Month: June 2017

CHICOPEE — MassDevelopment and the City of Chicopee have announced a new campaign through the civic crowdfunding platform Patronicity and the Commonwealth Places initiative. The Chicopee Center Gateway Project campaign will fund downtown beautification efforts in Chicopee, including signature banners, flower planters and other landscaping, and a signature public art bus shelter.

This project will build off the momentum of other redevelopment efforts in the city to make Chicopee a more attractive place for residents, businesses, and visitors.

“The Gateway project will help downtown Chicopee catalyze local business development and enhance the city’s sense of community by beautifying its streetscape,” said MassDevelopment Vice President of Real Estate Services Amanda Maher. “The Commonwealth Places initiative allows communities to provide gathering places for residents and inspires individuals to invest in their surroundings, and we look forward to the same success in Chicopee as we have seen with our past projects.”

If the campaign reaches its crowdfunding goal of $17,000 by August 11 at midnight, it will win a matching grant with funds from MassDevelopment’s Commonwealth Places program. To learn more and donate visit (http://www.Patronicity.com/Chicopee).

“We’re looking forward to having a location downtown that is going to be warm and inviting not only for existing residents, but also hopefully to encourage new ones to come,” said Chicopee Mayor Richard J. Kos.

“Beautifying these areas will send a message to our community that revitalization is happening and that there are exciting things taking place in downtown Chicopee,” said Jessica Roncarati-Howe, President of the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce.

Commonwealth Places is a collaborative effort from MassDevelopment and Patronicity that leverages public support for placemaking projects through crowdfunding and a matching grant from MassDevelopment. The program engages residents in the development of strategic projects in their towns and cities. The program has supported successful campaigns across the Commonwealth, from Northampton to Hyannis. For more information, visit (http://www.massdevelopment.com/commonwealthplaces).

‘Western Mass’; We’re Back Where We Started

By BusinessWest Staff June 30, 2017

Opinion

If it seems like this region is back where it started when it comes to the Economic Development Council’s latest attempt at branding (or rebranding) the region …. well, it is.

Indeed, months after this dubious exercise began, the EDC and the Greater Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau announced this week, sort of, that the new (new?) marketing slogan for Western Mass. will be ‘Western Mass’ — without the period and in colors approaching orange and green.

The cynics are right to ask why this region’s business community spent $80,000 (not an insignificant sum by any stretch) to hire a nationally recognized public relations firm that specializes in this kind of work to come up with a new brand (‘West Mass,’ which no one liked), and then essentially let the public decide that the brand would be something that everyone was already calling this part of the Commonwealth.

Now, it seems, the region will try to take that name that we’ve all used for decades and make it known nationally, thus giving this area some sort of identity.

Maybe things will work out, but from our view, this exercise has been an expensive comedy of errors and mis-steps — a well-intentioned comedy of errors to be sure.

From the beginning, and again now, we’ll say that economic development leaders in this region should be far less focused on coming up with a brand (and retiring ‘Pioneer Valley’) and more focused on simply telling the region’s story.

And it’s a good story that’s getting even better, with MGM Springfield opening in 15 months, the city’s downtown in the midst of a renaissance, and people recognizing that this is a great place to live, work, and start a business.

This region could have done a lot of good story telling with $80,000, but instead we spent the better part of a year learning that we already had a good brand and didn’t need another one.

DiGrigoli Salon Attends Premiere Orlando Hair Show

By BusinessWest Staff June 30, 2017

WEST SPRINGFIELD — The DiGrigoli Salon artistic team had the opportunity early this month to soak up the sun and the educational training at the Premiere Orlando Hair Show.

With more than 57,000 attendees yearly, 800 exhibitors, and a wide variety of guest educators, Premiere is one of the largest hair shows in the country.

The team of stylists learned the latest hair color and hair cutting techniques for summer/fall 2017 from some of the top names in the cosmetology industry. Notable educators included Nick Arrojo (of TLC’s What Not to Wear,) Eden Sassoon (of Vidal Sassoon,) and Sam Villa (of Redken.) The show ran from June 3-5.

Cocchi Announces Opioid Grant Funding

Sheriff Nick Cocchi announced recently that the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department received $188,837 from the state for diversion of individuals suffering from substance use to keep them out of jail and into treatment.

This grant is part of the Baker administration awarding $2.3 million in a second round of competitive federal grants designed to help sheriffs, and other criminal justice agencies strengthen and enhance efforts to combat heroin and opioid abuse in Massachusetts, including prevention, intervention, diversion, enforcement and treatment.

“I am pleased to receive this much-needed funding which we will use to increase recovery bed space in the community as well as provide case management for these afflicted individuals,” said Cocchi.

“We all know the toll on citizens in our cities and towns,” he went on. “We are now losing five people every day due to this opioid crisis. This funding will prevent many individuals suffering from substance use from coming to jail, by diverting them into intensive treatment thus avoiding costly jail time. This will save lives and allow these individuals to get on track to being successful, productive members of our communities.”

The number of confirmed cases of all opioid-related overdose deaths for 2016 was 1,933. This figure represents a 17% increase over confirmed cases in 2015 of1651 and a 42% increase over 2014.

Economic Development Strategy Report Available from PVPC

SPRINGFIELD — The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission recently completed the 2017 Annual Update of the Plan for Progress, the region’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS).

The document presents regional performance indicators of progress in the region and provides a detailed listing of major committed projects of regional significance – from infrastructure and transportation to redevelopment and new construction. The 2017 CEDS is available online (http://www.pvpc.org/plans/comprehensive-economic-development-strategy-ceds), or hard copies can be provided upon request.

The report also identifies eligible projects seeking federal grant assistance from the EDA during the upcoming 12-18 months.

The document is required by the U.S. Economic Development Administration to report the status of ongoing economic development initiatives.

MassDOT Issues Holiday Weekend Travel Advisory

BOSTON — The Mass. Department of Transportation (MassDOT) advises holiday travelers to plan ahead, utilize MassDOT’s many “real time” travel tools and use public transportation if possible to reach their destinations between now and the end of the July 4 holiday weekend.

“This holiday is a great opportunity for the public to use technology tools including www.mass511.com or the GoTime mobile app in order to make informed decisions on routes to take to destinations and the timing of travel,” said Transportation Secretary and CEO Stephanie Pollack. “If people check real-time travel time information before leaving home then they can make smart decisions about whether to drive or take transit and whether to leave earlier or later.”

Acting Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver said heavy traffic volumes are expected on the state’s highways during this upcoming holiday period. “With many people driving to destinations we encourage people to leave extra time to reach their destinations, exercise safe driving behaviors, be patient on the roadways, and consider taking public transit if possible.”

MassDOT is taking steps to facilitate the flow of traffic during the holiday and will be postponing scheduled roadway construction effective at noon June 30, with scheduled construction activities resuming with the start of normal business hours on July 5.

Free coffee will be served at the 18 MassDOT service plazas from 10 p.m. July 4, through 5 a.m. July 5. The plazas serving free coffee include 11 service plazas along I-90 plus plazas along Route 3 in Plymouth, Route 128 in Beverly, Route 128/I-95 in Newton and Lexington, Route 6 in Barnstable, and the Route 24 northbound and southbound plazas.

For traffic and road conditions, drivers may use the following options to make decisions:

Download MassDOT’s GoTime mobile app and view real-time traffic conditions;
Dial 511 and select a route to hear real-time conditions on I-90 and other roads;
Visit www.mass511.com, which provides real-time traffic and incident advisory information, and allows users to subscribe to text and email alerts for traffic conditions;
Download Waze, the real-time traffic navigation app; and
Follow MassDOT on Twitter @MassDOT because motor vehicle incidents which impact traffic flow are generally mentioned in tweets if they occur on the state’s major highways.

MMWEC, Consumer Advocates Oppose Plan

LUDLOW — The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC), representing 20 municipal utilities, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and other consumer advocates are opposing an electric transmission owners’ plan they say seeks to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from consumers in a case in which federal regulators actually ordered a reduction in transmission rates.

The filing opposing the plan was submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on June 26.

The transmission owners are seeking to have the FERC reinstate an 11.14% base rate of return on equity (ROE) for their nearly $12 billion investment in transmission facilities. This move is in response to a federal appeals court decision to vacate a 2014 FERC order that reduced the base rate to 10.57%. The court sent the case back to the FERC for further review. The transmission owners’ position is that because the decision establishing the 10.57% rate has been vacated, the rate should revert to the higher rate of 11.14%.

The joint filing by MMWEC and others explains that the court’s decision was not intended to result in restoration of the higher rate, which was found by the FERC to be unjust and unreasonable. Instead, the court decision directs the FERC on remand to justify why they deviated from their typical rate-setting practice, which would have resulted in a rate lower than 10.57%. In fact, the MMWEC filing argues that a new base rate should be set well below 10.57%.

“If the New England transmission owners are successful in reinstating the higher rate, it will be a gross miscarriage of justice and an insult to consumers,” said MMWEC CEO Ronald C. DeCurzio. “They are seeking returns of more than 13% on their investments in transmission facilities, which is totally unjustified in today’s interest rate environment,” he said.

