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Historic House To Be Part Of Unique Office Park

WAMC

An 11-room mansion built for an industrialist in Springfield, Massachusetts in the 1800’s is now part of the city’s current economic development efforts.

The Merrick Phelps House was once listed as one of Springfield’s most endangered historic properties. Now it has been completely renovated for an economically viable use: office space.              

DevelopSpringfield President Jay Minkarah said the development agency spent $1.8 million on the restoration project in part to eliminate a glaring symbol of decay along one of the city’s most heavily traveled streets.

" There were two prior efforts to restore this building that failed, so we could not let this be just another promise that goes unfulfilled," said Minkarah.

The mansion is part of a planned lower Maple Street office park that will include two other restored historic buildings.

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.