housing
coming online in downtown Greenfield in
the next two years. That’s going to be
huge for us.”
HANNAH RECHTSCHAFFEN
units of mixed-income housing at 176
Main St.
MassDevelopment acquired the
Wilson’s property at 242-262 Main
St. in 2022 with plans to expand and
relocate Green Fields Market to the
building’s first floor, while turning the
upper floors into 65 mixed-income
rental apartments. The RDI project site
includes an existing single-story com-
mercial building and a 22,000-square-
foot surface parking lot to the rear of
the buildings, all in the heart of down-
town Greenfield. Also in the works is
the city’s plan to develop a property at
53 Hope St. into a residential or mixed-
use development.
“We have 100 units of affordable
housing coming online in downtown
Greenfield in the next two years. That’s
going to be huge for us,” Rechtschaffen
said, noting, again, that development
can be challenging in the city because
of certain state funding restrictions.
“Our population is too high to be
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APRIL 27, 2026
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