EASTHAMPTON — The site of the former Notre Dame du Bon Conseil Church at 27 Pleasant St. has been approved by the city for the creation of 43 units of housing.
The project known as Riverview Place, contracted by Five Star Building Corp. of Easthampton, will be completed in four phases. The first phase of the project will create 10 units of market-rate units across two buildings on the left side of the church, with construction to begin in the coming weeks.
Owner and Founder of Five Star Building Kevin Perrier, expects the units to be listed on the market in February next year and hopefully sold in May.
“We feel it’s definitely one of the more sizeable housing projects recently in Easthampton …” Perrier said. “We feel fortunate that there still is a demand for market-rate town homes and hope that’ll bring important housing to Easthampton.”
Five Star Building was given the go-ahead to start construction, after receiving a special zoning permit for the first phase at a Planning Board meeting on Sept. 23. The permit was the final step of a three-year process that involved many hurdles, including conservation concerns and traffic studies.
Conservation concerns centered around the slope next to the property that leads towards the Manhan River — identified as a coldwater fishery by the state — and concerns over the stormwater drainage system. Five Star Building Corp. has been working with Berkshire Design Group to create plans for the stormwater drainage system, housing structure designs and other components of the project, which helped receive approval from the city’s Conservation Commission.
The commission issued an order of conditions for the project, after receiving confirmation that the infiltration systems known as dry wells would not affect the stability of the slope. Dry wells are underground tools that collect excess water and slowly release it throughout the soil.
While there are still future conservation processes to go through, the Conservation Commission gave the go-ahead to the Planning Board to approve the special permit, under the order of conditions.
The project was initially proposed at a Planning Board meeting in May of 2022, where residents and board members expressed excitement about the possibility of a new, dense housing development filling a housing need in the city.
Phase two of the project will renovate the church structure into nine units of housing, an exciting part of the project for Perrier.
“The church units are going to be pretty interesting,” he said. “One unit is going to be using the bell tower of the church.”
There is not a certain start date for the church renovation, though Perrier expects to it to start no sooner than May next year.
Phases three and four will follow after the church is renovated, requiring the rectory and Roots Daycare to be demolished to create an additional 23 units across five buildings. The developer for the project is Norwich Properties of Easthampton and the architect is Winslow Architects Inc., which have been involved through the planning process.
Berkshire Design Group created a traffic assessment based on data collected by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) that was gathered in 2024, estimating the amount of traffic increase due to the development. The assessment showed estimated traffic would not increase substantially due to the development. The study was reviewed by engineers at Vanasse & Associates Inc., an Andover transportation engineering and planning company, which validated the research done by Berkshire Design Group.
The church closed in 2010 and is not a designated historic building, allowing this project to move forward.
