Nine or ten months ago, the Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) office, in conjunction with the architecture firm Jung|Brannen—which had been promised contract work once plans were underway—along with the Massachusetts Information Technology Division (ITD), conducted a study to locate the best possible site for a second Massachusetts Information Technology Center (MITC), a state-run data backup facility. The first MITC is in Chelsea, in a contained, tier-three-secure world, complete with cafeteria.
The state so far refuses to share the study, as conveyed by a letter I received recently from the DCAM general counsel‘s office. "The records you seek are exempt from public disclosure," the letter states. "Records which address the development of policy are exempt from disclosure to the public, unless and until the recommended policy is adopted. The purpose of this exemption is to allow government offices to deliberate and form policy by engaging in free and frank exchange of options and ideas, which would be inhibited by public scrutiny."
Without the study in hand for reference—which allegedly put Springfield’s former Tech High School on top for numerous reasons—the public is more challenged to parse the political wrangling currently emerging in the local media on this subject. And officials are perhaps more likely to wrangle. As reported in today’s Republican by Azell Murphy Cavaan, local advocates for the project view themselves as having "been placed in the middle of a political fight between [Congressman Richard] Neal and [State Rep. Thomas] Petrolati and are being used as fodder in the media."
One recently-published press report describes a hastily-called conference in response to a targeted press release, like grenades lobbed over the wall at each other. An article today describes the apparently contentious meeting of STCC’s Technology Park Assistance Corporation. Yesterday’s news was that the Greater Springfield Chambers of Commerce made a statement endorsing one location over the other. A November 14 article describes how the Springfield City Council voted on a nonbinding referendum, just to send a message of "unity," on the best location for MITC II. A November 2 article recounts other political heavies weighing in on the matter. All this in an environment seemingly free of factual reference—as far as media reports go. Is this the type of "free and frank exchange" the state seeks? At what point will public scrutiny be allowed, if indeed this doesn’t already qualify?
The DCAM deputy general counsel’s letter mentions the adoption of "recommended policy." On October 20, the Springfield Finance Control Board met and Chairman Alan LeBovidge announced—quoting from the approved minutes of that meeting—that he had "spoken with [Administration and Finance] Secretary [Thomas] Trimarco and that the former Springfield Technical High School site would be the next location for the Commonwealth Back-up Computer system that would cost approximately $70 to $80 million dollars."
LeBovidge’s actual words, according to a transcript, were, "I’m happy to announce today that I spoke with Secretary of Administration and Finance Tom Trimarco yesterday evening, and he authorized me to announce that a final decision has been made by the administration, pending the approval of a bond bill which the legislature was looking at to finance this, to site the back-up center in Springfield at the old Technical High School location. And I think this is a big win for the city to have this facility located here. It’ll be a state-of-the-art facility so it’s…I’m glad that they made that decision and, you know, they can start moving forward once they have the money appropriated to build the building."
While the darts are flying back and forth over whether former Tech High or the STCC Technology Park would be better-suited as a site for MITC II, it appears that the state has indeed already made a statement about its adoption of policy (perhaps deeming the study shareable with the public?). Facts relevant to the needs of MITC II, which is really about the security of state data, are lost in the shuffle—if officials have seen the study in the first place.
Possibilities of the study being politically-influenced aside, there are reasons why former Tech High School came out on top, as Springfield’s Chief Development Officer David Panagore described them. As a tier-three secure facility, he said, MITC II needs to be low-profile, with more than one exit and entrance. It needs a reliable, redundant power grid, and can’t share walls with any other facility. "You can’t have the ability for someone to carve a hole through the wall and break in," Panagore said. "This is going to be the state’s DOR information, criminal history, the systems board, financial information; very sensitive stuff. So for those reasons, and a number of others, the state ITD folks said, operationally, [Tech] is the place we need to be. That’s number one."
Some time ago, the Massachusetts state legislature passed a bond authorization of $25 million for the "study, planning, design, acquisition and implementation of a second, active data center capable of maintaining mission critical applications and a supporting network infrastructure, including salaries and other personnel costs of staff assigned to that project; provided, that the center shall be connected to the Massachusetts Information Technology Center, and shall be used on a daily basis to support applications providing the Commonwealth with the capacity for business continuity and quick recovery in the event of unplanned outages."
A pending bond authorization for an additional, supplemental funding of $35 million for MITC II is yet to come before the state legislature. Presumably, State Rep. Petrolati will favor it if the facility can be located at the STCC Technology Park, and media reports have focused on the cost as a critical determining factor. But as Panagore emphasized, the primary determining factor in the eyes of the DCAM and ITD state officials, who surveyed many Springfield locations, is the operational needs of a sensitive, data-filled facility. "It’s not the sort of facility where you’d have interns, [for example,]" Panagore said. "They want to watch very much who comes in and out."