MMWEC’s filing with FERC protests the transmission owners’ plan and sets out the legal argument detailing why the base rate should not revert to 11.14%. It states that the order accepting the existing 10.57% ROE cannot be reversed without an action by the FERC, and the FERC should not take any action on interim rates and refunds to consumers until it decides which ROE should be in place.

The MMWEC filing asserts that the transmission owners’ submission to revert to the higher rates constitutes an unauthorized filing. The FERC should reject the transmission owners’ submission “in order to prevent the unlawful collection” of unjust rates,” MMWEC states in the filing.

Based on 2014 estimates provided by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, reduction of the transmission ROE from 11.14% to 10.57% is saving $62 million per year in transmission costs for all New England consumers, including customers of investor-owned and municipal utilities. The Massachusetts municipal utilities’ share is approximately $4 million per year. The transmission owners are attempting to recoup these savings from consumers and collect the higher rate going forward.

2017 Compensation Survey Finds Increased Pay, Talent Wars

AGAWAM — The Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast (EANE) released its summary findings from its 2017 Southern New England Compensation survey. Highlights of the 2017 findings include increased average pay in many sectors and, at the same time, increased pressure of losing top talent to competitors.

Representing more than 300 benchmark positions spanning a number of job-family categories, the survey include breakouts by industry, geographic region, company size, and more. More than 200 companies throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island participated in this year’s survey, with the largest participation from employers with 100 or less employees. The full, comprehensive report is available to participating members at no charge.

“We see that employers have needed to be strategic in allocating their budgetary dollars, especially when it comes to directing those dollars towards more vulnerable jobs. These jobs may have been subjected to past wage freezes or impacted by wage compression due to rising minimum wage rates throughout the region,” said Mark Adams, director of HR Solutions at EANE.

Average pay in non-exempt level positions has risen from 2016 levels, particularly in such job families as education, engineering, facilities, finance/banking, production, and hospitality. While the rise in pay outpaced the general growth in the consumer price index (CPI) from its 2016 levels, the pay growth is still being outpaced by skyrocketing benefit costs that have taxed employer operating budgets and have thus limited what they can provide. (The CPI increased by 2.3% on average when compared to the 2016 levels during the reporting period.)

Despite these rising operational costs, employers also face the countervailing pressure and risk of losing skilled workers to competitors who are challenged by talent shortages amidst a backdrop of very low unemployment. (Unemployment rates declined from 2016 throughout the Southern New England region in the range of 1.2 to 2.0%, depending upon the specific metropolitan area.)

LUSO’s Paulo Marques Ranks Among Top Loan Originators

LUDLOW — LUSO Federal Credit Union announced that Paulo Marques, senior loan originator, ranked fourth among top loan originators by volume for credit unions in Western Mass., with loan volume of $23.4 million. He also ranked fourth for top loan originators by number of loans for credit unions in Western Mass., with 156 loans. These results were reported by the Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

Healthcare Heroes Nomination Deadline Extended to July 10

SPRINGFIELD — Healthcare Heroes, an exciting recognition program involving the Western Mass. healthcare sector, was launched this spring by HCN and BusinessWest. Sponsored by American International College, Bay Path University, Elms College, and Renew.Calm, with additional sponsorships available, the program was created to shed a bright light on the outstanding work being done across the broad spectrum of health and wellness services, and the institutions and individuals providing that care.

The deadline has been extended until July 10 to nominate individuals, groups, and institutions in the following categories: Patient/Resident/Client Care Provider; Innovation in Health/Wellness; Community Health; Emerging Leader; Collaboration in Health/Wellness; Health/Wellness Administration/Administrator; and Lifetime Achievement. The nominations will be scored by a panel of judges to be announced in the coming weeks. The winners will be chosen in July and profiled in the September issue of HCN.

Nomination guidelines are available at healthcarenews.com and businesswest.com/healthcare-heroes.

UMass Study Examines Vegetable Protein and Early Menopause

AMHERST — Results of a new study from epidemiologists at UMass Amherst and Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health suggest that long-term, high intake of vegetable protein from such foods as whole grains, soy, and tofu may protect women from early menopause and could prolong reproductive function.

Consuming enriched pasta, dark bread, and cold cereal were especially associated with lower risk, while they observed no similar relation to eating animal sources of protein.

“A better understanding of how dietary vegetable protein intake is associated with ovarian aging may identify ways for women to modify their risk of early-onset menopause and associated health conditions,” wrote first author and then-graduate student Maegan Boutot and her advisor, Professor Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson. Details appear in the current early online edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Early menopause, the cessation of ovarian function before age 45, affects about 10% of women and is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and early cognitive decline, the authors note. Few studies have evaluated how protein intake is associated with menopause timing, they add, and to their knowledge this is the first to look specifically at early menopause.

Boutot, Bertone-Johnson, and colleagues in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, with others, evaluated the relationship between diet and risk of early menopause among members of the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS2), an ongoing prospective study of 116,000 women aged 25-42 when they entered it in 1989.

Participants were asked to report how often they ate a single serving of 131 foods, beverages, and supplements over the previous year, from never or less than once a month to six or more times per day. They observed that women consuming approximately 6.5% of their daily calories as vegetable protein had a 16% lower risk of early menopause compared to women whose intake was approximately 4% of calories.

For a woman with a 2,000 calorie-per-day diet, the authors explain, this is equal to three to four servings of such foods as enriched pasta, breakfast cereal, tofu, and nuts, or about 32.5 grams a day. They adjusted for age, smoking, body-mass index, and other possible confounding factors.

Others on the study team were from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The study was supported by a grant from NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

For the NHS2, follow-up questionnaires have assessed nurses’ lifestyle behaviors and medical conditions every two years. Nearly 90% have continued to participate in follow-up. Diet was assessed five times over the 20-year study, allowing the researchers to capture within-person variation in changes in food and nutrient intake over times, Boutot explained. Participants in the study contributed more than 1 million person-years of follow-up, during which 2,041 women experienced early menopause.

Boutot and Bertone-Johnson suggested that more prospective studies of their findings are warranted, including studies that compare soy-based and non-soy vegetable proteins.

Employers Grapple with Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Employment Sections

Accommodating Attitude

Massachusetts lawmakers are attempting a novel approach to pregnant workers, by requiring employers to offer them accommodations similar to those given to disabled workers. The bill is a popular one and seems assured of becoming law, but some questions about implementation — and what companies will have to do to comply — remain.

Pregnancy is not a disability, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act doesn’t classify it as one.

But if the bill, passed unanimously by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in March and expected to sail through the Senate, becomes law — Gov. Charlie Baker has said he will sign it — employers will be required to offer the same types of accommodations disabled workers are promised under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

“While this bill doesn’t technically classify pregnancy as a disability, per se, it does create the requirement that employers treat pregnancy the same way they treat employees with a disability, providing reasonable accommodation and undertaking a dialogue about what those accommodations should be,” said Daniel Carr, an attorney with Royal P.C. in Northampton.

If the bill becomes law, an employer would not be able to fire, demote, or deny a job to a worker due to pregnancy. The employer could not force the worker to accept certain conditions or take a leave from the workplace as long as she were able to perform the essential functions of her job.

While charges of discrimination based on pregnancy or maternity are currently considered an aspect of gender discrimination, the new bill changes the playing field in potentially significant ways, Carr noted.

Daniel Carr says the bill currently leaves several questions unanswered, which he hopes will be addressed by the state Senate before heading to the governor’s desk.

Specifically, employers will be required to engage in an interactive process with pregnant employees to provide reasonable accommodations, such as more frequent and/or longer breaks, modified equipment or seating, job and responsibility restructuring, modified schedules, and private, non-bathroom space to express breast milk — accommodations that, in the abstract, seem like a logical recognition of the need to provide equitable conditions for pregnant women in the workplace.

While this bill doesn’t technically classify pregnancy as a disability, per se, it does create the requirement that employers treat pregnancy the same way they treat employees with a disability, providing reasonable accommodation and undertaking a dialogue about what those accommodations should be.”

“Generally speaking, everyone is in agreement,” Carr said, “but for this bill to become law, there are some issues that need to be ironed out, hopefully before it gets to the governor for his signature.”

Meghan Sullivan, managing partner at Sullivan, Hayes & Quinn, LLC in Springfield, noted that the ADA provides no basis for equating a normal pregnancy with a disability, but Massachusetts lawmakers have, for several years, been discussing the idea that some of the same accommodations available to disabled workers, particularly related to changes in their duties and working conditions, could also benefit pregnant workers.

One of the reasons the bill has found little legislative resistance so far is that it was crafted with significant input from both women’s rights groups and the employer lobby, notably Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM).

“I sit on the steering committee for AIM, and they took the position that this was not a bill they were going to oppose on behalf of employers,” Sullivan said. “But how do we approach the idea of reasonable accommodation while avoiding issues that are typically problematic for employers?”

Working out many of those issues was key to moving the bill forward, but, as Carr noted, plenty of unanswered questions remain.

