Business Community Rallies Amid Construction

If you’ve heard that traffic in Southwick is dense, owing to the major expansion of the main drag, that news would be correct.
But town officials have gone to great lengths to ensure that it is business as usual for the many merchants up and down the length of College Highway, otherwise known as routes 10 and 202.
When the last piece of heavy equipment leaves the worksite, the formerly two-lane road will have a dedicated middle turning lane, and an entirely new network of sidewalks. Add those improvements to the rail-trail path in town used by upward of 1,000 people on a weekend day, and the already-popular Congamond Lakes, and Southwick envisions an increased consumer marketplace on both foot and wheels.
Rich Grimaldi, co-owner with his brother, Steve, of the Summer House restaurant on that road, gestured out front to the line of cars stopped in one lane (the construction presently is addressing drainage), and said he only hopes right now that people understand that “Southwick is still open.”
The Summer House is but one local business that will be affected by the construction project which is, in fact, getting ready to wind down for the winter, to resume in the spring. Town Administrator Karl Steinhart noted that the past few months have brought a double whammy of two separate job sites along the thoroughfare.
A culvert replacement at Johnson Brook in the southern part of town has effectively created a one-lane road at that spot, and at times it even shuts down overnight for safety. But as that project winds down — most major lifting is done, and landscaping will be complete after the winter — and with the timeline for the road widening still on track, most agree that Southwick’s facelift will be well worth the temporary woes.
Steinhart said Town Hall has been listening to the fears from the affected merchants along College Highway. “Their issue is the temporary disruption to people having access to their business, or also having people operate under the misunderstanding that they’re not open because of the construction,” he said.
“That’s why you’ll see on the approach routes there are huge yellow signs that say downtown is open, businesses are open,” he continued. “That was something that the selectmen undertook. They wanted to make it clear for people navigating the construction site.”
For this look at the business community of Southwick, BusinessWest spoke to those merchants and civic leaders who have a front-row seat at the $5 million Mass. DOT reconstruction of the town’s main street. And while some offer that there are headaches that have not yet begun, they all agree that the end result will have benefits both aesthetically and economically. As Southwick Florist owner and Town Selectman Russ Fox joked, “we have seen what has been happening when a business community is affected by construction — Westfield is next door. But just look at how that city is transforming.”

