NORTHAMPTON — Two significant projects — a new four-story hotel on Conz Street and a six-story building behind City Hall for affordable housing — are scheduled to go before the Planning Board for review Thursday night.

Hotelier Mansour Ghalibaf is seeking a special permit and major-site plan approval for an extended-stay, 109-room hotel on the site of the former Daily Hampshire Gazette at 115 Conz St., next to an existing Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel that he opened in 2014. The new hotel would be nearly 18,000 square feet in size and would carry the Home2 Suites by Hilton name, according to documents provided to the city in its application.

Ghalibaf has also owned Hotel Northampton downtown since 2006.

Ghalibaf bought the site in June 2022 from the newspaper chain for $3 million. An early version of his plan for the site included retail storefronts to go along with the hotel, but that idea has been scraped in favor of a proposed three-story, 31-unit residential building, Ghalibaf said Wednesday.

“The need for residential housing is greater right now than the need for retail,” he said.

Plans show the residential building would be constructed closer to Conz Street, with the hotel at the back of the property.

Ghalibaf said that architects had been working to make sure the proposed project, to be developed under the name Rankin Holdings LLC, would be able to receive the proper permitting.

A completed project would bring the number of hotel rooms in the city to 440, making up for some of the rooms lost following the closure of the Clarion Hotel in 2015. At that time, there were 547 rooms in the city, whereas today there are 331 rooms.

City officials in February, in making a case for granting a tax break for the project, estimated the development would bring in $3.4 million in new tax revenue when complete, add 50 new jobs and increase consumer spending in Northampton by $4.5 million.

Ghalibaf later withdrew a request that the City Council approve the tax increment financing plan, or TIF.

Crafts Avenue project

Also Thursday, planners will also consider a major site plan for Valley Community Development Corporation’s proposal to build a six-story apartment building at 27 Crafts Ave. behind City Hall. The building would provide 30 new studio apartments for low-income residents.

Twenty of those apartments would be reserved for individuals making less than $18,000 a year with a preference for those facing homelessness. The other 10 apartments would be for individuals making less than $39,000 a year, according to the Valley CDC.

The city donated the property to the nonprofit in 2022, with a request to develop it into affordable housing. The existing site includes a stairway leading to a parking lot between City Hall and the city’s Puchalski Municipal Building. A second parking lot for city employees is located at the bottom of the stairs along Crafts.

Funding for the $16.6 million project would come partially from a $970,000 Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grant the city received for the design.

Other affordablehousing projects

Two more affordable housing projects will come before the Planning Board Thursday — at the former Moose Lodge site at 196 Cooke Ave. and on Evergreen Road in Leeds.

The city plans to convert the former Moose Lodge property site into affordable housing and an improved parking area for a nearby access trail to the Broad Brook Greenway.

According to Ward 1 Councilor Stanley Moulton, the city is calling for the existing parking lot on the eastern side of the property to be paved and reconfigured with 21 spaces, as well as a rack for bicycles. The western part of the property would aim to be sold to Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity for four single-family homes owned by first-time home buyers.

“The project would be done in two phases, with the first involving the city issuing requests for proposals and awarding a contract for work on the parking lot later this year, with construction likely next spring,” wrote Moulton in a newsletter to ward residents. “After the parking lot work is completed, Habitat for Humanity could commence construction of the homes and they would be completed on its timetable.”

On Evergreen Road in Leeds, the city is planning a two-family affordable housing development on former Water Department property that is currently vacant. The city awarded $25,000 in Community Preservation Act funding for preliminary designs for the development in February. Planners will review the project’s site plan.

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

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