Taking Aim

AIM opposed early versions of the bill during the 2015-16 legislative session because employers worried it gave employees unlimited power to reject multiple and reasonable offers of accommodation by an employer. The compromise bill addresses that concern and others, the organization noted. Specifically, it accomplishes the following:

• Provides clarity regarding definitions and terms related to current employees in need of accommodations related to pregnancy;

• Aligns state and federal laws regarding reasonable accommodation as it relates to the essential functions of the job;

• Provides flexibility rather than mandating specific types of accommodations for employers and employees;

• Provides a reasonable mechanism for employees and the employer to achieve a reasonable accommodation by engaging in a defined process, eliminating a concern by businesses that an employee could reject multiple reasonable offers of accommodation;

• Adds language allowing the employer to evaluate undue hardship of an accommodation and the ability of employee to perform the essential functions of the job as it relates to an employer’s program, enterprise or business;

• Provides opportunity for an employer to request documentation for certain cases to ensure that accommodations are reasonable for both employees and employers;

• Limits provisions to current employees instead of employees and job applicants;

• Reduces unnecessary burdens and allows for electronic or other means other than a “poster” for notifying employees; and

• Allows for certain accommodations to be either paid or unpaid.

Employers worry, Sullivan told BusinessWest, about any new legal protections for workers that are different, and sometimes conflicting, with existing laws — conflicts that are typically hashed out through litigation, which companies certainly want to avoid.

Meghan Sullivan says the bill was crafted after much negotiation and compromise between women’s rights advocates and employer organizations.

“There was an incredibly cooperative approach to drafting the bill passed by the House, an effort to use very similar language and concepts related to the disability laws as we know them,” she noted.

She recalled a summer job she had during her college years, as a bank teller. She was required to stand at her workstation for eight hours, but under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, an employee would have a strong argument that allowing her to sit while serving customers would not hinder her from getting her work done.

Pretty straightforward, right? Not so fast, Carr said.

“The problem with any legislation is that sometimes the most popular laws are the worst-drafted,” he noted. “I think every reasonable person agrees with the principles of this law, that pregnant employees shouldn’t be discriminated against. No legislator wants to be seen as against it, so no one’s really changing it — but there are issues with this law that come into play.”

Take the coffee shop across the street from Carr’s office, which employs a handful of workers in one open space, with a bathroom. Where, exactly, can that business designate a private, non-restroom space for expressing breast milk? If an employee brought litigation, he argued, the shop would have a strong argument that such a private space doesn’t exist, and it would be an undue hardship to somehow construct one.

“Another issue is job restructuring. If an employee walks into my business and says, ‘we have to restructure my job because the law says so,’ how can I prove that’s an undue burden or financial hardship to do so?” he said. “That’s my concern. It’s not the wisdom of the law in general; it’s the drafting and details that have to be addressed.”

In a recent blog post, Carr went so far as to say the bill, if passed as is, will cause chaos for employers, for a couple of reasons. One is that it has no specified effective date, and would therefore, by default, become law only 90 days after Baker signs it.

Another question is the duration of accommodations. “The lactation provisions imply that the accommodations can continue after an employee has given birth,” he noted. “However, the bill does not address for how long after giving birth an employee is entitled to reasonable accommodations. As drafted, employers have no way of knowing if they must provide modified schedules and/or job restructuring to new mothers for four weeks, four months, or four years. It would be in every employer’s best interest to undertake a self-assessment of their readiness to implement these policies sooner rather than later.”

Working It Out

Carr also noted that the Affordable Care Act — which, despite GOP attempts to kill it, is still the law — already provides for private, non-bathroom space to breastfeed in certain situations, and other protections exist for breastfeeding employees. However, the new bill will apply to more employers in the state, and may be interpreted more broadly.

SEE: List of Employment Agencies

“The term ‘job restructuring’ worries me the most,” he said. “So if the breastfeeding provisions of this law are interpreted to be consistent with the breastfeeding protections of the ACA, does that mean that job restructuring would continue for a full year? Or, if [the new bill] is interpreted to provide greater duration, how long would that last?”

Sullivan agreed that the vague concept of accommodation could become more significant than employers expect, especially if the worker experiences complications with the pregnancy.

“It’s potentially a new lawsuit, and it’s something employers will have to take note of, but the two sides, as well as legislative officials, worked very cooperatively and diligently to make sure it would be a manageable and workable process,” she noted. “A lot of employers are concerned about any new law being introduced: ‘how do we manage another accommodation on top of all the other ones that already exist, and how do these new legal provisions interact with all of the existing laws?’ Without a doubt, it’s another instance where HR and managers and supervisors are going to need education and training so there isn’t an inadvertent violation.”

If employers will have only a few months to get up to speed with compliance, as appears to be the case, Sullivan said, every employer will have to examine the company’s workplace rules, break-time rules, and other details so they can anticipate what policies might need to be modified if an employee becomes pregnant.

She stressed, however, that employer groups understand the bill’s appeal.

“It is easy to confuse opposition to a draft of a bill with opposition to the issue itself,” AIM President Richard Lord said just before the House passed the bill. “AIM is always willing to work with those seeking honest and effective compromise. That is exactly what happened with this legislation.”

That doesn’t mean it’s easy to add another layer of employee protections, of course.

“A common concern is that Massachusetts will not be competitive enough with other states that aren’t as accommodating to employees,” Sullivan told BusinessWest. “At what point will Massachusetts create an incentive for businesses to leave? That’s always a concern among employers, the cost of doing business.”

Still, she said, “despite the rhetoric of ‘us vs. them’ that’s so common in the political landscape, so many employers are motivated to do the right thing and do it in the right way.”

Even if they’re still hazy on the details.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Examining the Right to Provide Gender-exclusive Services

Employment Sections

Women Only

By Daniel C. Carr, Esq.

Daniel C. Carr, Esq.

In recent weeks, a Texas movie theatre sparked controversy by holding several women-only screenings of the new Wonder Woman movie, including a promise that only female employees would be scheduled to work during these screenings. The theatre was the target of a great deal of criticism, and many alleged that the theatre was discriminating against men.

Much of the rage came from the usual suspects — men’s rights activists, misogynists, and other groups prone to Internet trolling. Also among the aggrieved was a less-expected party: University of Albany Law Professor Stephen Clark. According to his statement, Clark wasn’t offended that a screening was held specifically for women, but, rather, that the theatre advertised “No Guys Allowed.”

Particularly maddening was the fact that the theatre actively barred male patrons and promised that only female staff would be allowed to work during the screening. “It’s the principle of the thing,” Clark said. “I’m a gay man, and I’ve studied and taught gay rights for years. Our gay bars have long said that you do not exclude people because they’re gay or straight or transgender — you just can’t do that for any reason … It’s discrimination.”

For many, the special screening made sense. Wonder Woman is not only the first female-led superhero film since 2005’s critically-panned Elektra, but also the first female-led superhero film directed by a female. This, combined with its strong critical and financial performance in the wake of its underwhelming male-led predecessors, has given advocates of equitable representation of women in the film industry cause for celebration. The women-only screenings sold out quickly.

This conflict illustrates an important point: the law still permits single-gender organizations and services in certain contexts, but when do gender-exclusive organizations or services cross the line into actual, illegal discrimination?

The law still permits single-gender organizations and services in certain contexts, but when do gender-exclusive organizations or services cross the line into actual, illegal discrimination?”

The law generally weighs an individual’s First Amendment right to expressive association against the state’s compelling interest in eliminating discrimination. In genuinely private settings, the individual’s First Amendment rights will almost always prevail. Alamo Drafthouse’s women-only screenings would not have been a big deal if the theater had been rented out by a private entity. In fact, in response to one Facebook question concerning whether there would be men-only screenings, Alamo Drafthouse responded with a link to its ‘private events’ booking page.

However, in public-accommodation cases like the one above, Massachusetts and federal law generally find that the state’s interest in eliminating discrimination outweighs an individual’s First Amendment right to expressive association. Massachusetts state law specifically prohibits making any distinction, discrimination, or restriction in admission to or treatment in a place of public accommodation, based on race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, or ancestry. No distinction is made between historically dominant groups and historically disadvantaged ones. Discrimination is discrimination.

But what is a place of public accommodation? According to the law, a place of public accommodation is an entity which is open to and accepts or solicits the patronage of the general public. Common examples include theaters, hotels, restaurants, stores, banks, hospitals, transportation services, parks, childcare centers, and the like. This is not a complete list. There are no complete lists because there are simply too many unique contexts to draw a clear line.

In contrast to places of public accommodation, genuinely private entities’ right to expressive association is considered to outweigh the public interest in eliminating discrimination, and, therefore, private entities are not bound by the same anti-discrimination laws. An organization’s status as a private entity, and therefore the legality of maintaining a gender-exclusive policy, depends primarily on whether the organization exercises “genuine selectivity” with respect to applicants or members.

