Originally published by the Boston Globe. Click here to read the full story.

By Danny McDonald Globe Staff

SPRINGFIELD — The vision is grand.

In this city with a reputation as a down-on-its-luck former manufacturing hub, where the median income is $53,000 and a quarter of residents live in poverty; in a spot where there are now boarded up storefronts, just up the street from a shuttered strip club and closed bar and grill, Raipher Pellegrino envisions a block of new and eclectic restaurants.

A well-known attorney and former Springfield city councilor, Pellegrino goes down the list of what will be here: a bistro, a cafe, a Caribbean fusion place, a live music hall, a vegan eatery, a cigar lounge with a private club in the back, another restaurant on the second floor. There is already a Louisiana-inspired restaurant and a hookah lounge operating on the block.

“We’re not allowing any duplication of style,” he said recently during a tour of the block.

His plan has the potential to transform this particular nook of New England’s third largest city. He is among the entrepreneurs banking on a renaissance in downtown Springfield, 90 miles west of Boston on the Mass. Pike.

“The bones are good,” said Raymond Berry Jr., founder of White Lion Brewing Company on Main Street. “The infrastructure is good.”

Those who are invested here are quick to tick off Springfield’s amenities: a cluster of museums, a symphony orchestra, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, a minor league hockey team, and a casino. Those who sell downtown stress its walkability and affordability. Some office space here goes for $12 a square foot, a fraction of what many pay in Boston’s Financial District. Studio apartments on Chestnut Street rent for under $830 a month. Try finding that walking distance from South Station.

There is a hefty dose of aspiration in their vision. And leaders here also acknowledge the headwinds: Too many visitors and prospective employers view downtown as a rough, crime-ridden zone, an unfit backdrop for a proper night out or a home to their business. Even as the reality, they say, is quite different.

Evan Plotkin, owns a 17-floor commercial tower at 1350 Main St. He lives across the street, in the heart of downtown. When he hears people complain about parking downtown, he thinks they are really saying something else.

“The problem, quite frankly, isn’t the parking. It’s the fear of walking from where you’re parking to wherever you have to go,” he said. It’s safe here, he emphasizes.

When he bought the building nearly 20 years ago, nearly two-thirds of its 340,000 square feet was vacant. Now it’s close to 80 percent full and include a STEM-focused school and two state agencies that took 100,000 square feet during the last three years.

Walking through the tower, Plotkin points to a gym on one of the floors. He gave them the space for free their first year, then ramped up the rent as the business grew. In another instance, he said he charged one company per desk. He allows an artist who does much of the public murals downtown to have a free studio.

Plotkin, a driving force behind the Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival, is the third generation of his family to think critically about what makes businesses work in a community. His grandfather created maps of American cities that reflected block-by-block foot traffic. His father developed medical centers and helped K-Mart choose its locations for a time.

“I’ve never given up on the city and I never will,” he said. “I know there needs to be more events that need to happen.”

The top priority to revitalize downtown Springfield, said Aaron Vega, chief executive for the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts, is housing. Tim Sheehan, chief development officer for Springfield, concurs, saying there is a need “for more housing on all income levels.” Currently, there are just under 400 units of housing either in construction, permitted, or in predevelopment for downtown Springfield, according to Sheehan.

“If you don’t have people living there, people aren’t going to go to the restaurants, people aren’t going to go to the shows,” said Vega.

That can mean at lunchtime, downtown is busy on weekdays, but in the evenings less so. Like many downtowns, people live in the suburbs, work here, and don’t hang out after their 9-to-5 is done.

“There’s a lot of turnover, one restaurant closes, another one opens, one retail shop opens, another one closes,” he said.

Bob Bolduc has sunk $15 million into the HOPE Center for the Arts on Bridge Street, not far from Interstate 91. The organization opened last summer and offers music, theater, and dance lessons.

Challenges facing downtown are not unique to Springfield, he said. The city’s manufacturing base has left, he said, which means less tax revenue. Compounding that problem are consumer habits that have moved away from downtown shopping. Generations ago it was a flight to malls, then came online shopping. Lastly, he said, the pandemic reduced commercial office space downtown, which in turn reduced foot traffic.

“You add all that up and there’s vacant spaces downtown,” he said. “Lots of it.”

Indeed, ground floor commercial vacancy in the downtown ranges between 25 and 30 percent, according to city estimates.

Pellegrino’s block remains in various stages of construction. He hopes the majority of the block’s renovations will be complete by summer.

Buildings here date to the later 1800s. It’s where the Springfield Bicycle Club had its headquarters, which in the late 19th century sought to promote the then-nascent sport of cycling. Among its members where George Hendee, a racer who would co-found what became the Indian Motocycle Company.

Much later, it was home to a different slice of Springfield history, including the now-defunct Adolfo’s Ristorante, an Italian restaurant named after a local mafioso who was shot to death in 2003.

On a recent day, men in toolbelts were at work high up in ladders. Power drills and hammers echoed throughout labyrinthian rooms. Construction materials piled up.

Pellegrino ticked off work still to be done: removing ductwork, installing a stairwell, doing a final inspection for something or other.

“It’s coming along, huh?” he asked one worker.

Pellegrino is fast-talking, a natural pitchman who is constantly selling various things: his hometown, this block, his past development successes.

The son of a judge and a former Springfield police commissioner and head of the city’s parking authority, he grew up here and went to high school downtown.

He has gained fame as an attorney who can deliver an innovative argument. He once made a sleep walking defense that he said hadn’t been used since the 19th century in Massachusetts. His client in that case was acquitted of sexual assault. He’s the type of attorney who has billboards alongside the highway. “Iceman Sueth” announces one nearby, with a picture of his mug alongside.

Is there enough foot traffic to support this project? Or is it a build-it-and-they-will-come aspiration? What made him want to do this?

He suggested that sometimes, development is more art than science.

“Sometimes, you just get a feel,” he said. “Sometimes you’re wrong, but hopefully you’re right more than you’re wrong, right?”

Pellegrino is counting on this space becoming part of the city’s everyday hustle-and-bustle.

“I’m betting on it,” he said. “I’m not hoping, I’m betting on it.”

Jeremiah Manion of Globe staff contributed.

Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald