Business View Magazine - June 2016 117
about 34 housing units and commercial development
on the first floor,” Hechenbleikner says. Geoff Kravitz,
the town’s new Economic Development Director, adds
that the tenant of that new development is the Mass
Mutual Insurance Company, one of western Massa-
chusetts’s major employers. “They have the entire
first floor of that mixed-use building for their innova-
tive data lab,” he says. “It’s their first innovation office
that’s outside of Springfield. They have about 25 to
35 employees there and they’re hoping to grow that to
about 100.”
In addition, the presence of the three well-regarded
schools is hardly overlooked by the town’s administra-
tors. “UMass is doing some great things in sustainabil-
ity,” Hechenbleikner says. “They just developed a solar
farm over one of their parking lots. Hampshire College,
which is on the southern end of town, just opened and
dedicated its first ‘living building,” one of only ten in
the world, and there is a second one planned for the
Hitchcock Center. They also have solar farms that
they’re developing on the site. So, in addition to a very
sustainable development pattern that Amherst has for
itself, it’s a very sustainable community with alterna-
tive energy all over the place.”
According to Hechenbleikner, Amherst also practices
its social responsibilities by being very supportive of
affordable housing. “About 12 percent of our housing
units are affordable housing, which is a fairly large
number for Massachusetts,” he says. “It’s hard to get
