Housing Planned for Former St. Joe's High School

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Nearly a decade after the facility last operated as a high school, the former Saint Joseph's is staged for new life as housing. 

Last week, the Community Development Board determined that subdivision approval was not required for a plan of land the Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield submitted for 22 Maplewood Ave.

CT Management Group is under contract to purchase the property for conversion into market-rate housing, developer David Carver confirmed on Monday when contacted by iBerkshires. The closing date and related matters are in process. 

In 2017, the then 120-year-old St. Joseph Central High School ceased operations. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it sheltered people without homes before The Pearl, a 40-bed downtown shelter, was finished a few years ago. 

Brian Koczela of BEK Associates, who submitted the plan on behalf of the diocese, explained to the board that the diocese is conveying out the former St. Joseph's High School. (The bishop is listed as owner on deeds on behalf of the church.)

The high school is comprised of four parcels with different owner in the middle, he said, and they need to be combined for the conveyance. This refers to the transfer and assignment of a property right or interest from one individual or entity to another. 

"At the very southerly end, at the back of the high school, there's a 66-foot-wide strip, I believe, and that strip goes all the way from North Street to Maplewood, and it includes a rectory," Koczela explained.  

"In essence, what we're really doing is just separating out that small parcel from the rectory."

The board also discussed getting ahead of data centers and agreed to consider a moratorium or regulations to protect Pittsfield from the emerging, controversial facilities. A data center is a large group of networked computer servers typically used for the remote storage, processing, or distribution of large amounts of data. 

City Planner Kevin Rayner said this issue has been popping up across the state, and it is important to consider if and/or how data centers should be regulated in Pittsfield. 

"How they kind of pop up quickly, and they take up a large portion of the municipal resources, energy, electricity, and water, and they also emit a lot of heat as well that can heat up the local atmosphere," he said. 

"The county only has so much power and water infrastructure, and I think that a big data center in Pittsfield could have impacts not only in Pittsfield, but the rest of the county." 

At the last City Council meeting, a petition from Ward 1 Councilor Kenneth Warren requesting to explore implementing a moratorium on the establishment and siting of data centers was referred to the Community Development Board. 

Warren, in his request, wrote that "This is one of those uses that the public would best be served by careful oversight of the City. A moratorium would allow the city to prevent any businesses from taking
advantage of the lack of any zoning regulations." 

Rayner looked at other state planners and created draft regulations to begin with, recognizing that the city doesn't want to be scrambling with no governance for data centers if a proposal came up. 

Chair Sheila Irvin said data centers are drawing a "huge" amount of electricity and water from American communities, increasing utility rates and putting pressure on the grid. She is personally leaning toward a moratorium. 

"Would the data center be taking power away from the community at the cost of the community?" she asked. 

Irvin pointed out that this would buy Pittsfield some time in the sense of saying, "We don't know this at all, but let us take some time to look at, if we did decide to have it, how would we deal with it?"

Rayner will come up with a draft moratorium and sharpened regulations, and the board will consider them next month. He pointed out that the moratorium would be a simple zoning amendment for consideration. 

It was suggested that the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority, which oversees the William Stanley Business Park, be consulted in this process to see if they are exposed to the data center industry.  

Mad Macs Shifts Location, Focus at Allendale Shopping Center

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
12:19PM / Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Store manager Tim wright and co-owner Scott Kirchner in the company's new space.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Apple products repair company Mad Macs has moved downstairs from its previous location in the Allendale Shopping Center.

The authorized Apple repair service was established in 1998 to provide service to Apple computers and devices and has had an ever-changing history.

"Since we started, we've grown and changed and shrunk and grown again, and we've done a lot of different things," said co-owner Scott Kirchner. "We've had multiple stores. We've grown from service into retail, and now we're on the other side of that, getting out of retail and back to our roots in service."

Kirchner and co-owner Daryl Corbett were most recently located next to Walgreens in Allendale. They have now moved downstairs into Suite 101.

And while they used to sell retail and manage information technology services for businesses, that division was separated and merged with Dalton-based Renatus Solutions to form Revolution IT. They now have gone back to their roots of only repair service.

Kirchner said the COVID-era inventory shortages made retail difficult, and they went about a year without being able to obtain a computer to sell. Meanwhile, competition from Apple, online sellers, and retailers increased, while margins were low.

"Eventually it got to the point where the amount we were making doing the retail really wasn't worth it anymore," he said. "Things had changed within Apple, things sort of changed within our business model and eventually what happened is the competition got to be too much." 

Since their former space was larger than needed now that they didn't have retail, they asked the plaza owners if they could move into a smaller space as they wanted to stay in the shopping center's central location. Kirchner said they are the only Apple-authorized service within 50 miles.

"A lot of our decision to downsize was to be able to preserve to be able to continue to provide that service for the county, so people didn't have to go to Holyoke or Albany, in order to get their phones fixed and devices as well," he said.

Mad Macs is mainly run by store manager Tim Wright, who now has a more secluded space to do his repairs.

The shop's hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday; it is closed on weekends and holidays, and there is an elevator to access the lower level. More information here.