For example, in 1997 the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) ruled that a female divorce attorney was liable for gender discrimination for refusing to represent male clients in divorce proceedings. In determining that her law practice qualified as a place of public accommodation, the MCAD noted that she advertised her services to the public, did not have any particular criteria for selecting her clients, and admitted that she refused to represent the complainant solely because of his gender. In short, there was a lack of “genuine selectivity.”

By way of comparison, in 2014, the MCAD applied the same standard to reach a different result in a case brought by a male victim of domestic violence against a nonprofit organization for female victims of domestic violence. The MCAD ruled that the charity had not violated anti-discrimination law by refusing to provide male victims of domestic violence the low-cost facial reconstructive surgery offered to female victims of domestic violence. The MCAD ruled that the charity had adhered to a policy of “genuine selectivity” because it was not open to the public and it applied an array of eligibility criteria, including economic status, type of injury, anticipated period of recovery, and residency restrictions.

Additionally, under Massachusetts law, certain entities may be places of public accommodations at certain times and not others. For example, in 2002, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that a publicly owned building, when booked for an event sponsored by a religious group for the purpose of religious meetings, does not qualify as place of public accommodation during that time; therefore, the group was allowed to ban women from attending the meeting.

Conversely, Massachusetts has recently announced that the reciprocal is true: religious institutions, such as churches, temples, or mosques, are considered places of public accommodations when being used for secular purposes, such as a spaghetti dinner open to the public.

If your business or organization intends to maintain a gender-exclusive policy, it is important that you analyze these factors to ensure the policy’s legality. The law can be tricky, and lawsuits are costly. u

Daniel C. Carr, Esq. specializes exclusively in management-side labor and employment law at Royal P.C., a woman-owned, NAMWOLF-certified, boutique, management-side labor and employment law firm; (413) 586-2288; [email protected]

Accounting Firm’s Embrace of Six Sigma is Generating Results

Accounting and Tax Planning Sections

A Different Kind of Number Crunching

Since its introduction more than 30 years ago, the data-driven process-improvement methodology known as Six Sigma has been most closely associated with the manufacturing sector. But, as recent initiatives undertaken by the accounting firm Meyers Brothers Kalicka clearly show, this ‘lean’ concept can be utilized by companies in any business sector to improve efficiency and buy employees time — literally.

Melyssa Brown joked that when she earned her green belt in Six Sigma last year, she was disappointed when all that arrived in the mail confirming that accomplishment was a piece of paper, a certificate.

“I was thinking, hoping that maybe there would actually be a green belt — I could use an accessory like that,” she told BusinessWest, tongue firmly planted in cheek, adding quickly that just about everything else about Meyers Brothers Kalicka’s deep dive into this data-driven process-improvement methodology has been about what she and others at the Holyoke-based accounting firm expected.

And then some.

Our interaction with the client is better, and our delivery of services to the client is better. And internally, it has put everyone on the same page; it’s put everyone together behind a commitment to move forward and not stand still, because you can’t grow that way.”

Indeed, they were expecting that incorporation of this lean, quality-control program, developed by Motorola in 1986 and popular within the manufacturing sector, would be intense, time-consuming, and somewhat difficult because it constituted a significant change in how things were done.

They were right.

But they also expected it would achieve real results and provide powerful evidence that Six Sigma can work in the service sector as well as it does in the realm of manufacturing. And they were right again.

“Our interaction with the client is better, and our delivery of services to the client is better,” Brown, a senior manager in the auditing department at MBK, said of the net gains from the firm’s investments in Six Sigma. “And internally, it has put everyone on the same page; it’s put everyone together behind a commitment to move forward and not stand still, because you can’t grow that way.”

Elaborating, Brown said that, through Six Sigma, the company has been able to chart how the all-important time of partners, associates, and others at the firm is spent, with a critical eye toward making processes more efficient, thus essentially providing personnel with more time with which to better serve clients and serve more of them, critical elements in any company’s efforts to increase profits and improve market share.

Getting more specific, Brown said MBK has undertaken a few Six Sigma projects, both involving client interaction, the time spent accumulating needed information for tax and audit work, and efforts to bring more efficiency to those efforts.

Melyssa Brown says MBK’s Six Sigma projects have effectively given employees at the firm more of that most precious commodity — time.

“To do audit and tax work, you clearly need to get information from the client — we need some numbers to work with,” she explained. “It comes down to, when you have that interaction, how it’s done, and how it’s followed up.”

In short, there were inefficiencies with all those steps in the process, she went on, and, therefore, some diligent work was undertaken to mitigate them.

“From these processes, we’ve put structures in place to help us monitor and conduct better interactions with the client, because that’s what’s important to them — and us,” she went on, adding that the goal was and is to make these interactions easier for the client and more productive for the firm.

Fast-forwarding a little, Brown said the firm has created an online portal, or drop box, if you will, for client information that can be accessed by all those servicing that particular client. This innovation has significantly reduced the time, trouble, and anxiety involved with collecting and accessing that data, as will be explained in more detail later.

As noted, the company’s experience shows how Six Sigma can be applied to businesses not traditionally associated with this methodology, said Brown, who was a member of a panel that delivered that very message to assembled members of the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast several weeks ago.

“Everyone has a back office,” Brown explained. “And while people think of Six Sigma in terms of manufacturing processes, those back-office functions can be made more efficient as well.”

For this issue and its focus on accounting and tax planning, BusinessWest departs from more traditional discussions about taxes, audits, legislation, and compliance, and takes a hard look at a different form of number crunching.

Time Is of the Essence

Brown told BusinessWest she became the company’s point person on Six Sigma … well, because each senior manager at the firm has a ‘niche,’ as she called it, and at that moment in time, she didn’t have one.

So Six Sigma became her niche.

Backing up a little, Brown said she and others at the firm were in attendance for a presentation on Six Sigma presented by a consultant and hosted by CPA America, a trade organization the firm has belonged to for some time. That seminar came about just as the firm was aggressively exploring methods for achieving process improvement, thus bolstering the bottom line.

“We had tried several other ways to become better at improving efficiency,” she explained. “But we needed that outside person’s view of what the best course of action might be.”

Brown underwent green-belt training, which introduces an overview of the key concepts, in Ohio, and took on a project involving one of her clients to earn that aforementioned certificate in 2016.

Summing up what’s been happening at the firm since, Brown said MBK has essentially embraced ‘lean,’ a concept that, as noted earlier, is usually associated with manufacturing, but can be applied to virtually any business sector.

SEE: List of Accounting Firms

Lean is a transferable and systematic approach for discovering, analyzing, prioritizing, and correcting time-wasting activities that exist in business processes, Brown told BusinessWest — and her audience at the EANE roundtable in May.

Elaborating, she said ‘lean’ is a mindset, or a culture, to reduce waste, something that exists in every operation and can be reduced — but only, in most all cases, through careful analysis of data and development of new ways to do business.

And, as Brown noted, this approach can generate positive results not only on the factory floor, but also in back-room operations such as billing and accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, monthly reconciliations, and financial reporting.

With that, she returned to the projects undertaken by MBK, and specifically that online portal she discussed. It came about through the Six Sigma process of analyzing a specific process or method of doing business, taking it apart, and putting it back together again — without the wasted steps, energy, time, and profit.

To get her points across, she undertook an exercise in ‘before and after.’

“Before, we would send a list of needed information via e-mail, in Word or Excel, and the client would either send us documents via e-mail, save it to a jump drive, or find some other way to get it to us,” she explained. “But it was never really clear if we had a certain piece; we would say, ‘do we have an accounts-receivable list?’ and they would say, ‘yes, you have it,’ and someone here would say, ‘I don’t think I do.’”

Now, with the online portal, such exchanges are a thing of the past, she went on, and so is the time lost looking for information or trying to verify whether the firm has it or not.

The bottom line, as they say in this business, is that the firm can now serve clients better and more efficiently, and use the time saved to serve other clients or solicit new ones.

And all of these things can be measured.

“In the end, our goal in this is to issue financial statements to clients earlier or get tax returns done and out to the client sooner than we used to, and we can measure this,” she explained.

Meanwhile, the system improvements are enabling individual service providers to make better use of their time, she went on, adding that, in many cases, it is now possible to do some audit-preparation work in October or November, thus creating more time during the extremely hectic months and weeks prior to April 15.

“You’re getting a head start on the client,” she noted, “which frees us up during tax season, when we’re all a little stressed.”

The end result, she said, is the creation of more time.

“Before, we may have thought that we needed to hire more people to get the work done,” she noted. “Now, we can get the same amount of work done with fewer hours and the same amount of people — or more work, because you’re taking on new projects with the time that you’ve saved.”

Looking forward, Brown said the firm is looking at other ways to put Six Sigma to use.

Indeed, after projects involving the tax and audit functions, the company is looking at possible initiatives involving billing and administration and making them more efficient.

“There are lots of opportunities — you just have to crack open the shell,” said Brown, who told BusinessWest that this is her general advice to all those who own or manage service businesses.

She noted that too many businesses in this sector are not embracing Six Sigma, in part because they don’t fully understand how it can be applied to their sector. But once educated to the contrary, many are put off by what amounts to a considerable commitment to this culture in terms of time, expense (usually, a consultant must be hired and new technology acquired), and needed buy-in from everyone at the company.

