Willys-Overland Property Might Become a Growth Engine
Chuck Irving says the property at 151 Chestnut St. in Springfield — known to the well-informed as the Willys-Overland Building because the long-defunct car maker had a showroom on its first floor and a 1,000-car garage above — caught his attention some time ago, after it was damaged and then abandoned after the natural-gas explosion in late 2012. And he thought it had some potential. But what really opened his eyes was the rebirth of an almost identical property in Detroit also built by Willys-Overland.