HOLYOKE — On Feb. 4, a condemnation order was issued to 56 Suffolk St. after it was discovered that tenants were living there illegally without heat, running water, functioning plumbing and other building code violations.
An emergency response team was assembled to provide services and referrals that assisted any persons displaced that were residing at the 56 Suffolk St. office building.
Mayor Joshua Garcia said in a Facebook post that 56 Suffolk St. had several building and state sanitary code violations, including a non-working sprinkler system and fire alarm system, and a lack of running water.
Building Commissioner Leslie Ward revoked the certificate of occupancy. The owner of the building has been served with a condemnation order and an order to vacate was issued as well.
In preparation for mitigation of displacement concerns, Holyoke also assembled a team between city department heads as well as social service agencies throughout Holyoke and Holyoke’s Emergency Management Team to help.
A temporary assistance center was established at the War Memorial Building at 310 Appleton St. for displaced individuals. The center will be staffed by social workers and city employees trained in assisting the unhoused.
Enlace de Familias, a Family Resource Center in Holyoke, also set up an emergency relief fund and is accepting monetary donations to provide immediate support, including emergency shelter, rental assistance, basic necessities, and other critical resources.
56 Suffolk is six-story concrete building, built in 1930 originally for Hadley Fall Trust Company.
Ward said there are multiple leases for multiple offices that were issued throughout the building including music practice spaces, an office space for MIFA and barbershops. There was also an illegal bar and banquet space that didn’t meet multiple codes and were discovered in the building on the second floor and lobby.
The property has received several official complaints over the last few years leading to inspections that found problems with a roof leak, asbestos, an unlicensed first-floor banquet hall, an inoperable sprinkler system and an inoperable boiler.
The current owner of the property bought it in 2014, and Ward said the property first came on the city’s radar around 2016.
A few issues and complaints were reported back then but Ward said she began to take a closer look at the building in 2018 after complaints of people living in the building, which wasn’t allowed due to the property being a commercial building.
Ward and the Building Department did several comprehensive inspections to gain evidence needed to prove that there were people living there without the proper oversight.
She explained, “Commercial buildings can’t house people without a process to change the use of the building, and that never happened on this building.”
After the inspection, it was concluded that there were improper sanitary facilities, no showers, no private bathrooms, no kitchens and people were being rented the spaces and living in them and using what they could to fulfill their needs for survival.
Ward said they tried taking the issue to housing court but the judge deemed there wasn’t enough proof.
She explained, “It’s very hard to empty a building like this when we know that there are people that are actually using it as dwelling units even though it’s a commercial building and they’re not supposed to be there, the problem still remains that, well where do we send this people?”
After scaling back the aggressiveness of going after the building, Ward said there were not as many problems with the building yet.
Eventually the building got worse as work was being done without permits and more complaints were being reported.
In December 2024, there was a fire in the boiler in the building which is the only heat source for the entire building.
The Fire Department reported to the scene around 2 a.m. and they evacuated people in the building but those people in the building were in their night clothes and had dogs with them.
“They shouldn’t have been in the building to begin with if it s commercial business and at that point we had the evidence we needed that people were living in the building,” Ward said.
At the time Ward and the city did not want to put the people out on the street and didn’t know what to do.
As time went on, Ward said they learned that the fire alarm system was no longer functional, and the owner notified the Fire Department on Jan. 20 that he was taking the sprinkler system offline because he was afraid the pipers were going to freeze since there was no heat in the building.
Besides no heat, no sprinkler system and no fire alarm system in the building, Ward and her team also learned that there’s no domestic water either because the water was shut off incorrectly because instead of shutting off the sprinkler system, the owner shut all the domestic water.
The tenants no longer had the ability to have functioning sanitary conditions and they were using the facilities anyway that began to overflow.
Ward said, “We have an emergency at this point. It was at this time with all of the preponderance of problems and dangers to the people in the building that as a city, we were just going to rally together and find a place to rehouse these people.”
Besides the certificate of occupancy being revoked, the Board of Health also condemned the building.
The Red Cross was unable to help because this situation was a code enforcement action and not a natural disaster or a fire.
The city was successfully able to house around 13 men in the building and several animals including dogs, cats and birds were removed and sent to TJO or kept with their owner.
Currently there is no legal occupancy in the building and falls under the vacant building ordinance in the city along with the building code.
Ward has asked the owner for a rehabilitation plan in accordance with the city ordinance and said, “It’s just going to take time to see if he has the resources to do what is needed to be done in the appropriate way and whether or not he can do that I do not know.”
She also said she has received a few calls from individuals who are interested in purchasing the building but Ward is still working with the owner to give him the next steps and wait to see what he chooses to do.
Ward and the Board of Health would both have to approve the potential rehabilitation plan.
