Work stopped at the Springfield Innovation Center on Bridge Street in April 2017 after a dispute between owner DevelopSpringfield and its contractor. Watch video
SPRINGFIELD -- DevelopSpringfield says it will soon be able to say when renovations will restart at the long-awaited Springfield Innovation Center at 270 and 276 Bridge St. downtown.
"We have made a great deal of progress with regard to getting the project moving again," wrote Nicholas Fyntrilakis, chairman of the DevelopSpringfield board of directors.
Work on the $5.5 million, 24,000-square-foot Innovation Center stopped in April after the general contractor said it was owed money. NL Construction of Ludlow filed papers with the Hampden Registry of Deeds showing it was owed $254,000.
Work on the building began in 2016. It has been described as 80 percent complete.
The 20 percent left to be completed includes the first floor. Storefront windows reveal empty space with walls framed out with steel studs but not covered with wallboard.
Fyntrilakis said there are tenants in the upper floors. Those tenants do not include the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts, which had been in the building but moved.
The two high-profile planned tenants -- Ground Up Cafe and Valley Venture Mentors -- both continue to look forward to moving in once construction is completed and their space is ready. Both John Peter Wentworth of Ground Up and Liz Roberts, CEO of Valley Venture Mentors, reiterated their plans in separate recent interviews.
In 2016, DevelopSpringfield received a $2.2 million grant from the state's MassWorks Infrastructure Program for the project. It also received $500,000 from MassMutual Financial Group and $30,000 from the Beveredge Family Foundation.
Common Capital Inc., a Holyoke-based lender focused on business development and job creation, lent DevelopSpringfield a $250,000 first mortgage on the property in 2016, according to papers on file at the registry of deeds.
In September, DevelopSpringfield CEO Jay Minkarah left for a job in New Hampshire. At the time, he said construction would restart sometime last fall.
In December, Fyntrilakis said DevelopSpringfield's sale of the old River Inn site at 700 State St. to Pride Stores for $500,000 gives DevelopSpringfield funding to restart work at the Innovation Center.
Recently, Fyntrilakis said DevelopSpringfield also has a purchase and sale agreement in place with a local developer who wants to buy a vacant church DevelopSpringfield owns at 90 Carew St.
DevelopSpringfield is a public-private partnership tasked with bringing development to troubled properties in the city.