Those willing to make such a commitment, she said, should take the dive.

“This can’t be the flavor of the month,” she explained. “The tone at the top has be, ‘we’re going to make this work — this is our new way of doing business and operating.’”

It All Adds Up

As noted, Brown doesn’t have an actual green belt, like the ones awarded to those engaged in the martial arts.

But through the firm’s implementation of Six Sigma principles, she and others at MBK have something far more meaningful — additional time, the most precious commodity that exists in business today.

It came about through hard work and a deep dive into processes and ways of doing business, with an eye toward continuous improvement.

Historically, such words, phrases, actions, and, yes, results have generally been restricted to the world of manufacturing. But as Brown noted and MBK has shown, any service business can generate the same types of positive outcomes.

They just have to crack open the shell.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Real Estate Transactions

Departments Real Estate

The following real estate transactions (latest available) were compiled by Banker & Tradesman and are published as they were received. Only transactions exceeding $115,000 are listed. Buyer and seller fields contain only the first name listed on the deed.

FRANKLIN COUNTY

BERNARDSTON

38 Depot St.
Bernardston, MA 01376
Amount: $225,000
Buyer: Stewart D. Scannell
Seller: William R. Pratt
Date: 05/19/17

BUCKLAND

22 Kendrick Road
Buckland, MA 01338
Amount: $143,200
Buyer: JP Morgan Chase Bank
Seller: Alicia M. Jeffery
Date: 05/17/17

CHARLEMONT

400 Legate Hill Road
Charlemont, MA 01339
Amount: $182,500
Buyer: Timothy J. Fazio
Seller: Howard D. Klosterman
Date: 05/23/17

DEERFIELD

Ferry Road
Deerfield, MA 01342
Amount: $156,000
Buyer: John G. Savage Realty Corp.
Seller: William W. Melnik
Date: 05/24/17

74 Sugarloaf St.
Deerfield, MA 01373
Amount: $269,499
Buyer: Justin A. Malone
Seller: Alphonse Arietta
Date: 05/15/17

GILL

143 Barney Hale Road
Gill, MA 01354
Amount: $144,000
Buyer: Wells Fargo Bank
Seller: Aaron A. Bishop
Date: 05/19/17

GREENFIELD

26 Colrain St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $178,000
Buyer: Mark Sirum
Seller: William Koldis
Date: 05/24/17

55 Colrain St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $176,000
Buyer: Sarah M. Chase
Seller: Nikolay O. Shlegel
Date: 05/15/17

40 Conway St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $174,900
Buyer: Tyler R. Ward
Seller: Andrew M. Goolsby-Cole
Date: 05/23/17

112 Fairview St. E.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $128,000
Buyer: JP Morgan Chase Bank
Seller: Argeni Fuentes-Maldonado
Date: 05/23/17

7 Harrison Ave.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $193,500
Buyer: Walter White
Seller: Louise E. Crandall
Date: 05/24/17

21 Spring Terrace
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $260,400
Buyer: Anne M. Platzner
Seller: Jason Fellows
Date: 05/25/17

3 Valley View Dr.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $249,000
Buyer: Katharine L. Mason
Seller: Keith R. Laudieri
Date: 05/25/17

26 Verde Dr.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Amount: $373,500
Buyer: David Pederson
Seller: Greenfield KMW LLC
Date: 05/26/17

LEVERETT

149 Cave Hill Road
Leverett, MA 01054
Amount: $395,000
Buyer: Patricia Hamilton
Seller: Joanne M. Mully LT
Date: 05/24/17

MONTAGUE

53 L St.
Montague, MA 01376
Amount: $173,000
Buyer: Allen E. Labor
Seller: John H. Speek
Date: 05/26/17

38 Park St.
Montague, MA 01349
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Elisabeth E. Alba
Seller: Miriam E. Wells
Date: 05/26/17

3 South High St.
Montague, MA 01376
Amount: $181,000
Buyer: Tyler A. Zagame
Seller: Kerry A. Wyman
Date: 05/15/17

NORTHFIELD

6 Louisiana Road
Northfield, MA 01360
Amount: $136,000
Buyer: Samuel J. Stevens
Seller: Barbara Pos
Date: 05/25/17

94 Lucky Clapp Road
Northfield, MA 01360
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Michael E. O’Bannon
Seller: Amy E. Grieger
Date: 05/26/17

602 Millers Falls Road
Northfield, MA 01360
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Brian Downes
Seller: Jennifer L. Guetti-Solcum
Date: 05/26/17

66 Pierson Road
Northfield, MA 01360
Amount: $172,500
Buyer: Catherine A. Burniske
Seller: Jeffrey R. Remillard
Date: 05/19/17

ORANGE

5 Clark Ave.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $179,900
Buyer: Lisa E. Granger
Seller: Randy D. Plante
Date: 05/26/17

15 Cloukey Ave.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Peter Anjos
Seller: US Bank
Date: 05/25/17

212 Dana Road
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $144,000
Buyer: Wells Fargo Bank
Seller: Jay R. Stevens
Date: 05/18/17

13 Dewey Conrad Ave.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $157,000
Buyer: Eric N. Druzbicki
Seller: Kelly M. Sevigny
Date: 05/19/17

28 Eddy St.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $137,500
Buyer: Don P. Noyes
Seller: Melissa L. Wetherby
Date: 05/24/17

257 North Main St.
Orange, MA 01355
Amount: $147,500
Buyer: Christopher Amenta
Seller: Anthony D. Vitello
Date: 05/15/17

31 Prescott Lane
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $259,000
Buyer: Tanyah Frost
Seller: Andrei Agapov
Date: 05/26/17

71 West River St.
Orange, MA 01364
Amount: $209,900
Buyer: Jeffery M. Sakowicz
Seller: Anthony J. Paoletti
Date: 05/25/17

SHUTESBURY

692 Pratt Corner Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $400,000
Buyer: Josef G. Trapani
Seller: John F. Rowan-Stern
Date: 05/15/17

33 West Pelham Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Karen J. Auerbach
Seller: Victoria A. Feyre-Febonio
Date: 05/26/17

73 Weatherwood Road
Shutesbury, MA 01072
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Jane Slater
Seller: Aron P. Goldman
Date: 05/24/17

SUNDERLAND

198 Bull Hill Road
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $282,000
Buyer: Delta Sand & Gravel Inc.
Seller: Steven E. Blinder
Date: 05/22/17

260 Hadley Road
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $400,000
Buyer: Jamie T. Mullins
Seller: Theodore J. Tudryn
Date: 05/25/17

141 Old Amherst Road
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Elyin Valenzuela
Seller: Hae S. Kim
Date: 05/16/17

87 South Silver Lane
Sunderland, MA 01375
Amount: $146,900
Buyer: Bayview Loan Servicing
Seller: Kristin L. Belmore
Date: 05/16/17

WHATELY

18 North St.
Whately, MA 01093
Amount: $235,000
Buyer: Ryan M. Sanderson
Seller: Sanderson, Neal B., (Estate)
Date: 05/19/17

HAMPDEN COUNTY

AGAWAM

52 Adams St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Jamie Campbell
Seller: Christopher R. Liberty
Date: 05/26/17

461 Barry St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $242,500
Buyer: Vincent R. Whitcomb
Seller: Gary F. Saccomani
Date: 05/15/17

37 Brookline Ave.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $192,100
Buyer: Armand G. Dubuc
Seller: Angela Almquist
Date: 05/23/17

28 Hastings St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $174,000
Buyer: Pietro A. Abruzzo
Seller: Kurt R. Rogal
Date: 05/26/17

70 Lincoln St.
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $212,500
Buyer: Shannon M. Farley
Seller: Timothy A. Potito
Date: 05/22/17

230 Main St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Amount: $4,845,000
Buyer: HP Agawam LLC
Seller: Practice Properties LLC
Date: 05/17/17

28 Woodcock Court
Agawam, MA 01030
Amount: $290,000
Buyer: Konnor Walsh
Seller: Serge Lukomsky
Date: 05/19/17

BRIMFIELD

51 Champeaux Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $365,000
Buyer: Christopher S. Gordon
Seller: Michael D. White
Date: 05/23/17

72 Champeaux Road
Brimfield, MA 01010
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Mark Lavigne
Seller: David Schermerhorn
Date: 05/24/17

CHICOPEE

35 Ann St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $141,000
Buyer: Jonathan J. Stone
Seller: Theresa Marconi
Date: 05/17/17

16 Austin St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $172,500
Buyer: Michelle Mallory
Seller: Susan F. Francis
Date: 05/23/17

2 Broadway Court
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Kaali Huang LLC
Seller: J. B. Camerlin Real Estate
Date: 05/17/17

86 Caddyshack Dr.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $390,900
Buyer: Shawn M. Martel
Seller: David L. Illingsworth
Date: 05/24/17

47 Cecile Dr.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $203,000
Buyer: Jacob J. Santana
Seller: Gerald C. Gilbert
Date: 05/25/17

