NORTHFIELD — While many Northfield residents rejoice over a new college receiving the long-vacant, former Northfield Mount Hermon School campus, they hope the campus’ revitalization will spread to the town, too.
It was announced Tuesday that Thomas Aquinas College, a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in Santa Paula, Calif., will be given the core campus on May 2, changing hands from the National Christian Foundation, which has overseen the property since 2012. The Moody Center, a nonprofit that will promote the ideals of 19th-century evangelist and founder of the Northfield school Dwight L. Moody, will also inherit 10 buildings.
Thomas Aquinas College President Michael McLean plans for the campus’ first classes to start in the fall of 2018, leading to excitement from town officials and members of the Northfield Area Tourism and Business Association (NATABA).
“This means jobs, it means economic stimulus, and we’re just really pleased,” said Steve Stoia, one of the founders of NATABA who also owns Centennial House Bed and Breakfast with his wife Joan.
Stoia recalled that when the Northfield campus was part of Northfield Mount Hermon School, and before that the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies, it helped to provide employment, support tourism and support vibrant small businesses on Main Street.
“This downtown was very vital,” he said. “Now, nobody wants to recapture the past necessarily, but we’d like to get just a bit of it.”
Interim Town Administrator Paul Boushell feels the arrival of the college could indeed allow for the expansion of Northfield’s small business network.
“I think the arrival of Thomas Aquinas (College) will certainly help some small businesses return to the community of Northfield, and we look forward to that,” he said. “We’re a small community, and they’re going to have a major impact on us.”
McLean said he hopes the college will eventually enroll between 350 and 400 students, close to the 500 students enrolled during the Northfield campus’ peak. Though all students at Thomas Aquinas College are required to live on campus, Selectboard Chairman Jack Spanbauer thinks the college’s students, their parents, and faculty will help produce “increased action on Main Street.”
“I’m sure there will be more action at the pizza place and Mim’s, the grocery store and the Notch,” Spanbauer said.
Spanbauer noted that though the college is a nonprofit and wouldn’t be taxable, he is hopeful to negotiate a payment in lieu of taxes in exchange for the town’s various public safety services.
Joan Stoia, another founder of NATABA who is also a member of the Zoning Bylaw Revision Committee, said her committee is working on revising the bylaw to encourage a mix of uses and the development of more small businesses in a new village center district.
“It seems like the planets are lining up,” she said. “That zoning activity is timely.”
“We’ve been waiting for 12 years,” Steve Stoia said, noting how long the Northfield campus has been vacant. “Pop the corks.”