Page 37 - BusinessWest September 30, 2024

We’ve Got Business Lending
Power.
Commercial Lenders VP Darlene Mark & SVP Rob Chateauneuf, with Commercial Loan Officer Catherine Rioux.
Projects We’ve Recently Financed
Commercial Real Estate
$5,600,000
Real Estate Purchase Agawam, MA
Commercial Construction
$400,000
Land Purchase & Development Somers, CT
Commercial Real Estate
$3,746,000
Property Management Springfield & Holyoke, MA
Commercial Term Loan
$76,500
Landscaping Equipment East Longmeadow, MA
Contact our Commercial Lending Team
413-267-1254 or [email protected]
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The staircase linking the two floors at Discovery High looks like it belongs in a corporate headquarters — and it did.
Staff Photo
O’Connor, involving everything from security to how to get 250 students to school in elevators over a short time span.
One by one, these challenges were worked out, said those
we spoke with, and now that the proverbial dust has settled — although this is still all very new — they can stop and reflect on what they and the students have here: an ideal setting for a still- young (this is only its fourth year) institution described by Brunell as a “wall-to-wall early-college” model, one where students can graduate from high school with enough credits for an associate degree.
“They’re learning how to move through the building, get on elevators and interact with adult professionals, ride the elevator up and enter a space and move through that space in ways that they are trusted to handle. It’s very much like working in a company, and I think that’s going to translate.”
The school had been located in Chestnut Middle School from the beginning, and, almost from the start, it had been looking for its next home, because that one wasn’t working, for many reasons. Cramped quarters was one of them, but high-school students being on a middle-school campus was the bigger one.
As the search commenced two and a half years ago, and especially over the past year or so as Bolduc and his foundation became involved in the project, the goal was always to think out- side the box, said Brunell, meaning the consideration non-tradi- tional spaces.
“The more we looked at the program, and the more we looked at what we think students are really going to need to succeed
in life — not only these early-college credits they’re earning, but also work-based learning — we realized that the best place for a school was going to one where students were going to get ease of access to work-based learning opportunities and see themselves as part of the industry and commerce of the city of Springfield,” he explained.
A few different sites were looked at — within the downtown but also in commercial spaces near some of the college cam-
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