NORTHAMPTON — After purchasing the former home of the Daily Hampshire Gazette on Conz Street more than three years ago, the new owner says plans to develop the property into a hotel have been put on hold.
“It’s been put on the back burner,” said Mansour Ghalibaf, who in addition to owning the property also owns the neighboring Fairfield Inn and the downtown Hotel Northampton. “But I haven’t given up on it.”
Ghalibaf bought the 115 Conz St. property, totaling 3.57 acres, for $3 million. He had the newspaper’s old offices and press room demolished, with the intention of building an 18,000-square-foot hotel that would be under the Home2 Suites by Hilton brand. Ghalibaf applied for and received the proper permitting from the city’s Planning Board in 2023 to move forward with construction.
But since then, the lot has remained empty. Ghalibaf said that two factors contributed to the lack of progress: the rising cost of building materials, and the inability to supply natural gas energy to the property.
“Massachusetts is totally against gas,” Ghalibaf said. “It’s a bad situation.”
Hotels bearing the Home2 Suites by Hilton brand are required to meet certain standards in their design and construction. Among the requirements for the chain is an outdoor lounge patio that includes fire pits and outdoor grills, which must be fueled by natural gas, according to the hotel standards.
“They want to offer a product where people can feel at home,” Ghalibaf said of the brand standards. “This basically messes everything up.”
Carolyn Misch, director of planning and sustainability, confirmed that Ghalibaf had met with city officials several months ago and that the issue of natural gas supply had come up. Northampton does have a citywide prohibition on use of fossil fuels in new construction, but she said there are exceptions for outdoor cooking and heating, and that the underlying cause of the problem is power company Eversource’s moratorium on new gas lines in the city.
“He seemed to be not aware of how to address the fact there was no gas on the property,” Misch said. “He’s a hotelier, so he doesn’t do energy systems design and financing for that.”
In January, the city adopted an ordinance under which any new buildings or renovations to existing buildings are required to be all-electric, with any use of fossil fuels prohibited. The city adopted the ordinance after being invited into the state-sponsored Municipal Fossil Fuel Free Building Demonstration Program, the only municipality in western Massachusetts to be included.
But Misch said the city ordinance did not affect Ghalibaf’s gas requirements. The exceptions for outdoor cooking and heating appliances mean the hotel could have its fire pits and gas grills. Rather, Misch said the problem stemmed from Eversource’s moratorium.
“If you don’t reuse a gas connection after two years, then it’s as if you never had it,” Misch said. “The city reached out to Eversource to re-allow the connection, but they refused.”
Other planned developments have also gone astray in the city due to branding requirements. A planned Volvo dealership to be built by TommyCar Auto Group recently fell through, with the group’s President Carla Cosenzi putting some of the blame on city requirements that clashed with Volvo’s dealership standards.
“Our goal was to invest in the city, the community and jobs,” Cosenzi said in an interview with the Gazette in August. “Unfortunately, the support from the city and its citizens wasn’t there for that.”
Misch defended the city’s actions regarding the dealership, saying Cosenzi had been aware of the zoning requirements in place when purchasing the property.
“They were told that a dealership was by special permit only and that the only way to be able to get approval would be to fully comply with the design standards in place,” Misch said. “It was clear that a typical single-use, highway business car dealership design was not going to be approvable. Cosenzi purchased the King Street site in 2023, knowing the rules and apparently with the intention of moving one or more of their dealerships to this site.”
Ghalibaf also criticized the city for being unfriendly toward individual developers, noting how recent developments such as the geothermal energy project at Smith College and the purchase of the former Registry of Deeds by Valley CDC were funded by nonprofits that are able to receive state grants.
“People who are willing to invest in the city, they should be respected,” Ghalibaf said. “If individuals want to do something, there should be a way to accommodate them.”
Regarding the increased cost of materials, Ghalibaf said that in one month, he had seen the cost of an order of what had been $1 million worth of electrical materials and supplies rise by $250,000. He also said there was a two-year back order on purchasing electrical transformers for powering the property.
“That’s really changed the game,” Ghalibaf said. “It’s not sustainable and it’s not efficient.”