City celebrates grand opening of Great River Bridges

Date: 7/3/2012

July 4, 2012

By Debbie Gardner

debbieg@thereminder.com

WESTFIELD — "Welcome to the dedication of the Great River Bridges and parks ... did you ever think you'd hear that?"

With that nod to the snarled traffic and disrupted commerce endured by city residents and businesses alike for the past five years, State Sen. Michael Knapik welcomed state and local dignitaries — including eight former mayors — as well as the many city residents who gathered in the sweltering heat for the official grand opening of the recently completed twin bridges.

As he introduced Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy & Environment Richard K. Sullivan Jr., Knapik kidded the former city mayor about "participating in 437 meetings over the past 18 years" regarding the $80 million bridge project.

"He was a young man when this project began," Knapik said. "And there was no greater chief executive during that period of time who really helped to drive this project forward in some extremely difficult times than our former mayor."

Sullivan talked about how City Engineer Mark Cressotti had told him that if he initiated the bridge project, he had to "understand" that he would not be mayor when the ribbon was cut to let the first car across the new span.

"What it would mean is that we needed to plan for the long term," Sullivan said. "As Gov. [Deval] Patrick has said, we cannot plan for tomorrow, or the next business quarter, or the next election cycle. We need to look down the road to our generational responsibilities and take an opportunity and make a great project."

He called the bridge project "an opportunity to redefine the city of Westfield's downtown and create not only a recreational opportunity but a new economic development opportunity for the city of Westfield."

Sullivan also recognized his fellow former mayors who had a hand in that vision, and praised the city councilors, both former and present, who took "a lot of tough votes" to move the project forward, buying railroad lines and the Blessed Sacrament Church property to accommodate the construction when the state could not afford the purchases.

"It was a vision to look into the future of what the downtown and the city of Westfield could become," Sullivan said. "Westfield has thought big because big things are going to happen for the city of Westfield."

Patrick said he was pleased to be back in Westfield, nearly five years to the day from his visit to break ground on the Great River Bridge project, adding that he had shared residents' pain in trying to get "from one side of town to the other" during repeat visits to the area during construction.

Noting that a project as comprehensive as the Great River Bridges was too large for one city, or even private investors, to complete, Patrick said he was "proud to have had a role, with local government, with the federal government, with all of the partners who have helped this project — and projects like it around the Commonwealth — come into being."

He urged the audience to look at what the local-state partnership had accomplished in the bridges and parks behind him and "get over your complaints about government. Government is us — you and me — and we deserve things to be as good as we can be.

"There is more to do," he continued, noting those schools, neighborhoods and especially, the "marginalized" members of society deserved an equal share of attention. "The more we get away from the stale rhetoric of campaigns, the more we can get to the business of building our communities."

Calling those projects our "generational responsibilities," Patrick urged attendees to "get that work done."

Mayor Daniel Knapik used the governor's remarks about getting work done to not only praise the accomplishment of the Great River Bridges, but to inform attendees that he's had word the next phase of revitalization for the city's north side was slated to begin. Knapik said he had heard from the construction company hired for the Pochasset Bridge project that work would begin in early July, followed by the initial phase of the Gaslight District project in the Elm Street area.

"As we invest in ourselves, private investment will follow," Knapik said. "There's already $9 to $10 million in private investment that's come in to the downtown area [following the bridge and Park Square projects]"

"Why not Westfield?" Knapik asked. "We deserve it."

Westfield State University (WSU) President Dr. Evan Dobelle called the bridge dedications "a historic day in Westfield," and emphasized the college's commitment to support the rebirth of the city that the bridge and Park Square Town Green projects were ushering in. With the college's presence in the Lansdowne Place apartments, its downtown art gallery, its commitment to constructing a new dormitory in the city and plans for it to include a Barnes & Noble Bookstore and Starbucks in the proposed transportation center, Dobelle said WSU has a stake in the revitalization of Westfield.

"Westfield," he said proudly, "is a college town."