SPRINGFIELD — The people who attended a citywide meeting at St. Anthony’s Church on Island Pond Road last week received a taste of the final plan to address long-term recovery to the damage caused by the June 1, 2011 tornado.
Speaking to Reminder Publications after the meeting Nicholas Fyntrilakis, assistant vice president, Community Responsibility at MassMutual Financial Group and the chair of DevelopSpringfield, explained the final document would be several hundred pages in length with much detail about the proposals. It will be finalized within the next month.
What people saw last week was “a walk through the executive summary,” Fyntrilakis said.
That summary included some broad-brush goals such as:
• “Transforming vacant lots and structures into community assets.
• “Build on existing physical assets to celebrate and improve Springfield’s aesthetic character and infrastructure.”
• “Design, develop and operate places and spaces that are efficient and respectful of natural and human resources.
• “Support and grow the arts and culture sector through a series of ‘Lighter Quicker Cheaper’ cultural events.
• “Improve the reality of perception of public safety in Springfield.
• “Attract a vibrant and youthful population to be stewards of Springfield.
• “Provide creative incentives to encourage economic development.
Among the more specific recommendations for the neighborhoods affected by the storm were:
• Relocate the South End Community Center to the Gemini clothing factory site on Central Street.
• “Rebuild and revive the Main Street block around the Union Street intersection as a vibrant and walkable gateway to the South End with an enhanced ‘restaurant row’ and retail presence.”
• For Maple High Six Corners, emphasize renewing the housing stock and creating economic opportunities.
• For Hickory Street in the Old Hill neighborhood, residents, developers and Springfield College to work together to “break the current patterns of decline with bold forward looking plan to rebuild better.”
• In the Sixteen Acres and Forest Park neighborhoods, goals included the restoration and enhancment of natural resources through reforestation. Strengthen the impact of schools and community facilities and move the branch library to the Mary A. Dryden Veterans Memorial School.
Fyntrilakis said the final report will have “leads to potential resources,” to fund the proposals, but they will not be “concrete.” He explained that “every deal will be very different” and that money from insurance, private and public sources as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency will vary project to project.
“The work is just beginning,” Fyntrilakis said.
He cited the South End Community Center as an example. Fyntrilakis said the funding must be developed as well as working out a design for the building, parking, and access from the street.
The traffic pattern at Six Corners is another project that could take five years to complete. Residents noted it should be re-configured into a standard rotary and Fyntrilakis said, “Road construction projects take a tremendous amount of time to get going.”
He said the thinking on the damaged Elias Brookings Museum Magnet School in the Maple High Six Corners neighborhood is to build a new school building with a possible adaptive re-use for the older building.
He noted the area between the temporary Brookings School building and Hickory Street includes a large city-owned parcel presently being used as a parking area for the school. That area is “in a state of flux,” Fyntrilakis said, and it might figure into the new school and a park area.
“The good news,” Fyntrilakis said, “is that everybody is talking.”
“We’ve seen a lot of progress in the last eight months, but there is still a lot of challenges out there,” he added.
