A Bird in the Hand
My experience over the years in commercial real estate has taught me that companies' locational decisions are based, not suprisingly, upon a combination of economic and emotional considerations. Office tenants, especially, are greatly influenced by factors such as surrounding amenities, parking availability, and the quality of and the image projected by the location. They want to keep their employees feeling good about where they work (for more productivity and less turnover) and impress their clients who come and go. Most every company in need of relocating is assisted at one point either by a broker, a developer or both.
Quite frankly, Hospital Hill is not well suited for office users with a well educated, highly skilled and paid labor force. Like Disney Publishing, the district attorney's office and Smith College, they want and need to be in or as close to downtown as possible. Whether it's proximity to the courts for attorneys, a wide range of restaurants or the convenience of other services nearby, downtown is the place, and often the only place, they care to be.
On the other hand, Hospital Hill is an excellent location for an operation the size and nature of Kollmorgen. Many of the services they require are available in house. They don't benefit in any measurable way by being on King Street. The town is fortunate that the Hospital Hill land was available to keep such an important employer and taxpayer in town. Perhaps the newly opened Northampton Food Coop would have been better off to locate there as well, as opposed to blasting untold tons of rock to eke out an apparently inefficient and inconvenient location on Route 5. A call center requirement might just be perfect for Hospital Hill.
Having spent many years in the field of economic development, I always believed that you aim high and hope to attract the next new wave of industry into your community… the so-called "dream tenant," as described in the piece ["Bad Energy," July 3, 2008]. However, I'll take the bird-in-the-hand tenant any day rather than playing the game of Waiting for Godot.
In Springfield 25 years ago, a major urban renewal project was initiated in the North End to create an industrial park. The industry never came, but BayState Medical Center did, and today occupies the entire area while creating thousands of the best and most severely needed jobs in the region. Forget about the ghosts and the stigma and "bad energy" and stick to the basics of an open minded, realistic and pragmatic economic development plan for Hospital Hill. It can be a huge success.
John Williamson
Northampton
