HOLYOKE — During the Planning Board’s June 13 meeting the body took time to connect with Office of Planning and Economic Development Director Aaron Vega to discuss ongoing projects and seek information to better prepare and coordinate for future work.

Vega told the board he has been trying to merge more communications between the planning and economic development sides of his office to create more cohesion. Vega brought forward a handful of ongoing projects that will most likely fall into the Planning Board’s future pipeline for assistance.

One of the more notable focuses for the future of Holyoke is the growing industry of hydrogen production. According to Vega this has become “a very big focus in Holyoke” as there are currently several companies looking to locate some aspect of hydrogen production in the city.

Vega explained the reasons hydrogen production companies were garnering interest in Holyoke. The first is Holyoke Gas & Electric, which due to its portfolio makes for an appealing partner for companies according to Vega. He added that hydrogen could be produced with green energy the city has, which leads to the best grade of hydrogen there is.

Additionally to these points, Vega added there is a federal grant program and tax credits available for city and hydrogen companies in a partnership.

“There’s been a lot of movement in the state of California on hydrogen, including hydrogen vehicles and that sort of momentum is expanding,” Vega said.

According to Vega one of the companies, Revo Zero, has already been in talks with the city regarding leasing space to begin hydrogen production before any company would have a permanent spot. Revo Zero, among other things related to hydrogen production, would work with the city to possibly introduce and slowly phase in hydrogen powered vehicles.

Vega told the Planning Board with this being said, this is something they might cross paths within the future as the city would have to redefine its service stations and upgrade it to include electric vehicles as well as potentially hydrogen ones.

“That’s an aspect that will probably be somewhat of an ordinance amendment or change to allow for hydrogen fueling stations in the city of Holyoke,” Vega said.

Another hydrogen production company in talks with the city is Infinity, which is looking to reuse Holyoke’s old Mount Tom coal power plant as a resource. Part of a federal grant the company is already applying for incentivizes the reuse of local power plants as well as the demographics of Holyoke based on census tracts.

“Both those assets, if you will, made it vert viable for this project to come to Holyoke,” Vega said.
Vega added a group of city officials would soon be visiting a hydrogen production company to get a boots on the ground perspective of the operations.

Vega reiterated the different companies would each be making hydrogen to be used as fuel through using electrolyzes. An electrolyzer is a device capable of splitting water molecules into their constituent oxygen and hydrogen atoms. They are critical technology for the production of low-emission hydrogen from renewable or nuclear electricity.

Overall, the interests from these companies align with Holyoke’s plans for a greener future and continuing economic development in the city.

“These options have jobs, these opportunities about energy, clean energy, which is definitely part of the portfolio, the future of manufacturing that we want to see,” Vega said. “That’s really exciting because that’s manufacturing, which is obviously in our DNA here in Holyoke, and lots of jobs. That’s really one that we’re really hoping will come to fruition.”

Vega said more information would be made available about the pros of bringing in hydrogen production companies as he and city officials are still in the midst of learning about the science. He told the Planning Board his vision to help everyone learn more about the science would be to invite representatives from hydrogen production companies not involved in ongoing discussions with the city for an information session as a public meeting. There people would be able to ask questions and learn more about the work from an independent point of view, not groups in ongoing talks with the city.

Shifting from hydrogen production, another ongoing project according to Vega is a potential TIP project with the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. Vega said they are looking to purchase, “a large property in the city of Holyoke that we would very much like to get into new ownership and developed.”

Vega said an announcement from the city was expected by the end of the week related to infrastructure on Water Street that will be tied to this project.

“The infrastructure work will only happen if this new company purchases the property and the property we’re discussing is down on Water Street by the canal, kind of in that property space between Holyoke Gas and Electric’s property all the way basically to Western Mass. Elder Care, so about 15 acres,” Vega said.

According to Vega, the company involved is named Sublime and offer a new technology in manufacturing a high quality, environmentally friendly, less impacting cement. He added through discussions about cement manufacture he learned the harm the manufacturing process can have on the environment and how Sublime improves on the issue through their process.

Another thing mentioned by Vega during his time with the Planning Board was related to adding a Planner 2 position for the city to help with work and securing grants for different city projects. During the City Council’s budget hearings the night prior, conversations came up about the addition of a second city planner and the positives that would come from it.

In the meantime, Vega said the city will have to look toward more outside consultant work in working on projects. He added they have been approved for $50,000 from cannabis impact fees to start the process of acquiring a consultant. This ties in with the city to begin focusing more on reworking parts of its Master Plan that was created just before the coronavirus pandemic.

“All these different technologies in these companies I mentioned, hydrogen, Sublime, they’re all big energy users. A big part of what we’ve seen in current Master Plans for the city is a lot around municipal vulnerability plans, energy production and the future of energy use,” Vega said. “So, I think it’s important that that conversation is part of the next Master Plan for the city.”

Vega also told the Planning Board his office was approved a $200,000 grant from the Mass. Gaming Mitigation Fund that he hopes to use on wayfinding in the city.

“Obviously, a lot of cities and towns have been engaged in this process. How do we get people through and around the city? How do we highlight particular points of interest and how do we navigate people to get to parking and etc.,” Vega said.

Vega said one part of this would be reviewing the signage across the city currently and seeing if there was a way of consolidating as sometimes too many signs in an area like Beach Street can lead to people tuning without notice. He also pointed out that due to the funding coming from the Mass. Gaming Mitigation fund, some of these dollars would be going toward signage to MGM Springfield.

Vega’s updates provided a clear picture of some of the city’s ongoing focus areas for the Planning Board going forward.