Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 7/1/2022
CHICOPEE – For the first time in its history, the Westover Metropolitan Development Corporation (WMDC) has released an economic impact study that shows the businesses in its developed sites contributed $2.2 billion annually to the state’s economy and created 8,438 jobs.
Michael Boltin, the president and CEO of the nonprofit, WMDC told Reminder Publishing the corporation has never “been very public with what we do here” and sees the report as a means of marketing unused properties to new businesses.
The report was compiled by the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst.
WMDC was founded in 1974 in reaction to the deactivation of
Westover Air Force Base. Rod Motamedi, senior research manager, UMass Amherst Donahue Institute’s Economic & Public Policy Research Group, explained the base was the home of B-52 bombers which could deliver nuclear weapons. Its location on the East Coast made it the closest point toward the former Soviet Union to launch an attack from the air.
The federal government reduced the size of the base in its transition from an active Strategic Air Command base to Air Reserve base. WMDC has worked with the city of Chicopee in developing this excess property.
Mayor John Vieau said the base’s active-duty status was changed as the Department of Defense believed it was vulnerable to missile attacks from submarines.
Vieau recalled how the closing of the active-duty base affected the city. Chicopee “took a huge hit,” Vieau said. He added between 70 to 80 business either closed or downsized in reaction.
He questioned what would have become of the city without the efforts of the WMDC to bring in new businesses. “Where would we be today? Would [property] taxes have doubled? Would we be a ghost town?”
Vieau also said, “We really depend on the economic impact generated by the air parks.” The land has been divided into three industrial parks, one of which borders Ludlow.
The WMDC has developed more than 1,300 acres of property as well as the civilian airport. Tenants include manufacturing companies such as U.S. Tsubaki, as well as the Hampden County House of Corrections.
The report breaks down the businesses at the three airparks have greatly benefited Hampden and Hampshire counties. Hampden County has 58 percent of the jobs with 2,329 employees, while Hampshire County residents make up 13 percent of the jobs at 541.
There have been employment benefits to Worcester County (265 jobs), Middlesex County, (113 jobs) and Berkshire County with 108 jobs. There are another 688 employees located elsewhere who work at these businesses.
The top three communities that have benefited from these jobs are Springfield, Chicopee and Ludlow.
The jobs at the three air parks “generally pay more than the state average,” according to the report. “The share of WMDC airpark employees that fall into the top income bracket is much larger than that of the state, suggesting that job opportunities at WMDC industrial airparks tend to be more lucrative than others around the commonwealth, likely due to the particular industries represented there.”
Besides providing space for businesses, the property generates $4.152 million in property taxes for Chicopee (more than 15 percent of Chicopee’s commercial and industrial tax base) and $1.874 million for Ludlow or more than 35 percent for Ludlow.
According to the report, the civilian airport of the property has undergone “continuous investment and improvement.” The terminal itself is a renovated building that was once used to house B-52 crews on alert.
The report noted, “Every hangar on site has been put to use in some way. Most are used for storage of various aircraft. Others are used by businesses wholly unrelated to aviation, such as a hangar operated by Hyundai, a wholesaler of quartz countertops.”
To allow for 24-hour flight operations, a pilot-controlled lighting system has been installed on the civilian side.
Richard Sullivan, executive director of the Western Mass. Economic Development Corporation, said across the country other closed military bases have not had the level of redevelopment that Westover has had.
He noted the WMDC has provided “a really strong economic engine for all of Western Massachusetts.”