Market Square demo to begin

Date: 11/4/2011

Nov. 2, 2011

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

CHICOPEE — Closed for about four years, the demolition process for the Market Square Billiards building was officially started last week with an announcement on Oct. 28.

Cory Briere, who owns the building next to it called the action “phenomenal.” A parking lot will go where the building once stood, which will help downtown businesses.

“Real or not, there is a perception there’s no parking in downtown Chicopee,” Briere told Reminder Publications.

He believes the additional parking will assist the owners of the Rivoli when they complete renovations there as well as provide parking for the next use of the former library building.

The building had become an “eyesore,” he added and has been a haven for the homeless.

Mayor Michael Bissonnette said the building was closed because the owner would not install the required sprinkler system.

Stephen Jendrysik, chairman of the Historical Commission, said the building was constructed in 1914 and was originally a hotel. Although the building had at one time been considered for historical preservation, a fire in the 1970s altered the structure enough to prevent the completion of the process. Jendrysik believes the building “should have been torn down 40 years ago.”

City Councilor Charles Swider said the demolition offered the city “a great opportunity to add parking for businesses,” which he sees as potential for business growth.

“I’m glad the building is going,” he said. He added the demolition came about through the City Council and Bissonnette working together.

Bissonnette led the media and city officials on an impromptu tour of the interior, first going to the second floor where the billiards hall and a bar once were. The case for pool cues was still on one wall and some light fixtures that hung over pool tables still dangled from the ceiling.

A Coors Light poster was hung on one wall and several signs still were affixed on the walls warning players that masse shots — those used with a nearly vertical pool cue — were forbidden.

On the first floor, renovations had obscured part of the bowling alley that once was there, but the hardwood lanes led to a wall and around it were the battery of pin-setting machines.

Al Coron, the project manager for J.R. Vinagro Corp., the demolition company, said the first step in removing the building would be building a supporting wall, so the abutting building will not be compromised. Asbestos removal will follow and then the removal of the building will begin. The process may be completed as early as Thanksgiving and the Department of Public Works will fill the basement with gravel as the base for building the parking lot.