Paving the Way
While much is made of Southwick’s unfolding role as a destination for recreation, the town does maintain a link to its agrarian past.
Southwick Feed and a branch of the Tractor Supply stores sit across College Highway from tilled fields, and Diane Mason-Arnold reminded BusinessWest that farming is still an important town industry. “Agriculture has diversified, but it is a vital part of the community. There are many tobacco farms, both shade and broadleaf, lots of vegetable growers, orchards, nursery garden-type centers.”
Mason-Arnold owns the local branch of Farm Family Insurance, called the Diane Mason Agency, and while you can get a policy written up for a quarterhorse, she smiled and added that her business provides a full range of other lines of personal and commercial insurance.
For her latest offices, she bought the small, residential structure on College Highway just north of Town Hall about two years ago, but added that she has been doing business in Southwick for over a decade. In that time, she has been active in community development, including a 15-year tenure on the town Cultural Council; as a member of the board of directors for the Southwick, Granville, Tolland Food Pantry; and as chair of the Cemetery Commission.
The arts have a place in town, she said, which is important to help bring people in from outside the area. The juried art show that the Cultural Council holds each April draws from throughout the Pioneer Valley on down into Connecticut.
The space right outside her door will soon be dug up for both the DOT drainage and road-widening project. “About eight years ago, I was on a committee to determine how to make Southwick’s downtown more attractive in drawing new businesses,” she said. “Right now, we’re starting to see that begin to take place.
“We need economic growth in this town,” Mason-Arnold continued. “We lack the bigger types of businesses that would really help out with the tax base. The turning lane will help, but I really don’t know if there’s one good answer as to what the community needs to do. It’s a great area for some kind of boutique type of businesses. The chains, obviously, don’t want to veer too far from the major highways.”
As a business intrinsically linked to the town’s growers, she said that there is more awareness now than ever before about the importance of purchasing from locally owned businesses. “But,” she added, “the real trick is in determining what those people want to buy.”
Just up the street, that has been something of a mantra for the Grimaldi brothers.
“The key for us is that we’re always listening to our customers,” Rich Grimaldi said. “We’re friendly, and we give a good product at a good price. Our customers are like our extended family. They share their trials and tribulations, what’s happening with their kids, where they’ve been on vacation. You feel like a bartender sometimes.”
‘Friendly’ is an apt description of the Summer House, with its longtime staff, kid-friendly offerings, and reasonable prices — although use of that word that might have some legal ramifications.
Back in the 1950s, the Blake brothers, owners of Friendly’s restaurants, met weekly with fellow antique-auto enthusiasts at the Congamond Lakes. ‘Wouldn’t it be a great idea,’ their friends asked the pair, ‘if we could have a place to get a bite to eat while we were here.’ And thus, the brothers opened a seasonal Friendly’s franchise, just up the road on College Highway.
Grimaldi said that the Southwick branch wasn’t part of the corporate sale to Hershey, back in the late 1970s. “But they didn’t want to keep it either,” he said. “So our dad bought it in 1980, and part of the terms of sale were that Friendly’s would not be associated with the name or offerings in any way.”
Over the years, after the brothers took over from their father, the scope and scale of the restaurant changed dramatically. There’s still a cupola on the center of the roofline, reminiscent of many of the Friendly’s buildings, but from a three-months-a-year ice cream stand, the brothers have built a thriving, year-round restaurant.
Steve Grimaldi said that the Summer House is growing due to the many requests from its loyal customers. To that end, hamburgers and hot dogs have been joined on the menu by salads, homemade soups, and specialty sandwiches.
“I think you’re going to see Southwick as an increasingly popular bedroom community,” he said, “along the lines of Wilbraham.” And speaking of development, here the conversation turned to acknowledge the drone of heavy machinery out front.
With increased traffic comes the need to readdress the town’s infrastructure, he said. But when the construction takes place in the spring, it will come with some clarification of what the brothers can do to address it at their shop.
“Right now,” Steve said of the sidewalk and road widening, “they’re telling us that they can take up to 15 feet. We’re unsure if they’re going to take two or six feet, or all 15. Once they tell us a more definite answer to that, we can then move forward with what the front of the building will look like, and there’s plenty of land we have in back to make up for the lost parking.”
Rich said that Town Hall has been proactive in keeping the business community abreast of unfolding developments. But there is still a lingering worry from those merchants who will indeed have complications with access.
“We all talk on a daily basis, the business owners up and down the street. There’s a fear that the street is effectively going to be shut down once the widening process begins,” he said. “But customers can still get to us. Yes, it might be a bit more difficult at times, but in the end we’re going to have a beautiful new roadway.”

Special Delivery
Sitting in the glass house behind his storefront, the seventh-oldest building in Southwick, Fox predicted that the completed construction project will have a major impact on the town.
“Sidewalks obviously are going to be huge,” he said. “Right now you don’t have anyone walking on College Highway because there are no shoulders even. It’s too dangerous.
“The benefit, I see, is a considerable amount of walking traffic now, because of the rail trail,” he continued. “We are getting a tremendous amount of use there, and no question people would want to walk down to Mrs. Murphy’s, or the Summer House, or Village Pizza.”
In addition, new lighting may incorporate banners and other decorative flourishes, and “aesthetically, this whole strip is going to look a lot nicer,” he said.
“Southwick is a safe place,” Fox added. “People are fearful of some cities, to take a walk after dinner. But here, we’re seen as a pleasant recreational community; people don’t have that fear here.”
As a result of the construction, Southwick Florist, as a landowner along College Highway, has fielded a number of cold calls about selling some of its property holdings. “These feelers are usually real-estate people who are looking to get into town now.”
But he’s not going anywhere, he said with a smile. And when asked to take the perspective of an elected official, as well as a business owner, with regard to the future of the construction project that is the biggest news in decades here, he emphasized that he knows exactly what everyone is afraid of.
“We’ve had meetings, and I have said that I know what it’s like,” he said. “After all, the drainage project started on my end. That’s why the Board of Selectmen fought hard to ensure that all businesses could stay open, that all courtesy be extended by police officers working detail to let people get in and out of businesses. As a town, we purchased those big, yellow signs that you saw, and we have discussed additional meetings this winter, asking the contractor and the state to sit down, to improve upon our dialogue if necessary, and to ensure that people know that businesses are still accessible.”