NORTHAMPTON — A prime piece of property in the heart of downtown, vacant for four years, is set to go up for sale this fall.

The city plans to sell the former site of the Hampshire County Register of Deeds at 33 King St. to a third party to build a new multistory building. The minimum bid for the property is set at $2.5 million, and proceeds from the sale would be split between the city and the commonwealth.

The property had been owned by the state before the City Council approved an order by former mayor David Narkewicz in 2021 to accept it as surplus from the state and enter into a profit-sharing agreement for an eventual sale. But the transfer wasn’t completed until the end of last fiscal year in June, according to Carolyn Misch, the city’s planning and sustainability director. 

“In the meantime, we’ve done some initial analysis so that we could prep the stage for interested parties who would look to purchase the property,” Misch said during a council meeting held remotely last Thursday.

The property is a 1.46-acre parcel next to the Calvin Theater and across from Hotel Northampton. It currently consists of parking spaces and the former registry of deeds building, which would be demolished to make way for a new development. It is within the city’s Central Business Core zoning district, allowing for both commercial and residential uses for any interested developer.

According to a request for proposals put out by the city, the new property is open to any developer “with documented experience in developing multi-story, mixed-use or single-use commercial developments.” Bidders will be required to commit to using an electric ground-source heat pump to heat and cool the building, and it may be used for either housing or commercial purposes.

Patrick Goggins, a realtor with Coldwell Banker and former president of Goggins Real Estate before the two companies merged, said the property serves as a valuable opportunity to address some of the city’s needs for its downtown development.

“What you have is a piece of property that is extremely well located and is a very good size,” Goggins said. “It’s a property where the closer you look, the better it gets.”

Most crucially, Goggins said, the future development has the potential for the creation of new parking spaces downtown, an issue on the minds of many business owners as the city looks to eliminate 57 downtown parking spaces as part of its planned redesign of Main Street. Using the 33 King St. property as a way to bring back some of those spaces, Goggins said, could assuage some of those fears about Main Street’s redesign.

“I think it will go a long way toward addressing many of the concerns that the downtown merchants legitimately have relative to that loss of parking,” he said. “To have the city be able to show the foresight and the ability to consider a proposal that has many options I think can mollify some of those concerns.”

According to the city’s RFP, development proposals that feature at least 20 parking spaces that could be used by the public for at least three days of the week, with fee structures similar to public parking spaces, will be given more favorable consideration. During last week’s council meeting, Misch said that the parking requirements are a compromise of providing public service without limiting potential uses for the property.

“It’s sort of walking a tightrope between providing a benefit or creating a way to value a project, but not overly restrict creativity or alternatives for people,” she said.

The RFP also lists several criteria that bids will be graded on to determine their viability for Northampton. For example, bids demonstrating a financial benefit to the city, such as from property tax revenue, of more than $4 million to the city will be awarded 15 points, and bids showing a financial benefit between $3.1-$3.9 million will be awarded 10 points.

Points will also be awarded to bidders depending on the proposed number of stories (with more stories given higher scores), how many parking spaces (with 50 or more parking spaces given the best score) and whether the proposal calls for mixed-income housing, with a 60-40 split of market rate housing to affordable housing or commercial use being considered most beneficial.

“The idea is we want to say that affordable housing is certainly beneficial to the city,” Misch said. “But we also know there’s a need for new housing of any type.”

The current building was reportedly constructed in 1975, according to the city, and was used as the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds, Family Court, and Probate Court until 2019, with the family and probate courts moving to Atwood Drive and the registry of deeds now located on Railroad Avenue. Since then, the property has been mostly vacant or used for state building storage.

Specifics of the RFP criteria are set to be discussed further at a joint meeting of the council’s Finance Committee and Committee on Community Resources, to be held on Sept. 6. The city expects to begin accepting bids in early September following the meeting, with Nov. 16 as the current proposed deadline for submitting a bid.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.

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