Again with the First National Bank building
I am woefully behind on town meetings—TBH the whole Hope St. lot debate wore me out and turned me off a bit from municipal politics—but I started dipping my toes back in the water this week with a meeting of the Greenfield Redevelopment Authority from all the way back at the end of September.
I was drawn to this one because I saw 1) it was short, and 2) I have never paid any attention at all to this particular body, and 3) the only topic on the agenda was the First National Bank building.
As it turns out, the city is re-upping the Request For Proposals process for this property, which has been sitting empty since before I moved to Greenfield nearly twenty years ago. In the case of the First National Bank building, that process sits with the Redevelopment Authority, and in this meeting they were reviewing and approving updates made to the RFP by Amy Callihane, the city's director of Community & Economic Development.
From here, there is a sign-off step for the city's finance director, and then it goes out to any developers that want to make a proposal for the property, and then there is a whole long (and public) process for evaluating any proposals that the city receives.
As I said, this meeting is quite short and I found it to be pretty interesting, as it provides a pretty good overview of how this Request For Proposal process works. The reason I bring that up is that now that the Hope Street lot will be going out for RFP as well, that same process will kick off for that property as well. From where I sat, it seemed like at least part of the public concern about that property was due to confusion about what exactly would happen to it, and misunderstandings that there was somehow already a proposal for development.
I was drawn to this one because I saw 1) it was short, and 2) I have never paid any attention at all to this particular body, and 3) the only topic on the agenda was the First National Bank building.
As it turns out, the city is re-upping the Request For Proposals process for this property, which has been sitting empty since before I moved to Greenfield nearly twenty years ago. In the case of the First National Bank building, that process sits with the Redevelopment Authority, and in this meeting they were reviewing and approving updates made to the RFP by Amy Callihane, the city's director of Community & Economic Development.
From here, there is a sign-off step for the city's finance director, and then it goes out to any developers that want to make a proposal for the property, and then there is a whole long (and public) process for evaluating any proposals that the city receives.
As I said, this meeting is quite short and I found it to be pretty interesting, as it provides a pretty good overview of how this Request For Proposal process works. The reason I bring that up is that now that the Hope Street lot will be going out for RFP as well, that same process will kick off for that property as well. From where I sat, it seemed like at least part of the public concern about that property was due to confusion about what exactly would happen to it, and misunderstandings that there was somehow already a proposal for development.