Panagore, who serves on the board of the STCC Assistance Corporation, which oversees the STCC Technology Park, mentioned a handful of operational problems associated with locating MITC II at that site. "It’s multi-tenanted, with common walls, only one entrance and exit," he said. But aside from that, he said that if the Technology Park is having trouble finding market-rate tenants, it might need to reposition its marketing. "You can put government offices anywhere," he said. "If you’re looking for stabilized cash flow, government does that. If you’re looking for development of new technologies and growth, government’s not going to do that for you. Government’s a blue chip, but it’s not a spin-off technology." The whole idea of the Technology Park, he added, was to attract the private sector. When some of the DOR‘s offices were located there, voices from the private sector objected to the state-subsidized rent, which posed an unfair competition. Presumably, locating MITC II at the STCC Technology Park could pose even more challenges for the private sector, given the operational needs of the facility.
But the debate, at this point, seems moot given the fact that the Finance Control Board already announced the state’s intentions (the "adopted policy," as it were). The remaining, open-ended question is really just the supplemental $35 million funding. Is that what all this noise is about?
Springfield officials—and just about anyone who has kept an eye on it for the last 20 years of vacancy and worsening dilapidation—are understandably passionate about former Tech High. Resident Greg Metzidakis said, "The closing of Tech was a very bad idea and was the result of politics and corruption. When you have a high school building that is over 240,000 square feet large and structurally sound in a central part of the city, it should be kept."
"When Tech closed in 1986," Metzidakis said, "Central [High School] opened with 2,069 students, almost 400 more than what that building was built for. Three years later, many city officials were angry about the overcrowding and some mentioned that a fourth high school was needed. Also, for the first time in a long time, many questioned why the city closed Tech. The city never reopened Tech, but instead bought for close to $8 million a building from Monarch Insurance. The city renovated that for around $30 million and named it what we know now as Sci-Tech High School."
"I feel that a state data center might be a great way to inject life into the building," Metzidakis continued, "because it is funded by the state, and it would preserve the building, and provide a new use for it as well. If I had it my way, Tech would become a community building that would house major neighborhood services, or it would become a school again. Those are my two favorite Tech re-use scenarios. However, renovating Tech as a state back-up center is better than nothing. If this fails, how much longer is the city going to wait before using it again? The thing that is unique about Tech is that it is a wonderful building architectually, both inside and out. It should never have closed as a high school, period!"
Historic commission member and Springfield resident Ralph Slate said, "Why would someone spend $30 to 40 million to renovate Tech when you can just buy a parcel somewhere else and put up a similar-sized building? No one builds buildings with such ornate facades today. Historical preservation often doesn’t make sense from a pure market perspective; being in a historic building usually doesn’t add value to a company (there are exceptions where the historic building helps define the business)."
"Historic preservation is often a labor of love," he continued. "I think that a public-financed project is probably going to be the best use, because the investment to bring the site up to date will be above the market value of the site. The public welfare benefits from investment in the Tech property, both to that neighborhood and to the city’s history, probably outweigh the cost savings the state would realize by using the STCC site. I think that even if the cost to renovate Tech is 20 to 30 percent higher, the money would still be well-spent."
Panagore said that the plans for former Tech High include maintaining the facade according to "green building" code. "You basically take the [existing] wall and put another wall five feet behind it," he said. "That becomes your air circulation, air ventilation: a plenum system, a natural air transfer." Will this add cost to the use of Tech for MITC II? Maybe, but Amherst-based blogger Tom Devine thinks it’s worth it—in addition to the many state and local officials standing in rare unison on the matter. Except for some in the state delegation, who have gone media-silent.
MITC II probably is Tech’s last chance. "Every study that I saw showed that the building was far under water and needed strong subsidies if you were going to redevelop it," Panagore said. "Unless you have some sort of project like this, this building could stay vacant for another 20 years."
But let’s not do it because we feel desperate about Tech. Let’s do it because that elusive state-level study advised it. It’s a happy coincidence that it would also be good for the building, good for the neighborhood, and good for the economy (with an estimated $40 million in construction jobs to rehab, and during operation, no cafeteria in the building for 50 round-the-clock employees). Too bad we won’t be able to see the study until everyone’s full of dart holes. Meanwhile, as Devine urges, consider sending an email to State Rep. Petrolati sharing your thoughts on the matter, whatever they may be.
