AMHERST — A lone developer interested in turning the vacant East Street School building into apartments will not be allowed to proceed with the project.
Town Manager Paul Bockelman informed the Town Council this week that he is in agreement with a recommendation from a review committee that the only proposal did not meet the terms of the request for proposal, or RFP, for making the century-old building and adjacent property into affordable and market-rate housing.
“The evaluators believe that the bidder did not meet the minimum requirement of the RFP for a thoughtful, detailed, and realistic timetable for financing, design, approval, conveyance, construction start-up and completion, and marketing of units, and recommended that the RFP be re-issued,” Bockelman wrote in a memo to the council.
But that decision doesn’t mean that the prospective developer, Valley Community Development Corp. of Northampton, which is pursuing a single-room occupancy project on Northampton Road, can’t apply in the next round, or that the town lacks confidence in its work, according to Bockelman.
The idea is to have the building at 31 South East St. become the site for at least 15 households. The school was last used for overflow classes at Fort River School in the 1990s and as the site of an alternative high school program several years ago.
In April 2019, the Town Council voted to allow Bockleman to execute a land disposition agreement and eventually sign a 99-year property lease with a developer.
The evaluation team included Senior Planner Nathaniel Malloy, former Select Board member Connie Kruger and John Hornik, the head of the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
