SPRINGFIELD — Nonprofit developer North End Housing Initiative has purchased five lots off Main Street in the North End from New England Farm Workers‘ Council for $130,000.
The North End Housing Initiative, which was founded by members of the New North Citizens’ Council, has plans for residential and commercial redevelopment on the parcels, said Jose Claudio, president of the initiative and chief operating officer of the council.
The nonprofit Farm Workers’ Council bought the parcels in 2016 for the same amount, $130,000, according to city records.
The corner of Huntington and Main streets in Springfield on Monday. (Douglas Hook / The Republican)Douglas Hook
Planning will focus on the buildable tenth-of-an-acre at the corner of Main and Huntington, once the site of a Dairy Queen, Claudio said. The rest of the properties are a string of parking lots running between Huntington and Sheldon streets behind apartment blocks facing Main Street.
“I hate seeing empty lots in the city. They are always full of trash,” Claudio said. “We love the North End and can make things happen.”
The lot — which faces a city fire station — was once a Dairy Queen.
Claudio envisions a traditional setup of first-floor retail or commercial use, with apartments upstairs. New North already has been approached by an entrepreneur hoping to set up a school for barbers.
The North End Housing Initiative has developed housing in the area, as well as infill single-family homes on lots left vacant by a June 2011 tornado.
The vacant lots were once part of an empire of properties amassed by New England Farm Workers’ Council and its leader, Heriberto Flores. Flores had goals of developing housing and commercial space in Springfield’s downtown and Latino North End.
But the Farm Workers’ Council lost income when COVID hit, and the market for office and retail space dried up.
It had to sell off real estate to settle debts, including $1.8 million that the Farm Workers’ Council owed the state because it misspent LIHEAP home heating assistance funding on other operations.
Today, just two properties remain: a former bank building in Holyoke and a small sliver of land elsewhere in Springfield’s North End, said Daniel Knapik, the former Westfield mayor who succeeded Flores at the Farm Workers’ Council and remains as a consultant helping sell off its property.
The $1.8 million debt to the state has been settled, Knapik said.
The Farm Workers’ Council kept very little — $11,884 — of the $130,000 it got in the sale, Knapik said Monday.
It needed $85,700 to finish paying a city of Springfield-backed U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development loan of $350,000 that was originally meant to renovate the Farm Workers’ Council International Biergarten Building at 1600 Main St.
The agency sold 1600 Main St. in 2021 for $700,000. That was $214,000 less than the loan, Knapik said.
The nearly century-old building — once a five-and-dime — is now a church.
With this payment, the debt’s been satisfied, Knapik said.
The Farm Workers’ Council also owed $18,000 in unpaid back taxes to the city. There was $5,700 in closing costs.
