WESTFIELD – Reinhardt Associates Inc. (RAI) of Agawam has been selected by the Pioneer Valley Transportation Authority (PVTA) to design the new Westfield Transit Pavilion, formerly referred as the Westfield Intermodal Transportation Center, at the corner of Elm and Arnold Streets.
“They just told me last week we were awarded the project, so we don’t even have a contract signed,” said John MacMillan, president of RAI. “They went through a designer selection about a month ago, and told us last week, maybe even earlier this week, that we were awarded the contract.”
While the design process is still in the earliest of infant stages, McMillan said that their design will be going out to bid “in the winter, probably after the first of the year.”
The architecture/engineering firm has studied and designed buildings around the Commonwealth for over 50 years, and has aided in the construction of schools, senior centers, and police stations all over western Massachusetts, and as far east as Rockport, with public projects accounting for about 90 percent of their workload.
Reinhardt Associates coordinates architectural design, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, along with landscape architecture and interior design, and has worked on numerous projects in the Whip City in the past, though none of this magnitude.
“We’re working with the vocational students on the pavilion in the square,” McMillan said, referencing the Park Square Pavilion, which is set to be completed in the fall when students from Westfield Vocational-Technical High School return from summer break. “Way back, we worked on the Landsdowne Place, and have done work with Westfield Gas & Electric, and some smaller projects.”
Regarding the name change the project from intermodal transportation center, PVTA Administrator Mary L. MacInnes said now that the project is completely under PVTA’s purview, a name change for the project was in order.
“The official name of it now is the Westfield Transit Pavilion,” said PVTA. “‘Intermodal Center’ implies a huge building, and that isn’t the case, so a more apt description is Transit Pavilion.”
MacInnes referred to the PVTA’s selection of Reinhardt Associates as the project architect as “another milestone” for the long awaited project, and that the project is “moving right ahead.”
Westfield Community Development Director Peter Miller said that the PVTA will be handling the administration of the transit pavilion project in house.
“They will be the contract agency on a lot of the things that will move forward,” he said. “The city will maintain a presence on the decision-making committee of the PVTA as it relates to the project.”
Miller said that Joe Mitchell, Westfield’s economic development director, will be representing the city on that committee.
“The bus station as it relates to the Flahive property on Arnold Street, is a PVTA responsibility,” said Miller. “The rest of the urban renewal plan – the retail portion and the parking portions – remain the responsibility of the Westfield Redevelopment Authority.”
“We’re making good progress on that, but the PVTA is handling primarily the transit portion of the project,” he said.
