Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra continues to provide happy talk about the “resilience hub” — the former Baptist Church on Main Street which the city purchased in June 2023 for $3,175 million (plus $145,000 paid to Jones-Whitsett Architects to conduct a due diligence study, among other expenses).
As reported in the Gazette (Oct. 23), she stated at the Ward 3 forum that the facility “will house some 50 different organizations when completed.” That’s a tall order for a building with four offstreet parking spaces at the most congested intersection in downtown Northampton, and which has no loading dock, no elevator, no kitchen, and no gas supply.
The city paid about twice the actual value of the property according to an independent reappraisal in 2024 by the Boston firm Colliers Valuation and Advisory Services, as commissioned by a group of concerned local residents. Colliers estimated that the fair market value of the property when the city bought it was $1.6 million. Its assessed value in 2022 was $695,000. There is no evidence that the city tried to negotiate a lower price from the seller, a local real estate investor.
A “resiliience hub” is a great concept, but this is the wrong structure, at the wrong location, and the wrong price. It just sits there behind its chainlink fence as an expensive white elephant and eyesore. It is high time for this city purchase to be reviewed by the state inspector general.
Rutherford H. Platt
Florence