From The Republican
Sunday, February 10, 2008
By Fred Contrada
After a decade of waiting, Northampton is hoping that 2008 will be the year that a new commercial and industrial complex finally rises from the rubble of Northampton State Hospital.
Ever since the hospital shut down in the early 1990s, the city has looked to the sprawling campus as its greatest opportunity for new business space. The process of turning the land over from the state to the city took years. When that was finally accomplished, there was more waiting for the state and federal help needed to develop the site.
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The most prominent is the transformation of the former Northampton State Hospital campus, where ghosts of the past have finally been laid to rest. After decades of talk and bureaucratic maneuvers — along with $28 million spent on the demolition of numerous buildings, environmental studies, new utility installations, and other necessary measures to prepare the site for development — new residential and industrial growth has taken root.