109 Chateaugay St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Joanne M. Her
Seller: Jami V. Reis
Date: 05/19/17

Cochran St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Viktoriya Gladysh
Seller: Pragosa, Antonio C., (Estate)
Date: 05/22/17

270 College St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $249,000
Buyer: Federico Mendiola
Seller: Coulombe, Ronald A., (Estate)
Date: 05/22/17

1 Emerson St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $570,000
Buyer: 1060 Chicopee Street LLC
Seller: Gamoto LLC
Date: 05/26/17

253 Fairview Ave.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Ismael D. Arroyo
Seller: Dionys F. Cabriotti
Date: 05/26/17

87 Fillmore St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $192,000
Buyer: Joseph A. Laviolette
Seller: Jonathan P. Lukens
Date: 05/26/17

275 Hampden St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $117,700
Buyer: Stanislaw Beben
Seller: FHLM
Date: 05/26/17

324 Irene St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Cherilyn Harrison
Seller: Virginia A. Taylor
Date: 05/16/17

20 Johnson Road
Chicopee, MA 01022
Amount: $7,000,000
Buyer: Education Capital Solutions
Seller: Johnson Road Properties
Date: 05/19/17

59 Mary St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $215,900
Buyer: Jesicca Andrews
Seller: John P. Sullivan
Date: 05/19/17

444 Montgomery St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $16,530,000
Buyer: HP Chicopee LLC
Seller: Practice Properties LLC
Date: 05/18/17

108 Nelson St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $125,460
Buyer: Wells Fargo Bank
Seller: Christopher D. Dubuque
Date: 05/16/17

24 Olko Court
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Bobbilea Boisjolie
Seller: Minkos, Richard W., (Estate)
Date: 05/23/17

245 School St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $139,900
Buyer: Jamie D. Krasin
Seller: David J. Amato
Date: 05/19/17

31 Southwick St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Viktoriya Gladysh
Seller: Pragosa, Antonio C., (Estate)
Date: 05/22/17

471 Springfield St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Amount: $172,000
Buyer: Tony Tereso
Seller: Thomas Phelan
Date: 05/26/17

40 Watson St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Paul F. Styckiewicz
Seller: Boratis FT
Date: 05/15/17

EAST LONGMEADOW

43 James St.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $327,000
Buyer: Steven E. Czelusniak
Seller: Mark L. Tenggren
Date: 05/22/17

24 Pondview Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Miguel Rodriguez
Seller: Joseph Chapdelaine & Sons
Date: 05/26/17

41 Schuyler Dr.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $222,000
Buyer: John Hayden
Seller: Jiansong Xu
Date: 05/26/17

218 Shaker Road
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $146,500
Buyer: Timothy D. Charest
Seller: USA VA
Date: 05/25/17

45 Sturbridge Lane
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $540,000
Buyer: Elizabeth A. Rottenberg
Seller: Robert-Thomas Construction LLC
Date: 05/18/17

43 Wood Ave.
East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Zachary D. Perkins
Seller: Courtney A. Reyes
Date: 05/25/17

HAMPDEN

Kibbe Lane #15
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Custom Homes Dev Group
Seller: Ed Speight & Co. Inc.
Date: 05/25/17

Kibbe Lane #16
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Custom Homes Dev Group
Seller: Ed Speight & Co. Inc.
Date: 05/25/17

Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $294,000
Buyer: David M. Hernandez
Seller: Norman J. Ashline
Date: 05/15/17

70 Raymond Dr.
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Wells Fargo Bank
Seller: Joyce E. Stenta
Date: 05/26/17

23 South Ridge Road
Hampden, MA 01036
Amount: $450,000
Buyer: Mohammed Mawla
Seller: Andrew H. Persaud
Date: 05/19/17

HOLYOKE

2-4 Brightwood Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $122,180
Buyer: Bank Of America
Seller: Roger E. Neeland
Date: 05/19/17

38-40 Florence Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $185,000
Buyer: Katherine L. Paul
Seller: Wilbraham Builders Inc.
Date: 05/23/17

5 Greenwood Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $192,900
Buyer: Kristina F. Deome
Seller: Margaret E. Dugal
Date: 05/23/17

1 Larkin Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $144,000
Buyer: Yelitza Hernandez
Seller: Timothy H. Lawler
Date: 05/19/17

131 Lincoln St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $217,000
Buyer: Jacob Ayvazian
Seller: William D. Lesko
Date: 05/25/17

317-319 Linden St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Jose A. Cartagena-Colon
Seller: David J. Carpenter
Date: 05/26/17

82 Meadowbrook Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $220,000
Buyer: Keith E. Freeman
Seller: Mary F. Keeler
Date: 05/18/17

522-534 South St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $750,000
Buyer: Springfield Holyoke Realty
Seller: Deuteronomy LLC
Date: 05/16/17

63 Merrick Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $187,000
Buyer: Andrew W. Bagg
Seller: Steven J. Dudek
Date: 05/22/17

20 Pynchon Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $185,900
Buyer: James M. Wildman
Seller: Allen F. Tully
Date: 05/22/17

6 Ross Road
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Holly E. Magrone
Seller: Felicita M. El-Ghadi
Date: 05/26/17

31 Sheehan Dr.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $167,000
Buyer: Patrick T. Noonan
Seller: Kate E. Zurheide
Date: 05/25/17

43 Woodland St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Amount: $222,000
Buyer: Austin T. Gove
Seller: Kaitlyn M. Matarazzo
Date: 05/18/17

LONGMEADOW

107 Barrington Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $218,000
Buyer: Janet L. Dipietro
Seller: Arthur P. Scolari
Date: 05/25/17

84 Bel Air Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $280,000
Buyer: Elizabeth A. Barton
Seller: Steven M. Madnick
Date: 05/24/17

55 Birchwood Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $312,500
Buyer: Michael R. Biasetti
Seller: Kenneth C. Carlson
Date: 05/26/17

33 Brittany Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $490,000
Buyer: Yu Zeng
Seller: Jack W. Bailey
Date: 05/16/17

136 Burbank Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $259,900
Buyer: Adam R. Krevolin
Seller: Elizabeth M. Dorman
Date: 05/19/17

21 Cambridge Circle
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $470,000
Buyer: Andrew J. Oleksak
Seller: Thomas M. O’Rourke
Date: 05/19/17

142 Crestview Circle
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $452,000
Buyer: Bradley A. Ober
Seller: Carando, Dino J., (Estate)
Date: 05/19/17

45 Exeter Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $500,000
Buyer: Bertrand J. Dothee
Seller: Daphna Halpern
Date: 05/26/17

712 Laurel St.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $227,000
Buyer: Travis M. Orszulak
Seller: Christopher M. Orszulak
Date: 05/26/17

1535 Longmeadow St.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $395,000
Buyer: Alexia M. Geary
Seller: Patriot Living LLC
Date: 05/18/17

21 Meadowlark Dr.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $235,000
Buyer: Nationstar Reo Sub 1B LLC
Seller: Arnold D. Wilson
Date: 05/18/17

133 Pleasantview Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $420,000
Buyer: Danielle N. Finch
Seller: James L. Frank
Date: 05/23/17

59 Summit Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $292,000
Buyer: Daniel Boyea
Seller: Robert P. Leclair
Date: 05/26/17

84 Whitmun Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $166,000
Buyer: Finance Of Amer Reverse
Seller: Henry J. Blokland
Date: 05/18/17

527 Williams St.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Amount: $339,900
Buyer: Thomas Adams
Seller: Regina S. Fortune
Date: 05/19/17

LUDLOW

179 Americo St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Megan Keaton
Seller: Fyodor Grechka
Date: 05/18/17

25 Dale St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $260,500
Buyer: Maria A. Nadeau
Seller: Brian H. Martins
Date: 05/15/17

91 Fox Run Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $308,000
Buyer: Thomas M. Corjay
Seller: John S. Kawa
Date: 05/19/17

148 Highland Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $210,500
Buyer: Corey S. Day
Seller: Robert P. Desautels
Date: 05/22/17

52 Norwich Road
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $257,000
Buyer: Ashlie A. Tremblay
Seller: Matthew D. Mol
Date: 05/26/17

17-19 Oak St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $223,000
Buyer: Lucky Kim LLC
Seller: Antonio C. Ferreira
Date: 05/26/17

57 Stivens Dr.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $575,000
Buyer: Paul Morelli
Seller: Piedade Santos-Sebastiao
Date: 05/19/17

272-274 Winsor St.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Ocean Property Redevelopment LLC
Seller: Diplomat Property Manager
Date: 05/22/17

MONSON

16 Beebe Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: Michael Caron
Seller: FNMA
Date: 05/16/17

30 King St.
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: GJL RNL NT
Seller: Lawrence D. Roman
Date: 05/17/17

62 May Hill Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $254,200
Buyer: Wells Fargo Bank
Seller: Brian Mortensen
Date: 05/16/17

7 McCray Circle
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $358,000
Buyer: Michael Radzick
Seller: Jeffrey Kuselias
Date: 05/16/17

