NORTHAMPTON — In the sleepy village of Florence, some big new developments have people talking change.

In the Northampton village’s main square, at the intersection on Main and Maple streets, several new developments are taking shape that aim to bring more businesses and housing to the neighborhood. Parsons Block, a building row along Maple Street near the intersection, recently completed renovations of nine apartments, with several of them now listed for rent, while a variety of businesses occupy the first floor.

Across the street, another multistory building is under construction that will also feature a mix of housing and business. Other new homes and condominiums are being built and reworked across the village, including a townhouse right behind Parsons Block, currently listed for sale on Zillow for $800,000 — a sign of a rising cost of living.

For business owners, the changes represent an opportunity to attract new customers and a positive sign of economic development.

“I’m really excited about more commercial business, about more traffic,” said Georgianna Brunton, the owner of the Miss Florence Diner on Main Street, steps away from the new developments. “We have a different sort of way of doing things than downtown Northampton, but it works.”

At JJ’s Tavern, right behind Miss Florence, owner Jon Neumann expressed similar optimism.

“I think it’s good. It brings a fresh energy, fresh life to the town,” Neumann said. “It’s becoming more city-like, in a sense, but everything is still ma and pa stores here, which is great. There’s no corporations like Dunkin’ Donuts around.”

Still, some of the local patrons at JJ’s worried that the village they call home may start to turn unrecognizable.

Johnny Scarborough Sr., who was born and raised in Florence and moved back to the area 14 years ago from the Boston area, said he felt disconcerted about how the village appears to be becoming increasingly urbanized.

“We’ve got triple-deckers going in right across the street from us,” said Scarborough, who lives on Garfield Street. “In Somerville or Chelsea they’d be beautiful, but here you’ve got all single-family homes.”

Jill Phelps, a Florence resident who originally is from Haydenville, also spoke critically of the newer developments.

“Everybody that moves to a small town, they do so because they want to get that small-town feel, but then they bring their big city to that small town,” Phelps said. “They start building more and building more, and then it’s not a small town anymore.”

Others took a more nuanced approach to the changes, such as Linda Desmond, a former city councilor for Florence.

“There’s a lot of history here, but I don’t mind development,” Desmond said. “It is what it is. I don’t want to try and wish away the economy.”

Regardless of sentiment, the situation in downtown Florence contrasts with the situation in downtown Northampton. There, business owners express apprehension about their economic future, having been battered by the pandemic and nervous about how a project to remake the city center — Picture Main Street, expected to begin in 2026 — may cause further disruption to their bottom line.

Kurt Brazeau, the owner of Murduff’s Jewelry Store in downtown Florence and the president of the Florence Civic & Business Association, highlighted some of the key perks the village center offers. Unlike downtown Northampton, downtown Florence has free parking, and some Florence businesses own their buildings rather then paying rent, while those who do rent don’t pay as much as they would in Northampton’s center.

“Rents up here are probably half of what downtown is,” Brazeau said. “Everything’s owned pretty much locally. It’s a very family friendly neighborhood.”

Brazeau acknowledged that costs of living, such as rent, are going up in the village, but noted that’s a problem hardly unique to the area.

“That’s not a Florence problem. That’s a statewide problem. I don’t know how you get around that,” said Brazeau, who lives in Whatley. “The problem is that people want all these amenities in Northampton, but they don’t want to pay for it. I don’t live in Northampton because I can’t afford it.”

In the Parsons Block row of buildings, several storefronts have opened in recent years, such as the Zen Frog cafe and The Sphere, a working space meant to support female and nonbinary entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, one longtime store that has stayed put is Bird’s Store, a general market where little has changed under the ownership of Guarang Patel.

But Patel is also in on the village’s future development — he owns the building project under construction across from Parsons Block, which will be a three-story, 4,250-square-foot structure at 81 Maple St. The 40-foot-tall building will rise in a vacant lot between the 100 Main St. office building he developed in 2014 and the Florence fire station. Once completed, the building will include a two-bedroom apartment and commercial space on its first floor, three one-bedroom and two two-bedroom apartments on the second floor, and four two-bedroom apartments on the third floor, for a total of 10 new housing units.

Patel did not comment much on the plans for the new building, saying it was still too early to talk about its potential impact.

“It’s still changing. The dust hasn’t settled yet,” Patel said of the village’s economic development, speaking inside his store. “We want something that’s needed for Florence.”

With regard to Bird’s itself, Patel said he intends to keep the store going, no matter what the future of Florence looks like.

“My goal is to keep Bird’s Store going beyond my time,” Patel said. “If I have to make changes to support that, I will.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.