Developer adds spark to Florence with Parsons Block reno, redone apartments
Published: 01-30-2025 5:16 PM |
NORTHAMPTON — The view out the window of a corner apartment above 92 Maple St. in Florence includes many of the landmark businesses any prospective resident there would have easy access to. Beneath the apartment lies the A-1 Pizza House and The Zen Frog cafe, with Tandem Bagel and the Miss Florence Diner mere footsteps away.
The central location was a prime factor in the decision by Patriot Property Management, a West Springfield real estate group, to invest almost $2 million into purchasing and renovating the more than 100-year-old building that stretches down Maple Street and hosts several residential and commercial spaces, known as Parsons Block. The building was acquired by the group in 2022 and recently renovated, with some of its nine apartments now available for rent.
Jordan Healy, one of the managers for Patriot Property, said that with the completion of renovations, the group hopes to breathe some extra life into downtown Florence.
“I think it’s a spark for a little bit of a revival down here,” Healy said. “With the pandemic, obviously downtown Northampton had some challenges, and we feel as though this might be the spark that gets Florence back on the map.”
The inside of the apartments feature various layouts, including kitchens and spacious living rooms with new floorboards. Some have walls made of the building’s exposed original brick, and fireplaces that, while not operational, provide an additional aesthetic component.
“We could have went through and made everything looked brand new, state of the art and all that,” Healy said. “But we really wanted to keep some of the historic pieces, keep the look of the windows, the floors, keep the fireplaces, just try to accentuate all the history here.”
Three of the nine apartments in the building are available, with prices ranging from $1,800 a month for a one-bedroom to $2,500 for a three-bedroom unit.
In addition, the property has 11 commercial spaces, 10 of which are occupied. In addition to the cafe and pizza place, other businesses in the area include Bird’s Store, Bookends book shop, a yoga studio and The Sphere, a co-working space and innovation lab with a focus on women and non-binary-owned businesses.
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Healy said that for the one vacant commercial space, they are aiming to lease it at $20 per square foot, but also emphasized that they would be “extremely selective” in what kind of businesses would be considered for the building.
“We need to make sure that we have the right tenant mix to actually transform this area,” Healy said. “A coffee shop mixes with a bookstore, a bookstore mixes with a yoga studio, a yoga studio mixes with a co-working space. There’s synergies within the business.”
Kevin Jennings, a real estate broker who works with Patriot Property on commercial spaces, put it more succinctly: “We’re looking for community-based amenities.”
Parsons Block isn’t the only development going on in downtown Florence. Just across the street, another building is under construction by Keiter Builders, which plans residential and commercial spaces.
“For so long, Florence has been just kind of doing its own thing,” Healy said. “It’s small, walkable and more neighborhood-oriented — it’s a little bit of a different mentality in the city.”
The Parsons Block building was previously owned by business owner Tim Shea, who died in 2018, passing ownership to a trust benefiting Shea’s four children before it was sold to Patriot Property Management in 2022.
The group has made several other acquisitions in Northampton in recent months, acquiring nine properties just north of the roundabout at Conz and Pleasant streets, Central Business Gateway District, Pleasant and Conz streets, near the Interstate-91 entrance and within the city’s Central Business Gateway District. Those properties, totaling 5.8 acres in size, were acquired by Patriot Property for $7.04 million.
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.