316 Silver St.
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $238,500
Buyer: Richard H. Isabelle
Seller: Lorraine H. Broadbent
Date: 05/15/17

118 Town Farm Road
Monson, MA 01057
Amount: $144,873
Buyer: Paul R. Strniste
Seller: Seanna Bannon
Date: 05/23/17

MONTGOMERY

11 Pineridge Road
Montgomery, MA 01085
Amount: $232,500
Buyer: Dallas S. Deogburn
Seller: Joseph L. Avenia
Date: 05/26/17

1593 Russell Road
Montgomery, MA 01085
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: Tara Spencer
Seller: Gerald M. Spencer
Date: 05/19/17

PALMER

5 Alden St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: Julia A. Bernet
Seller: Gregory M. Koss
Date: 05/22/17

100 Beech St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Gilbert Ocasio
Seller: Douglas A. Williams
Date: 05/26/17

26 Oakland St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Patrick S. Pica
Seller: James L. Sanford
Date: 05/24/17

76 Saint John St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $232,000
Buyer: Sonya M. Bastarache
Seller: Paul J. Novinsky
Date: 05/15/17

93 State St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Amount: $165,600
Buyer: Emmi L. Gelinas
Seller: Teresa A. Swist
Date: 05/26/17

RUSSELL

35 Homestead Ave.
Russell, MA 01071
Amount: $464,000
Buyer: Christopher J. Noyes
Seller: Fred U. Sisson
Date: 05/25/17

SOUTHWICK

9 Berkshire Ave.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $129,900
Buyer: Lea M. Rodrigues
Seller: FV 1 Inc.
Date: 05/16/17

15 Ferrin Dr.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $496,000
Buyer: Jeremy D. Leap
Seller: Mathias L. Stoenescu
Date: 05/19/17

15 Hudson Dr.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $200,000
Buyer: Kuchachik Realty LLC
Seller: Quarry Truck Co. Inc.
Date: 05/22/17

14 Oak St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $135,000
Buyer: John Gulbrandsen
Seller: US Bank
Date: 05/17/17

26 South Loomis St.
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $224,900
Buyer: Kimberly A. Valentino
Seller: Randall Bourque
Date: 05/19/17

40 Sam West Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Easy Solutions LLC
Seller: Flex Properties LLC
Date: 05/16/17

SPRINGFIELD

115 Abbott St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $186,000
Buyer: Noreen Orinda
Seller: Noel D. Petrolati
Date: 05/26/17

338 Abbott St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $136,000
Buyer: Joseph L. Calderon
Seller: Andrea G. Hillman
Date: 05/18/17

14 Agnes St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $184,900
Buyer: Sophia O. Woodfine
Seller: JLC Realty Group LLC
Date: 05/26/17

616 Alden St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $187,500
Buyer: Erica L. Fallis
Seller: Zachary D. Depace
Date: 05/25/17

1343 Allen St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $175,001
Buyer: Frank D. Bruton
Seller: Debra A. Bruton
Date: 05/26/17

213 Arcadia Blvd.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Arthur N. Phaneuf
Seller: Phaneuf, Arthur J., (Estate)
Date: 05/22/17

107 Ardmore St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $119,500
Buyer: Chelsi K. St.Amand
Seller: Michael Bourassa
Date: 05/26/17

260 Arnold Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $282,000
Buyer: James C. Redfern
Seller: Bretta Construction LLC
Date: 05/19/17

145 Bacon Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Suki C. Chu
Seller: Vertis J. Miller
Date: 05/24/17

17 Beech St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Kristal D. Quiroz
Seller: Viva Development LLC
Date: 05/19/17

132 Bellevue Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $115,000
Buyer: Gary M. Colson
Seller: Lianna M. Medina-Moran
Date: 05/25/17

305 Bicentennial Hwy.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $7,125,000
Buyer: HP Springfield Bicentennial
Seller: Practice Props. Springfield
Date: 05/17/17

57 Bissell St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Sonia A. Smith
Seller: Bretta Construction LLC
Date: 05/18/17

88 Blaine St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Lia Addeo
Seller: Saturday Morning LLC
Date: 05/24/17

97 Brittany Road
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $127,000
Buyer: William Donald
Seller: Robert A. Sheppard
Date: 05/24/17

88 Burt Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Nilda Irizarry
Seller: Shawn Torres
Date: 05/15/17

151 Canterbury Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: Michael J. Streit
Seller: Michael R. Biasetti
Date: 05/26/17

86 Canton St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $152,000
Buyer: Felix Pena
Seller: George J. Grasakis
Date: 05/18/17

75 Carnavon Circle
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $136,000
Buyer: Wilanie Oyola
Seller: Jesse P. Chabot
Date: 05/25/17

101-103 Carver St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $174,000
Buyer: Stafford W. Norris
Seller: Paul J. Alexopoulos
Date: 05/18/17

16 Chapel St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $157,000
Buyer: Jenary L. Merced
Seller: Derrick Hatwood
Date: 05/19/17

214-216 Connecticut Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $155,000
Buyer: Lincoln A. Hardrick
Seller: Danielle R. Morin
Date: 05/19/17

477 Cottage St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $450,000
Buyer: Ace Signs LLC
Seller: 477 Cottage Street LLC
Date: 05/24/17

23 Covel St.
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $201,000
Buyer: Ezequiel Padilla
Seller: Goehlert, George, (Estate)
Date: 05/17/17

25 Daniel St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $141,400
Buyer: Bertram Williamson
Seller: Luis A. Ortiz
Date: 05/26/17

91 Deepfield Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: US Bank
Seller: John P. Hess
Date: 05/19/17

36 Dover St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Amount: $865,000
Buyer: Allspring Equities LLC
Seller: Lake Rentals LLC
Date: 05/16/17

194 Draper St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $136,900
Buyer: Cecily D. Wiswall
Seller: Kathleen E. Boehm
Date: 05/23/17

120 Duggan Circle
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Migda L. Sanchez
Seller: Jacquelyn L. Smith
Date: 05/26/17

50 East Bay Path Terrace
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $168,000
Buyer: Deutsche Bank
Seller: Loanis T. Resto
Date: 05/22/17

127 Emerson St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $210,000
Buyer: Danielle M. Newell
Seller: Gerald P. Ross
Date: 05/26/17

27 Eureka St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $173,900
Buyer: Kimo Grant
Seller: Kathleen Fornecker
Date: 05/22/17

336 Forest Hills Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $188,000
Buyer: Peter P. Mayock
Seller: Kristin E. Trytko
Date: 05/26/17

137 Fort Pleasant Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $204,000
Buyer: Hussam J. Mohammed
Seller: Hancel R. Valentin
Date: 05/18/17

37 George St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $156,400
Buyer: Deutsche Bank
Seller: Marjorie Moise
Date: 05/23/17

79 Haller St.
Springfield, MA 01151
Amount: $169,000
Buyer: Antonio Vital
Seller: Patricia A. Dearing
Date: 05/15/17

226 Hanson Dr.
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $171,000
Buyer: Gabriel E. Trinidad
Seller: Dane Mealey
Date: 05/26/17

112 Hastings St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: Angel R. Morales
Seller: Viktor Savonin
Date: 05/25/17

54 Hobson St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $120,000
Buyer: Pamela J. Medlock
Seller: Marlina N. Duncan
Date: 05/26/17

103 Hood St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $118,500
Buyer: Juan A. Colon
Seller: Kyle J. Bienia
Date: 05/19/17

44 Inglewood Ave.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $194,000
Buyer: Michael P. Bourassa
Seller: Bruce W. Ernst
Date: 05/26/17

27 Kane St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $116,905
Buyer: Travis B. Scales
Seller: Webber, Georgia J., (Estate)
Date: 05/19/17

242 Laurelton St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $219,900
Buyer: Damion A. Johnson
Seller: Kevin J. Czaplicki
Date: 05/24/17

60 Littleton St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $122,500
Buyer: Stephanie P. Bond
Seller: Victor Rios
Date: 05/15/17

25-27 Lyndale St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $129,582
Buyer: Deutsche Bank
Seller: Julio C. Ozoria
Date: 05/23/17

84 Meadowbrook Road
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $194,900
Buyer: Sean Stevens
Seller: Joseph R. Rosinski
Date: 05/26/17

6 Metzger Place
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $140,000
Buyer: Mohammad Rafiq
Seller: Luis S. Ribeiro
Date: 05/18/17

178 Middlesex St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Victor M. Lozada
Seller: Vasily Vilkhovoy
Date: 05/25/17

93 Moss Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $160,000
Buyer: Brian J. Zelasko
Seller: Elizabeth A. Stebbins
Date: 05/19/17

24-26 Palmer Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: AJN Rentals LLC
Seller: Kelnate Realty LLC
Date: 05/19/17

85 Powell Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $164,900
Buyer: Jenfry E. Guerrero
Seller: Silvana Porfilio-Boyea
Date: 05/26/17

163 Prouty St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $137,500
Buyer: Victor Rios
Seller: Scott T. Rousseau
Date: 05/15/17

470 Roosevelt Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $171,000
Buyer: Teeka R. Bhattarai
Seller: Cohen, Susan, (Estate)
Date: 05/15/17

