Developer plans high-end housing on part of pre-tornado Cathedral High campus
The building was demolished after a June 2011 tornado ripped it, and the high school and elementary school across the street, to bits.
The property is next to the Mary A. Dryden Veterans Memorial School.
Bretta bought the 18-acre site at 90 Wendover Road on May 30 for $1 million from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, according to the Hampden County Registry of Deeds.
'I think it's a fabulous area,' Bretta said. 'I think that there are nice beautiful houses over there.'
He estimated asking prices of about $500,000 once the homes are built.
He doesn't know how many homes will fit on the site yet but estimates about 40. He's only recently begun design work. He's done other developments in Springfield on Eastwood and Westwood drives.
Bretta, of Wilbraham, has a 43-house project moving forward on Tinkham Road, and he plans apartments on property on the old Eastfield Mall site.
He bought 16 acres at Kent and Fernbank roads in 2022 from the mall's former owners. He said he's meeting and cooperating with the new owners of the rest of the site, Onyx Partners, and its Springfield Crossing redevelopment, which will include BJ'sWholesale Club, Target and others.
Diocese spokeswoman Carolee McGrath said the Wendover Road property was housing priests and women of the cloth. But the June 2011 tornado destroyed the 1969 building.
'With no future plans on the part of the diocese, it was released to Colebrook to sell,' she said.
Colebrook handles the diocese real estate transactions. Faced with declining membership, Mass attendance and staffing of priests, the diocese has sold more than 90 properties since 2005.
More than a dozen of its former schools were sold or leased, for other schools and alternative uses.
The church built the new Pope Francis Preparatory School on the old Cathedral High School site.
Westfield apartment fire claims life
30 Mass. National Guard troops with historic ties to Revolution marching in DC Army parade
Getting the construction industry 'Sublime ready' with or without the federal government
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