Northampton State Hospital

Kollmorgen to Hospital Hill
Neighborhood Meeting
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
6:30 PM
Cahillane Dodge, 375 South Street, Northampton

Ward 4 City Councilor David Narkewicz has arranged for representatives of Kollmorgen Electro-Optical Corporation to present Hospital Hill neighbors with plans and drawings for its development of a new facility on the South Campus of the former Northampton State Hospital across Route 66 from Village Hill Road. Kollmorgen officials are scheduled to go before the Northampton Planning Board on May 28, 2009 for a Site Plan Review hearing on its new facility, so this meeting will provide neighbors with an opportunity to understand and ask questions about the project before that formal permitting process begins.

Light refreshments will be served.

From The North Street Association
Sunday, May 3, 2009

The Northampton Planning Board approves request by Hospital Hill LLC for a definitive subdivision on the north side of the campus at Moser Street, map 31C, section 017 (PDF). To get a clearer sense of where Moser Street is, refer to the Master Plan map (PDF).

Village Hill Master Plan

Northampton Assessors and Zoning Maps

The new plan for Hospital Hill is approved.

From The Advocate
By Mark Roessler
Friday, March 13, 2009

Northampton’s Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC), the group charged with overseeing development on the site of the former Northampton State Hospital, met on Wednesday, March 4 to tie up a loose end.

Last fall, the committee debated the merits of a revised site plan for the housing development on Hospital Hill. The plan had no strong advocates. Committee members voiced concern that it was a departure from their stated goal of a village-like setting with a mix of commercial and residential buildings; the revised plan included over 100 new houses, overwhelming the scant commercial development. Many changes were requested, including the possibility of adding a community center, a park at the center of the development, and a more substantial memorial to the former state hospital and its patients.

Two meetings had been opened to public commentary, and the majority of the residents who spoke either had serious concerns about the plan or rejected it outright. Of all the speakers, only Jonathan Wright, whose Wright Builders is currently building 11 half-million-dollar mansions on the hill, urged approval of the plan so that those buying his properties will have an idea of the neighborhood they’re moving into.

From The Republican
By Fred Contrada
Wednesday, March 04, 2009

In January of 2005, MassDevelopment presented the Planning Board an artist’s conception of what the commercial portion of Village Hill Northampton could look like along Route 66. The drawing showed three three-story buildings up close to the street with awnings overhanging the sidewalk. One board member called the concept “sterile” and it was agreed that more trees would make the scene more pedestrian friendly.

No one yet knows what that stretch of road will look like once Kollmorgen Corp., a manufacturer of optical equipment, builds its new 130,000-square-foot facility on the site, but it is certain it won’t look anything the drawing of four years ago.

Despite some discontent about aesthetics, the Planning Board granted Kollmorgen a special permit last week to relocate on the south side of the former Northampton State Hospital complex. That portion was targeted for commercial and industrial development as part of the massive project that came to be branded Village Hill Northampton.

From The Local Buzz
By Greg Saulmon
Friday February 13, 2009

Here in the office, we try to keep tabs on the issues that are really driving discussion in the Pioneer Valley. A common thread among the issues that most frequently seem to pull people from online debate and conjecture and into actual civic engagement? Somebody trying to build something.

In almost any town you’ll find a plot of land that, all at once, represents several or all of the following: jobs; community; economic revitalization; short-sighted and visionless planning; a breakdown in the process of public discourse; environmental injustice; corporate greed.

So, my original plan: present a single gallery that toured a number of these contested developments, and that compared how the issues and the frame of the debate surrounding each appear to be influencing the outcomes. Instead, though, let’s work up to that. I’ll try to shoot one gallery each week to create a sense of each place; then, time willing, we’ll try to look at these in a little more detail.

From The Republican
by Fred Contrada
Sunday, February 15, 2009

As in recent years, Northampton is pinning its hopes for the economic future on a tract of land that was known in its hey-day as the home of the Northampton Lunatic Hospital.

The facility, which eventually changed its name to Northampton State Hospital, has been closed since the early 1990s. After a long struggle to wrest control of the land from the state, the city has slowly and painstakingly been working to realize its vision of a village of new commercial, industrial and residential space on the land formerly known as Hospital Hill.

With the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, a quasi-public agency, at the helm, the one-time hospital campus has undergone a complete makeover. Most of the buildings, including the iconic “Old Main” that served as the chief administration building, have been demolished and their rubble carted away. Traces of the hospital have even been excised from the name of the project, which is now called Village Hill Northampton.