Southbridge, MA Rob Nahigian, FRICS, CRE, SIOR, MCR of Auburndale Realty Co., has completed a counseling assignment for Southbridge Associates, LLC on the Southbridge Hotel and Conference Center.

The conference center contains two levels of office space that was leased to the U.S. Department of Defense for the last 20 years. The hotel and conference center was formaly the headquarters of American Optical for decades. AO eventually closed its operations and the property was eventually sold to Southbridge Associates, LLC. The new ownership converted the headquarters space into a 203-room high-end hotel. The lobby traverses to a professional conference center that is engaged by outside professional associates and trade organizations. The property is part of a larger complex of over 1 million s/f of industrial and office space. Nahigian’s focus was on the 263,379 s/f of hotel and conference center. His research was to study the macro-economic development of the local marketplace and its future development opportunities.

Nahigian spent from July to November, 2021 studying the entire marketplace, interviewing over 55 professionals, state and local public officials and local residents to create a strategic analysis, evaluation and plan that focused on Southbridge and the hotel/conference center. Recommendations were submitted as well as insight on the future of the Southbridge marketplace and how the marketplace would be repositioned.