From The Republican
By Fred Contrada
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Sink and Urinal, listing #15293If you’ve ever wanted a urinal or a shower head from the former Northampton State Hospital, now is the time.
These and other mementos from the 19th century complex once called the Northampton Lunatic Hospital are currently up for bid, courtesy of the city’s Historical Commission. Proceeds from the on-line auction will go towards restoring the fountain that once sat in front of Old Main, the administrative building on the 500 acre campus that stood upon Hospital Hill.
Built in the 1850s, Northampton State Hospital housed 2,500 patients, employed 500 workers and operated out of 70 buildings at its height. It included a piggery, a bowling alley and underground tunnels linking the buildings. Former patients are reportedly buried in unmarked graves on the grounds.
The thriving hospital began downsizing in the 1970s as the state deinstitutionalized, placing people with mental health issues in community homes instead. It closed for good in 1993, and the long process of turning the land over to the city began.
MassDevelopment, a quasi-public agency, was chosen to market the land for commercial and residential use. One by one, the buildings were razed. In their place, a range of housing has been built. Defense contractor Kollmorgen, now called L3-KEO, moved its headquarters from King Street onto the former hospital campus and now occupies the lion’s share of the commercial and industrial space.
Even the name of the hill was changed by developers, who thought Village Hill would be more attractive than Hospital Hill. All that remains are the fountain, the reported graves and a bunch of artifacts that MassDevelopment turned over to the city. These include a urinal, an old clock, a cupola, auditorium chairs, window bars, doors and some game tables.
“It’s like they grabbed everything they possibly could,” said Sarah LaValley, a Planning Department staff member who serves as liaison to the Historical Commission. “We ended up with what could be salvaged.”
From The Republican
By Ellie Cook
Monday, October 4, 2010
Fall’s here, and with winter bearing down, projects race to the finish. If this most beautiful season proves long, work can go on right through November.
Village Hill, where the state hospital used to be (the R44 bus still has a Hospital Hill sign), has undergone a huge transformation in the past few years. At first it seemed that people were wary of buying into the new development, and the economy didn’t help.
But according to city businessman and longtime real estate agent Pat Goggins, the Kollmorgen Electro-Optical Corp. plant going up on the South Campus makes people more confident that the development will take hold. “The community has finally decided that it’s really going to happen up there,” he said last week.
He commented, as many have, on the development’s “walkability,” situated as it is about three-quarters of a mile from town, with its bike and walking paths.
Goggins, who is handling the marketing of new homes in the development, talked about the work along the eastern side of the North Campus on Olander Drive.
In the area called Morningside, four single-family houses have been built there, and all of them are now sold, the latest one early this month. Six more will be finished by early next summer; of those, four are “going into the ground in the next six weeks,” builder Jonathan Wright said last week. All six are under deposit, Goggins said. A total of 11 are planned, according to Wright.
Wright attributed the keener interest in those homes to the builders’ expanding the original two designs to seven, some of them “cottage” and “farmhouse” style – a bit smaller and less expensive. The cost ranges from $479,000 to $589,000.
The three four-condo townhouses, opposite Morningside, are two-thirds built. The first building is already entirely owner-occupied. The second is nearly finished, and two of those four condos are under deposit. Around the corner, the final building is set for a spring finish, with one condo already under deposit. They go for $269,000 to $379,000.
It looks like Kollmorgen Electro-Optical is here to stay.
In a unanimous vote Thursday night, the expansive committee in charge of overseeing the redevelopment of the former state hospital grounds approved a significant change to the Village Hill Northampton master plan. The move paves the way for the city’s largest manufacturer and its largest for-profit employer to move into a new manufacturing and office facility on the development’s south campus – thus keeping Kollmorgen in the city.
Development of the south campus was always a question we had,’ said committee member Joe Blumenthal. ‘The community is being presented with an opportunity here that we should take advantage of.’
Kollmorgen, which employs 330 people at its Northampton plant, would be the lone anchor tenant in the revamped south campus, where most of the commercial building is slated. In approving a MassDevelopment request to change the master plan, the Northampton State Hospital Citizens Advisory Committee for Village Hill agreed to significantly reduce both the number of buildings and the amount of square footage slated for the south campus.
From The Republican
by Fred Contrada
Thursday May 22, 2008
Amid reservations about the loss of office and retail space, the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Village Hill Northampton project voted unanimously today to amend the master plan, clearing the way for Kollmorgen Corp. to become the main commercial tenant.
Under a plan presented to the committee, Kollmorgen would occupy the lion’s share of the former Northampton State Hospital campus to the south of Route 66.
The site had been envisioned as a mix of commercial and industrial space that would complement the residential portion of the village on the north campus.
Kollmorgen, the city’s largest private employer, makes optical equipment, some of which is used by the military.
Kollmorgen Electro-Optical, one of the city’s largest manufacturing plants with about 250 employees at its King Street headquarters, is taking another look at Village Hill Northampton and could become its second commercial tenant.
The company and the city are once again discussing a deal that would enable the maker of optical and imaging systems to become an anchor tenant at Village Hill Northampton. Kollmorgen and Village Hill development officials will meet with a key city committee Thursday.
The move to a new manufacturing facility, if approved, would come more than three years after the city initially tried to lure the company to the $28 million, mixed-used redevelopment on the 126-acre site that once housed Northampton State Hospital.
