The Transformation of an Historic Holyoke Canal Mill Complex
Three years in the making, the $165 million Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) transformed an historic Holyoke canal mill complex into a gleaming Massachusetts success. It also heralded in a new age of revitalization for this former paper mill city.
The purpose of this project was to prepare an abandoned industrial property for redevelopment into an energy-efficient 90,300 square foot data center to support the growing computing needs of five of the most research-intensive universities in Massachusetts. This includes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Massachusetts, Northeastern University, Harvard University, and Boston University; together they are known as the MGHPCC consortium. The partnership among the consortium, state government, and private industry has been hailed by some as the most significant collaboration among government, industry and public and private universities in the history of the Commonwealth.
Our contributions to this project – which achieved LEED Platinum certification – included Licensed Site Professional (LSP) services, demolition engineering, permitting, and remediation services to clean up the former 8.5 acre Mastex Industries site prior to the MGHPCC’s construction. Specifically, this encompassed coordination of project funding, hazardous building materials surveys, building demolition design & coordination, creative building debris reuse, environmental permitting activities, assessment and remediation of contaminated soils and groundwater, urban fill soil management, and multi-disciplinary engineering services.
The Environmental Business Council of New England (EBC) presented Tighe & Bond with an award for our role in the MGHPCC development. The EBC named this state of the art data center the 2014 James D.P. Farrell Brownfields Project of the Year. Our team was one of several key project contributors to receive this award on behalf of the MGHPCC’s success.
Services Snapshot
Tighe & Bond provided demolition engineering, permitting, and remediation services in support of the development of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center.
