At the most recent Springfield Finance Control Board meeting, on Monday, December 18, a host of capital projects funding was approved in the form of a bond totaling nearly $38.5 million. The largest chunk of money in the package is $12 million for the renovation of the Putnam Vocational Technical High School. The rest, according to the board’s executive director Philip Puccia, "runs the gamut from roads to schools to public safety."
The next biggest piece of the bond issuance sets aside just under $4.5 million for the purchase (approved in May) and renovation of Our Lady of Hope convent adjacent to Boland Elementary School. Ideally, the school would be ready for over 150 special needs students in September.
Another $4 million is set aside for road construction and arterial reconstruction, and the bond provides $3 million for the purchase of a financial software package for the city. The Bondi’s Island "landfill cap" (anyone who knows what this means, please post in the comments) has been set aside at $2.7 million. The long-anticipated renovation of the city’s police department headquarters can now move forward with an allocated $2.1 million—plus an additional $2 million state grant.
Three more projects are now ready to go out to bid at the $1-million-plus level: the York Street Jail (PDF) demolition ($1.8 million), heartily recommended by the Urban Land Institute panel; Indian Orchard‘s Chapman Valve manufacturing plant demolition ($1.2 million); and various sidewalk-building enterprises connected to schools ($1 million). Various other city demolition projects are additionally accounted for in a $2.5 million chunk available to bidders.
As a sign of where Springfield sits right now on the development spectrum, all of the demolition projects officially fall under the category of "community and economic development," and there is nothing else in this bond issuance under that specific category. (Happily, there are plenty of other categories where there is activity.) What seems evident is that swaths of our city’s infrastructure is in poor shape.
A number of other projects are in store, all under $1 million. Curious about those, too? I don’t promise to know what each line item means, but maybe you’re more informed and can add comments about details:
Construction to replace (PDF) fire station: $500,000
Fire Department upgrades: $500,000
Library upgrades: $500,000
Police/fire centralized dispatch: $500,000
Hope/Baptist land purchase: $250,000
A number of parks and schools projects received some approved funding, which is apparently a "matching" amount (even though it’s not identical) to some already-secured funding. The city matching amount is listed below, with the already-secured funding in parentheses:
Greenleaf Park building repair: $88,714 (plus $561,286)
Blunt Park renovation: $60,000 (plus $140,000)
Treetop Park renovation: $214,285 (plus $500,000)
Marshall Roy Park renovation: $189,000 (plus $441,000)
Loon Pond acquisition: $250,000 (plus $437,500)
DeBerry Elementary School curb/grounds: $250,000 (plus $250,000)
Various schools water and sewer work: $300,000 (plus $600,000)
For more information on the Loon Pond acquisition, and other matters, read resident Sheila McElwaine’s entire transcript of the meeting, hosted by the Forest Park Civic Association.
