In the News

SPRINGFIELD --The long-delayed Springfield Innovation Center at 270-276 Bridge St. got a $250,000 boost Wednesday. Construction has already resumed on the the $7 million renovation project, with completion expected by the end of December.

Workers started back on the renovation project earlier this week, said Nicholas A. Fyntrilakis, chairman of DevelopSpringfield, which owns the building. He said the primary tenant, Valley Venture Mentors, should be ready to move in by the end of 2018. It might take longer for the Ground Up Cafe restaurant planned for the first floor to be ready.

"It depends on their design process," he said. "But they are still planning to come."

Work at the site began in 2016, but stopped in April 2017 when DevelopSpringfield couldn't continue to pay the contractor. That matter has been settled by both parties and DevelopSpringfield has paid the bill.

"It's been a longtime coming," Fyntrilakis said.

DevelopSpringfield, a public-private partnership bankrolled largely by MassMutual, exists to take properties that are not financially viable for private industry and turn them around in hopes of boosting the whole neighborhood.

"That's just what we are doing here," Fyntrilakis said.

If 270-276 Bridge St. was an easy project, a private developer would have done it.

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, and William F. Galvin, secretary of the commonwealth, announced $250,000 in new state historic preservation tax credits at a noontime news conference yesterday across the street in Tower Square Park.

Both Neal and Galvin face challengers in the Sept. 4 Democratic primary.

This $250,000 state tax credit adds to $650,000 in state historic preservation tax credits. The project also has received more than $1 million in federal tax credits. The project sells the credit to raise capital.

Neal spoke of his longtime interest in preserving and reusing Springfield's unique downtown architecture, pointing to the $95 million redevelopment of Union Station.

And he recalled his cajoling of congressional Republicans to preserve tax credit programs threatened during negotiations for the tax reform that passed late in 2017.

"You know what? It stayed in the bill," said Neal, the senior Democrat on the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee.

Galvin predicted that Neal will be chairman of the committee next year. For that to happen, Neal would need to win his primary and Democrats would have to win a majority in the House.

Tower Square Park was once the site of Steiger's department store. Once the Innovation Center is built, plans are to enliven the park as a gathering space with food trucks, lighting, seating and events.

Fyntrilakis said Innovation Center renovation costs rose from an original budget of $5.5 million to $7 million. The increase is mostly due to additional work repairing deteriorated portions of the building. The art deco-style facade especially needs extensive repairs performed by specialists.

The Innovation Center project was already funded through a MassWorks Infrastructure Program grant to MassDevelopment, MassMutual, the Beveridge Family Foundation and the Berkshire Bank Foundation.

Once called the Trinity Block for the church that stood there, the 24,000-square-foot building at 270-276 Bridge St. is planned as a home for Valley Venture Mentors, a group that helps people with ideas start businesses, and will also host the Ground Up Cafe, office space for startups and shared co-working space for enterprises not yet ready for an office of their own.

The building dates to 1923 but was expanded over the years. At different times it was a fur store, then a nightclub, and then a church once again.

The VVM offices and coffee shop space remain unfinished. One upper-floor tenant, the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts, has moved out.

One tenant remains. AnyCafe was founded by a Western New England University graduate to make and market a travel mug that can brew coffee on the go.