Page 4 - BusinessWest July 25, 2022
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4 JULY 25, 2022 FEATURE BusinessWest
 A Developing Story
Peter Picknelly Blueprints Another Legacy Project
 BAy George O’Brien
s he talked about the many real- estate development projects he’s been involved with over the years and how they’ve come to the drawing board and then off it, Peter Picknelly said simply, “they
develop ... and then they happen.”
That was a very simple explanation for what is
often a very complex process, especially with some of the projects he and his team at the OPAL Real Estate Group have taken on over the years, many of which have involved public-private partnerships and have taken years, if not decades, to become reality.
What he meant was that each project starts with a concept, or a vision — the marriage of a loca- tion or an existing building with a new use, or uses, often with higher goals, such as sparking additional development in a given area or neighborhood, or bringing new life to dormant, sometimes historic properties.
This has been the case with many projects in
the OPAL portfolio — from the transportation and education center in downtown Holyoke to the con- version of the former Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton into luxury apartments, to a similar but much more complicated effort to transform the former Court Square Hotel in downtown Springfield into market-rate housing.
And this is the same general formula being applied to the most ambitious project yet under- taken by Picknelly and his team at OPAL Real Estate — the transformation of land on Springfield’s river- front, north of the Memorial Bridge, into a home for
  An architect’s rendering of a proposed new courthouse, apartment complex, and marina for Springfield’s riverfront.
 





















































































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