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City Of Springfield's Offer Could Save Community Center Facing Foreclosure

exterior of the Dunbar Community Center
WAMC

The city of Springfield has made an offer to buy a financially-struggling community center that has been an urban oasis for inner-city youth for decades.

 The city has made a formal offer to purchase the Dunbar Community Center for $500,000, a bid that could forestall a foreclosure auction later this summer.

Ellen Freyman, the chairperson of the board of the non-profit center, said the offer from the city is greatly appreciated.

" I'm delighted and thrilled," said Freyman. "  I praise the mayor for taking this step to help us and hopefully seeing this to a positive resolution and allow us to continue what we do which is to serve the community of Mason Square."

The city’s formal letter of intent to purchase the Dunbar property was delivered just one day after Freyman said she received an official notice from the mortgage holder that a foreclosure auction would be scheduled in August.

The outstanding balance due on the mortgage is about $1 million, but Freyman hopes the debt-holder, SA Acquisition Property of Denver, CO, will accept the fifty-cents on the dollar offer to walk away.

" I think it is a generous offer considering the building and what they might get at a foreclosure sale. It is a unique property  and I don't know of anyone other than the parties involved now who would have  an interest in the building,"  said Freyman.

Freyman said the building needs repairs and modernizing. The last capital improvement was the addition of a new gymnasium in 2000.

The community center, which observed its centennial last year, has been struggling financially for at least a decade.  In 2011 the YMCA of Greater Springfield took over day-to-day operations at the center, but did not acquire the building. 

The threat of foreclosure has hung over Dunbar since the summer of 2014.  Officials say efforts to negotiate a payment schedule were complicated when the mortgage changed hands three times in less than a year.  The center’s board received a default notice last February.

Mayor Domenic Sarno said the city made the offer to purchase the Dunbar center because he could not allow it to be closed and padlocked.

" We need it more now than ever in urban America to have theses safe havens," said Sarno.

If the city becomes the new owner of the Dunbar center, the city could take over the day-to-day operations itself or hire an operator through a formal bidding process.

" One thing at a time," said Sarno when asked about plans for operating programs at Dunbar  if the city's purchase offer is accepted.   " We are going to do our damnest to save Dunbar."

Freyman praised the work the YMCA has done at Dunbar in the last five years.

"The building is robust with all kinds of activities serving families and children," she said.

The city’s letter of intent to purchase Dunbar proposes to close the sale in September.  The city council needs to approve the deal.              

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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