The next meeting of the Holyoke Innovation District Task Force will be held Wednesday, September 22, 2010 from 2:30-4:30 p.m. at the Holyoke Heritage State Park Visitors Center Exhibit Hall, 221 Appleton Street in Holyoke. There will be no meeting in August. For more information, including a map, list of Task Force members, and an agenda when it becomes available, click here.
Downtown canal district location will create jobs, promote research and make city an essential part of the Massachusetts innovation economy.
HOLYOKE – Robert W. Gilbert Jr. got a phone call on Tuesday from a business man in the Worcester area who manufactures computer batteries and is interested in moving here because of the planned high performance computing center.
“Hopefully, he has the capital to locate here. But that’s a perfect example of what my feeling is about the spin-off effect,” said Gilbert, an official with Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce.
HOLYOKE – It might only take 20-or-so people to run the Holyoke high performance computing center, so the challenge for local boosters is to use the center’s promise to entice companies and jobs to locate near the center.
“They will come here, in my estimation, if we give them a reason to,” said Timothy W. Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission.
HOLYOKE – Optimism flowed like the water in the canals that served as the backdrop for Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s announcement here on Monday that the high performance computing center will be built at the former Mastex Industries Inc. facility on Bigelow Street.
HOLYOKE – Site-selection talks will be held this week as a consortium of colleges try to decide which of two locations will house a high-performance computing center here.
HOLYOKE – As anticipation grows, the site where a high performance computing center will be built here won’t be chosen until August or beyond, an official said.
CHEAP, CLEAN ELECTRICITY
Holyoke, one of the poorest cities in Massachusetts, hasn’t attracted any significant business development in a long time. But companies are starting to show interest in the old mill town because its municipal utility has something they want: electricity that—because it’s predominantly hydro and nuclear—is the cheapest in New England and largely carbon-free.
A summary report of the April 15, 2010 workshop on educational opportunities associated with the proposed Holyoke green high-performance computing facility has been completed. You may view the Report on GHPCC Educational Opportunities Workshop here or download the report as well as view appendices at the workshop website: http://www-net.cs.umass.edu/ghpcc_workshop_april_2010/
The report is being shared with planners for the Holyoke Green High-Performance Computing Center, the Innovation District Task Force, and the general public, so that recommendations of workshop participants will be included in deliberations about the Center.
WEST SPRINGFIELD – Republican candidate for governor Charles D. Baker, in a campaign swing here on Monday, called on the governor and lawmakers to take cost-savings steps before the Legislative session ends on July 31.
