Page 8 - BusinessWest July 25, 2022

Community Spotlight
West Side’s Story Features Plenty of Progress
By George O’Brien
While the country will be celebrat-
ing its 250th birthday in 2026, West Springfield will mark that same mile- stone two years earlier.
And the planning for what will be a huge party is very much underway, said Mayor William Reichelt, noting that a committee has been put together, chairs of that board have been selected, and a dialogue will soon be launched with town residents to determine how, where, and in what ways they want to observe that birthday.
And while two years will go by quickly, espe- cially with all this planning and execution to han- dle, this community that operates as a city but still calls itself a town could look much different by the time the big party kicks off.
Several of its major roadways, including Memorial Avenue and sections of Route 5, will be redone or in the process of being redone (hope- fully the former, said the mayor as he crossed his fingers — figuratively, anyway) by then. There will be some new businesses on those stretches — Amherst Brewing is moving into the former Hofbrauhaus property, for example — and some of them well before 2024. And there may actually be some cannabis-related ventures in this town that has thus far said ‘no’ to this now-booming industry; a critical City Council vote on the mat-
ter took place on July 18, just after this issue of BusinessWest went to press, and Reichelt, who backed a measure to permit the licensing of such establishments, was confident that he had the requisite six votes for passage.
“We’re in a much different place than we were four years ago, when it was 8-1 [against],” he said, adding that the measure would enable business- es to be located on large stretches of Riverdale Street, the preferred location among those in that industry.
And there is a chance, albeit a slight chance
at this point, that the massive power-generating plant near the rotary at the Memorial Bridge may disappear from the landscape it has dominated for decades. Indeed, it has been decommis- sioned, and its owners are deciding what to do with the property.
“We’re in discussions now about what remedi- ation will look like; I would like to see a clean site so another developer can do something with it, but we’re still in the talking stage,” Reichelt said, adding that the community is looking closely at what happened with a similar but larger property in Salem that is being redeveloped.
But enough about what might and might not happen over the next two years. For now, West Springfield and its mayor are making progress on
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8 JULY 25, 2022
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
BusinessWest
West
Springfield
at a glance
YEAR INCORPORATED: 1774
POPULATION: 28,835
AREA: 17.5 square miles
COUNTY: Hampden
RESIDENTIAL TAX RATE: $15.76
COMMERCIAL TAX RATE: $30.92
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $40,266
MEDIAN FAMILY INCOME: $50,282
TYPE OF GOVERNMENT: Mayor, City Council
LARGEST EMPLOYERS: Eversource Energy, Harris Corp., Home Depot, Interim Health Care
* Latest information available