On a hillside, heavy equipment operators are completing a state-sponsored demolition of the center’s old youth camp.

The noisy knock-down here is a harbinger.

The state sold 100 acres of the property to Westmass Area Development Corp. in July for $1, after trying to sell it for more than a decade.

Westmass is a nonprofit developer known for the ongoing redevelopment of the Ludlow Mills, a complex of mill buildings that once made twine and burlap, but fell into disuse.

Ludlow is a model for what can happen at Monson center, Daley said. Other models are the redevelopment of the former Belchertown State School and the old state mental hospital in Northampton.

Today, these projects are home to housing for seniors, small-scale manufacturers and warehouse operations, a brewery and other amenities, with nearly all of the ground-level space occupied and more tenants on the way.

Daley said Ludlow was easier in that it always had at least a few tenants paying the bills. Monson has nothing. Only a nonprofit like Westmass can take a long enough view of a redevelopment project like this, Daley said. He estimates that Monson’s build-out could take 25 or 30 years.

Westmass will work with individual developers and builders, just as it has in Ludlow. How it all plays out will depend on the market. In Monson, one company may want to do a cluster of townhomes. One may want to tackle another project.

“I could be saying all that and it may not come to fruition. Just the market’s going to dictate what we can do for development,” Daley said. “It can provide the support for those types of buildings and those types of housing.”

The upper part of the property, near where an old water tower stands, will likely get parceled into 2- to 3-acre “estate homes,” with their own water wells and on-site septic.

Daley said it will be cost prohibitive to bring modern utilities up to that part of the campus. The importance of utilities is a lesson Westmass learned in Ludlow.

The Ludlow Mills industrial complex now hosts health care, industry, housing and a brewery.

In Northampton, the former state hospital property, now called Village Hill, helps address a critical need for housing in the Hampshire County hub. The 120-acre Belchertown State School property is now the site of the Christopher Heights assisted-living center and the Belchertown Day School child care program.

Two more Belchertown parcels will go on the market soon, said Jonathan Spiegel, vice chair of the Belchertown Economic Development and Industrial Corp.

But replacing the state campus in Belchertown with new homes, businesses and amenities has been a frustrating 30 years, partly due to the need to tear down contaminated buildings. The powerhouse on the site was demolished only this summer.

“We continue to make progress,” Spiegel said. “It’s slow, especially in towns like Belchertown and Monson that are not on the MassPike, that don’t have the connection to an Interstate.”

In Monson, Daley said only three of the 45 buildings on the campus will likely survive, including the Longview building, which provided staff housing and might become apartments for veterans.

The former campus recreation center – its candlepin bowling lanes long ago stripped out – will find another use. Daley wants to acquire the old laundry building, saying it could find new life as a restaurant.

The rest of the buildings — including dormitories, an infirmary, a huge central kitchen and dining hall, machine shop and carpentry shops — are either in too much disrepair, cannot be reconfigured or both.

“All this is coming down,” Daley said while leading a section of the tour.

The state didn’t transfer all the land to Westmass. The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources kept 42 acres as an active farm. The Department of Fish and Game will continue to own and manage 458 acres of forest.

Monson is rural, with a population of about 8,100. Daley said the school district is losing students. The community has seen only about 100 new housing units over the last 20 years.

Across the Pioneer Valley, the estimated housing supply gap is 23,420, according to a study released by Wayfinders and the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute.

Kenneth Comia, director of land use and environment at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, cited that study as a reason for Monson to move forward. The projects at the center will go a long way toward helping the town meet housing production goals.

Besides his regional role, Comia is an advisor to the Monson Planning Board, helping members shape their thinking and as a resource during meetings. He said Monson will want and need to understand the impact of growth on the former campus.

“It may not be prepared,” he said of the community. “People will want to understand the impact. But I also think that the development proposal is flexible enough … should the town want to address some of the concerns that it may have.”

Too much, too soon might be a problem. Towns need time to absorb new development.

But Westmass knows it’ll take decades to build out the development.

That was the case in Northampton with Village Hill, said Carolyn Misch, Northampton’s director of Planning and Sustainability.

Village Hill has about 300 units of housing, from townhomes to apartments, as well as commercial space, including the L3Harris defense manufacturing plant.

“It was slower than I’d imagined,” Misch said of the redevelopment. “We’ve always had a demand for housing.”

But demolition and rebuilding took time. As in Monson, buildings had been left with no maintenance. Financing was difficult. The project stretched through economic boom and bust cycles.

That gave time for the new housing to be absorbed into the market.

“It was a long, slow buildout,” she said.