Score two for Orange.
Community leaders and merchants in this town at the eastern edge of Franklin County — at the heart of the North Quabbin Region — have been struggling for some time now with a poor economy and tight municipal finances.
But this month, the town’s residents got back some of those state tax dollars we all grudgingly pay — millions of dollars that will leverage new apartments for some of its struggling families and a boost for business at the Orange Innovation Center.
The town’s first major downtown revitalization initiative in many years will come in the form of a $44 million, 63-apartment housing project slated for downtown for lower-income residents. About $4 million of that will come from state and federal tax creditors, and the remainder comes from a private developer scheduled to convert two former New Home Sewing Co. factories in the heart of town into affordable apartments.
The planned apartment complex is one of 26 affordable housing projects the state announced on Aug. 15 that would benefit from $90 million in tax dollars. It was nice to see some of that state money reached this far west for a town that deserves a reward for its perseverance in the face of a challenging local economy.
The complex will be a private development funded through a combination of $1.9 million in federal historic tax credits, $1.6 million in state historic tax credits, roughly $500,000 in state low-income housing tax credits and private money.
There will be no direct cost to Orange property taxpayers.
Most area towns could benefit from more affordable housing, but few are more deserving than Orange. So we hope this project will have a ripple effect around the town and be a key component in downtown revitalization that the selectmen and others have been edging toward for the past several years.
Shortly after the housing help was announced, state officials, including Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, turned up at the Orange Innovation Center with $200,000 for a parking lot expansion there, something that owner Jack Dunphy said the 131 West Main St. business incubator badly needed to keep this little economic engine chugging.
The money will build 40 parking spaces.
“We now feel we have a responsibility to create more jobs here,” a thrilled Dunphy told Rosenberg last week. “So, when you come back to visit us again … you will find a full new parking lot, with a beehive of people working away, making who knows what.”
There are 40 small businesses in the building now.
State Economic Development Director Jay Ash told Dunphy that the center serves as a model for other communities in Massachusetts. “When I come to Orange, I feel … that sense of community, that makes me want to contribute to it,” he said.
Well, that’s twice this month that the state has reached out to contribute in a substantial way. Now Orange residents and their leaders can build on that contribution. And we have no doubt they will.