Holyoke motorcycle museum proposal in questionDate: 8/16/2022 HOLYOKE – Indian Motorcycle of Springfield owner Dennis Bolduc has pitched a plan to the city to turn the historic First Congregational Church building into a museum, restaurant and motorcycle repair shop.
Since then, he feels like he is being left in the dark and is not sure where things stand going forward, he told Reminder Publishing.
“It’s all in the hands of Holyoke right now. It’s up to the Planning Board and the City Council so we just wait,” Bolduc said.
The City Council’s Ordinance Committee and Planning Board were presented the plans in early July during a public hearing at which Bolduc was seeking to rezone the property at 474 Pleasant St. For Bolduc to take his business to the church building, the city must rezone the parcel from Residential-2 (R2) to Business-Highway (BH).
Bolduc, who owns Indian Motorcycle of Springfield on Southampton Road in Westfield, said at the moment he feels the project is up in the air as the Planning Board “is pretty much against it and they consider it not possible.” He added he has received more support from the City Council but ultimately the zoning change is in the hands of the Planning Board.
Based on his conversations with the board, Bolduc said it appears to him to be as simple as they don’t feel the area the church is in should be a BH zone.
During their most recent Planning Board meeting on Aug. 9, the board tabled discussion of the zoning map change request until their next meeting because members were awaiting a legal opinion on what constitutes spot zoning. Spot zoning is the application of zoning to a specific parcel or parcels of land within a larger zoned area when the rezoning is usually at odds with a city’s zoning restrictions.
Reminder Publishing reached out to the Planning Board for additional comment but did not receive a response as of press time.
Bolduc said he chose the church location for this project due to its look and historic implications to the city.
“It’s a great building, a historic building. It’s a unique structure. We don’t have any of those left around. To knock that building down would be a shame,” Bolduc said. “You leave a building like that abandoned, it’s not going to be a good situation.”
Bolduc added he hopes the situation can be resolved as he fears the building could face demolition in the future. He noted that currently the First Congregational Church rents the building out to four tenants including Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous groups, and a couple of other congregations.
Reminder Publishing also did not receive comment from the First Congressional Church by press time. Bolduc said when he met with church leaders about his proposal, they were receptive to his ideas.
The former church, built in 1894, is on the market for $595,000. It has not been used as a church since 1996 when the First and Second congregational churches merged to form the United Congregational Church. According to listings, the property includes a 17,596-square-foot church building and an additional 9,784 square feet of basement space.
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