The city of Springfield, Massachusetts is acquiring a former hospital campus for redevelopment, but historic preservationists may have other ideas.
The Springfield Redevelopment Authority has struck a deal to purchase for $1 from Vibra Healthcare the 17-acre property that includes a recently-closed behavioral health hospital and a long-vacant building known as the “isolation hospital” that preservationists have campaigned to save from possible demolition.
In announcing the purchase, Mayor Domenic Sarno said the city can now dictate what happens to the site.
“We’re going to take it over, put it out there and we want to get it back on the tax rolls creating revenue for the city of Springfield and creating a good four-letter word – jobs,” Sarno said.
Located on the busy State Street corridor, the former hospital property is in a prime spot, city officials said. Just across the street is the corporate headquarters of financial services giant MassMutual. Nearby are two high schools and a senior housing complex.
“This is prime economic development property,” Sarno said.
City Councilor Melvin Edwards, who chairs the Planning and Economic Development Committee, praised the city’s purchase of the property.
“We don’t get this many opportunities too often to have such a large site available to the city to be able to sit down and have a clear concise plan to redevelop it,” Edwards said.
Just days before the announcement, the City Council had voted to request the city’s Historic Commission undertake an independent study into creating an historic district that would encompass the isolation hospital – an Art Deco-style building that dates to the 1930s that was once used for tuberculosis patients.
The Springfield Preservation Trust is encouraging the historic designation. Earlier this year, the group put the isolation hospital at the top of its annual list of “endangered” properties.
Asked about the historic district proposal, Sarno said he would not want it to stand in the way of progress.
“If something works and there is an historical component there fine, but I am not going to hinder economic development,” Sarno said.
Tim Sheehan, the city’s chief economic development official, said he’ll pursue a comprehensive assessment of the isolation hospital to see if reusing it is feasible and if it qualifies for a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, which is a prerequisite for securing redevelopment tax credits.
“ I would look forward to what the independent analysis, that would be in the report coming from the Historic Commission, would say to all those issues relative to the reuse of that particular property,” Sheehan said.
Before formally requesting development proposals, Sheehan said the administration will ask the City Council to approve a zoning change. The current zoning allows residential, but not commercial uses.
