The Sumner Block at 306-310 Main Street was built by local attorney Lt. Col. Samuel Barstow Sumner in the late 19th century. The four-story structure was home to a Woolworth’s for half a century, as well as a music hall, and today hosts six rental apartments.
“Walking into this building that was built in the late 1860s to the early 1870s, you'll see high ceilings, beautiful wood detail in the moldings and on the windows, and lots and lots of light," said Carol Bosco Baumann. "They're centrally located in Great Barrington. So, the people who live there, some of them actually work in town, They have access to all of the amenities of living downtown, such as seeing other people, coffee shops, the Berkshire Co-op market is nearby, and they have the benefit of feeling like they're in a town and in a place where they can be around other people and live that kind of life.”
Bosco Baumann is Executive Director of the Community Development Corporation of South Berkshire, which bought the Sumner Block this month for $1.6 million.
“In an area such as the Berkshires, we have a lot of open space, but much of it isn't developable for good reasons," she told WAMC. "But what we do have are lots of old houses and buildings. So, it's important that the CDCSB find creative and entrepreneurial ways to preserve that housing, and keep people in the places where they're living and working.”
The move comes after the CDCSB’s attempt to buy the Marble Block – another downtown Great Barrington property – fell short after a fundraising push in late 2022. Bosco Baumann says the effort to maintain affordable housing for working people in the Southern Berkshires remains critical with the cost of property and housing continuing to skyrocket.
“When I take the temperature of the housing crisis, I can tell you that we get several requests a week from people who need a place to live," she said. "Some of these people are unhoused and couch surfing, some of these people are in a place that they can no longer afford, or perhaps they have to leave because the owner of the property has decided to sell the property. So, my measurement of it is that we continue to get calls and emails on a weekly basis, and until no one is calling us any longer, that's when the housing crisis will be over, as far as I'm concerned.”
Under the CDCSB’s control, the tenants of the Sumner Block will be protected by annual leases, and an unoccupied unit in the building will be renovated. Bosco Baumann says local support was essential in securing the building — including an allocation of American Rescue Plan Act funding.
“The town itself did provide some ARPA funds toward this project, but then Great Barrington also has an affordable housing trust fund, and that particular body did provide some funding for this as well," she told WAMC. "So knowing that we have the town's support through those two entities, and in the past, we've also had support through the [Community Preservation Act]. All of that local support is really important, because what that does is it leverages the millions of dollars that we can then bring in to do that work on the larger developments. We would like to also find a way to do that with smaller developments, and we're having conversations at all levels with state representatives and the powers that be so that we can try to affect the kind of change we need to help either organizations like ours be able to take on older properties and renovate them, or for even homeowners themselves to be able to do that. We've seen that through Community Development Block Grant programs, which are still out there. But those programs are for specific income restrictions. And we're finding that just like with folks who are in this sort of missing middle of people, they make too much to qualify for affordable housing, but yet they don't make enough to pay market rates, there are also homeowners who are in a similar position where they need to get work done on their homes, but with inflation and the cost of materials and interest rates escalating, it's tough for them to get that done. So we're hopeful that the state will help us solve this problem.”
Bosco Baumann says that the state has supported larger CDCSB projects like the 49-unit Windrush Commons project at 910 South Main Street that is expected to open this spring.
“The question that we continually out ask ourselves is, how are we going to tackle the housing crisis in South Berkshire?" said Bosco Baumann. "We are not a Gateway City like Pittsfield. So, the dollars that we get in South Berkshire are different from what a Gateway City would get. And they deserve that that funding. But we know that the question for us is, what are the most ways that we can tackle this housing crisis simultaneously? We know that we can't just do it one way, we have to do it every possible way that we can. And we are working with both private individuals and also looking at collaborations and are part of a larger effort in the Berkshires to raise awareness about the housing crisis and what it means to everyone and what we can do to tackle it. So, we're just firing on all cylinders, and trying to look at every possible avenue to solve the housing crisis, because it's all related to what makes a community thrive and what helps people thrive.”
The housing crunch in Great Barrington has been a subject of fierce local debate in recent years, specifically over the town’s short-term rental bylaw passed at the 2022 town meeting. Selectboard member Leigh Davis, who championed the bylaw, said she was disappointed by the tight vote at this May’s town meeting that will allow renters as well as homeowners the ability to offer short-term rentals.
“I believe that by adding more short-term rentals that that's not going to solve our housing crisis," she told WAMC. "Turning a long-term rental into a short-term rental is not what we need right now. We need stronger neighborhoods, and we need people joining together as a community and turning their backs on Airbnb and people that want to commodify our communities.”
