New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
UMASS Dartmouth Chancellor Mark Fuller announced the New Bedford “Star Store” Campus will be closing effective immediately which sent shockwaves through the community on Monday afternoon. Mayor Mitchell mentioned in his response to the news that, “The City will attempt to work with the state administration in the hope that this short-sighted decision can be rectified.”
While Mayor Mitchell is working to bring UMASS back to New Bedford, I figured I would be proactive and ask New Bedford citizens what they would like to see replace the Star Store downtown. Overwhelmingly “housing” was the most popular answer, but the type of housing is what stirs controversy.
There has been no shortage of outrage regarding the topic of “luxury apartments” in downtown New Bedford. When we broke the story that an investor will be renting out 21 units of beautiful, new construction apartments on Williams street, it was met with a fair share of pushback.
On the flip side, many citizens also very much appreciate the idea of investors spending money to improve the city. Checkout this quick 1 minute clip to see the inside of downtowns newest luxury apartments and hear investor Dennis Keohane’s thesis on the future of New Bedford.
The question I asked New Bedford residents was, “The “Star Store” is prime real estate in downtown New Bedford. What would you like to see happen to it now that UMass is leaving?”
This sparked quite the thread of conversation which resulted in many different answers in which I will post a few below:
• Andre Jameson: “we’re in a housing crisis… so housing would be the best use of it”
• Candi Bessette Longworth: “Low income housing”
• Cynthia Camacho: “Housing for Seniors”
• Amanda Valler: “Shelter for our homless vets”
• Bob Konkel: “Shopping mall with free parking. Bring people back downtown.”
• Carol Cesolini: “Quality retail shops with restaurants all under one roof. Whatever, we need quality. We have no real quality shopping places in this area, no quality furniture stores, no quality clothing stores, no quality kitchen goods stores. Quality stores are nowhere to be found in this area anymore.”
• Hannah Rose M. Schlieder: “Artist collective??”
I understand that the economics and logistics of this is much more complicated than one may imagine. But again I ask, if UMASS is not coming back, what would you like to see developed in the future? I think some form of retail on the first floor with housing on the floors above would be a fantastic touch to the area.
Montigny was loud and proud when this campus was created. Where is he now? He does have a history of leaving accidents.