Old nursing home gets new life: Northampton, state officials celebrate Prospect Place groundbreaking
By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL
Staff Writer
Published: 09-18-2024 6:43 PM
NORTHAMPTON — Multiple members of Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s cabinet visited Northampton on Wednesday to mark the groundbreaking of a planned affordable homes project at Prospect Place, the former nursing home at 737 Bridge Road that has fallen into disrepair since its foreclosure in 2012.
State Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities Ed Augustus, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper and Department of Energy Resources Commissioner Elizabeth Mahony all attended the event, highlighting how the commonwealth sees projects like the Prospect Place development as helping solve the dual crises of both the cost of housing and the effects of climate change.
The project, overseen by the Valley Community Development Corporation, or Valley CDC, is expected to cost around $30 million and will add 60 new family apartments, powered by geothermal heat pumps and a solar array placed on the roof of the building. Once opened, the cost of utilities will be provided entirely by Valley CDC, meaning those renting the apartments would only need to budget for rent instead of shifting power bills.
“We’ll be paying for heat and hot water here in perpetuity,” said Bill Womeldorf, the real estate project manager for Valley CDC in an interview with the Gazette. “So we wanted to make sure we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot with the costs for that.”
