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Neighborhood Eyesore Demolished By Federally Funded Program

WAMC

A long vacant tornado-damaged building in Springfield, Massachusetts was demolished today, as city officials vowed to continue a neighborhood-by-neighborhood crackdown on blight.

A former auto parts store on Main Street in Springfield was torn down Monday. The building had been vacant for more than a decade. It was damaged by the 2011 tornado. A car crashed through it.  The single story building had been seized by the city for non-payment of taxes and Springfield officials could not find anyone to buy it for redevelopment.

It was, in fact, an eyesore and public safety hazard, according to Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. 

"It was a building that always drove me crazy when I went by," said Sarno

The mayor pointed out that the soon-to-be razed building is just a block from where a state-financed multimillion dollar project to renovate several apartment buildings was finished last fall.  It is also a few blocks from where the MGM casino will be built.

"With these derelict properties if you can't get them back on the tax rolls and redeveloped often it will attract a negative element," said Sarno.

David Mazza of the South End Neighborhood Citizens Council said he hopes with the derelict building gone something gets built soon on the vacant lot.

" I think that it is a pretty good incentive now that the casino is coming into town," he said.

The mayor was joined by David Cotter, the city’s deputy director of code enforcement , and other city officials to point to this demolition as part of a city-wide blight reduction strategy.   

The demolition of the building is also part of the city’s efforts to clear away the remaining scars from the tornado that hit almost four years ago.  The $41,000 demolition was paid for from a $22 million grant the city received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for tornado recovery.

Two dozen buildings were marked for demolition using these funds, according to the city’s disaster recovery director Tina Quagliato.

"In this particular neighborhood we  have taken down most of them already. We have several more slated out in the Six Corners neighborhood," she said.

Besides demolishing buildings the federal funds will also pay to build a new community center and replace other public property destroyed by the tornado.

The Springfield City Council last fall approved a $5 million bond bill to pay for a city-wide blight reduction program.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.
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