85 Roosevelt Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $162,000
Buyer: Natalie Hoch
Seller: S&C Homebuyers LLC
Date: 05/17/17

600 Saint James Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $171,000
Buyer: Floyd Collins
Seller: PAK Properties LLC
Date: 05/18/17

44 Seymour Ave.
Springfield, MA 01109
Amount: $119,900
Buyer: Osos Groms LLC
Seller: Richard W. Debour
Date: 05/25/17

99 Slumber Lane
Springfield, MA 01128
Amount: $196,000
Buyer: Mary A. Ross
Seller: Dagostino, Pierina, (Estate)
Date: 05/26/17

16 Sullivan St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $126,863
Buyer: James Fiore
Seller: James W. Fiore
Date: 05/16/17

77 Sunnybrook Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $152,500
Buyer: Lorraine R. Desouza
Seller: Alphonse C. Morris
Date: 05/23/17

17 Thornfell St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Amount: $119,900
Buyer: Francine M. Poulin
Seller: Mary E. Larrivee
Date: 05/18/17

94 Tiffany St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $166,000
Buyer: Scott Brubach
Seller: Clifford D. Resnick
Date: 05/16/17

132 Tiffany St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Amount: $248,000
Buyer: Theodora N. Chitemerere
Seller: Moltenbrey Builders LLC
Date: 05/22/17

92 Tulsa St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $179,900
Buyer: Alicia Farrington
Seller: Steven Ruggiero
Date: 05/25/17

167 West Allen Ridge Road
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $129,500
Buyer: Marceina Purdie
Seller: Jaroslaw P. Topolewski
Date: 05/17/17

29 Wheeler Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Amount: $115,250
Buyer: William J. Hayes
Seller: USA VA
Date: 05/26/17

1930 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $515,000
Buyer: 1930 Wilbraham Road RT
Seller: United Bank
Date: 05/19/17

211-213 William St.
Springfield, MA 01105
Amount: $170,000
Buyer: Christian E. Auden
Seller: Michael P. Holmes
Date: 05/24/17

147 Wollaston St.
Springfield, MA 01119
Amount: $214,000
Buyer: Jessica Panetta
Seller: Carlos F. Serrazina
Date: 05/19/17

83 Woodcrest Road
Springfield, MA 01129
Amount: $199,900
Buyer: Mary E. Hluska
Seller: Susan Santaniello
Date: 05/24/17

WALES

16 Stafford Road
Wales, MA 01081
Amount: $221,000
Buyer: Herbert A. Cook
Seller: Henry F. Decoteau
Date: 05/19/17

WEST SPRINGFIELD

18 Ames Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $156,000
Buyer: Brittany R. Sweet
Seller: FNMA
Date: 05/15/17

221 Birnie Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $296,500
Buyer: Robert P. Szmania
Seller: Timothy A. Payne
Date: 05/26/17

58 Calvin St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $169,000
Buyer: Moo K. Paw
Seller: Raymond R. Gadreault
Date: 05/26/17

183 Greystone Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $350,000
Buyer: Thomas M. Knowland
Seller: Rina Lavoie
Date: 05/22/17

66 Jensen Circle
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $167,900
Buyer: Jennifer A. Lee
Seller: Charles J. Keohane
Date: 05/22/17

114 Lantern Lane
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $184,200
Buyer: John C. Lightcap
Seller: Christina Toma
Date: 05/26/17

39 Merrick St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $299,000
Buyer: Dinesh Mainali
Seller: Sergey Savonin
Date: 05/15/17

23 Pleasant St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: RKL Financial Corp.
Seller: Yaroslav Pikulyak
Date: 05/22/17

31 Railroad St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Tiago Moreira
Seller: MS Homes LLC
Date: 05/24/17

7 Riverview Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $205,000
Buyer: William D. Crigger
Seller: Ryan Martin
Date: 05/25/17

31 Russell St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $153,000
Buyer: Tiago Moreira
Seller: Walter J. Harrison
Date: 05/24/17

268 Sawmill Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Norberto Santana
Seller: Bart T. O’Connor
Date: 05/25/17

61 Silver St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $196,000
Buyer: Steve N. Velasquez
Seller: Thomas M. Knowland
Date: 05/22/17

78 Tatham Hill Road
West Springfield, MA 01089
Amount: $230,000
Buyer: Megan E. Stopa
Seller: Bernardicius, Edna S., (Estate)
Date: 05/15/17

WESTFIELD

122 Adams St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $218,000
Buyer: Sara L. Gallagher
Seller: Daniel J. Bednarz
Date: 05/26/17

12 Clinton Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $149,900
Buyer: Kevin Fecteau
Seller: G&G Homesavers LLC
Date: 05/22/17

75 Eastwood Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $326,900
Buyer: Jake T. Hagelstein
Seller: Michael F. Messier
Date: 05/17/17

5 Ellsworth St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $163,000
Buyer: Ulysses Wannamaker
Seller: Wilmington Savings
Date: 05/19/17

5 Forest Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $127,100
Buyer: Citimortgage Inc.
Seller: Walter G. Kosla
Date: 05/25/17

7 Fritz Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Susan E. Grabowski
Seller: Stacy S. Boisseau
Date: 05/18/17

30 Hopkins Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $190,000
Buyer: Douglas M. Sudnick
Seller: Brian R. Sullivan
Date: 05/17/17

74 Joseph Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $191,500
Buyer: Zoraida Fontanez
Seller: Thomas K. Reynolds
Date: 05/16/17

1 Kelly Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $410,000
Buyer: Parviz Ansari
Seller: Richard J. Kane
Date: 05/17/17

19 Lynnwood Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $250,000
Buyer: Kristan M. Leclair
Seller: Kristen M. Lemoi
Date: 05/19/17

117 Montgomery St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Christopher J. Gottardi
Seller: Anne Norton-Graffum
Date: 05/15/17

265 North Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $275,000
Buyer: Bobby W. Hobbs
Seller: Cheryl A. Johnson
Date: 05/22/17

73 Old Farm Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $218,000
Buyer: Scott G. Peterson
Seller: Stephen J. Jocelyn
Date: 05/15/17

22 Pearl St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $157,500
Buyer: Wilmington Savings
Seller: Cheryl A. Mcgrath
Date: 05/26/17

96 Pine St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $165,000
Buyer: David Therrien
Seller: Rodney L. Gallagher
Date: 05/26/17

23 Plantation Circle
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $367,000
Buyer: Daniel J. Bednarz
Seller: Laura L. Arena
Date: 05/26/17

303 Pochassic Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Sergey Prokoshev
Seller: Keith E. Limnell
Date: 05/19/17

73 Rogers Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $196,000
Buyer: Tyler J. Kozik
Seller: Beaulieu, Roland R., (Estate)
Date: 05/19/17

94 Sandy Hill Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Michael Kubasek
Seller: Jacqueline M. Ayr
Date: 05/26/17

15 Scenic Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $295,000
Buyer: Kristin A. Pierce
Seller: Guy E. Larkins
Date: 05/26/17

42 Whispering Wind Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $580,000
Buyer: Mark A. Arena
Seller: Jason E. Freeman
Date: 05/26/17

259 Valley View Dr.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $178,500
Buyer: Patricia Steele-Perkins
Seller: Kevin Irujo
Date: 05/15/17

2 Walker Ave.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $310,000
Buyer: Daniel S. Lauber
Seller: David J. Bishop
Date: 05/19/17

96 White St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Amount: $149,900
Buyer: Scott A. Graves
Seller: Joanne M. Paquette
Date: 05/19/17

WILBRAHAM

2823-2825 Boston Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $395,000
Buyer: 881 Properties LLC
Seller: ESSS LLC
Date: 05/18/17

3244 Boston Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $152,500
Buyer: Jacob A. Duda
Seller: Mya Realty LLC
Date: 05/19/17

11 Butler Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $122,100
Buyer: Anouk RT
Seller: Wells Fargo Bank
Date: 05/25/17

1 Greenwood Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $305,000
Buyer: Daniel Reuter
Seller: Karen Ladd
Date: 05/26/17

4 Lance Lane
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $269,900
Buyer: Gary R. Woods
Seller: Ronald M. Cameron
Date: 05/25/17

22 Oldwood Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $324,900
Buyer: Zachary D. Depace
Seller: Claire S. O’Connor
Date: 05/25/17

29 Pleasant View Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $400,000
Buyer: Anthony J. Verrochi
Seller: Robert L. Roy
Date: 05/23/17

916 Stony Hill Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Katherine L. Bousquet
Seller: Joseph M. Varney
Date: 05/18/17

1235 Stony Hill Road
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Amount: $202,500
Buyer: Patricia M. McCullough
Seller: Ann M. Dooley
Date: 05/26/17

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY

AMHERST

1325 Bay Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $262,500
Buyer: Annabelle M. Keil
Seller: David Pomerantz
Date: 05/16/17

44 Chapel Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Paul A. Schroeder
Seller: Clark, James H., (Estate)
Date: 05/26/17

145 Columbia Dr.
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $270,000
Buyer: Paul J. Collins
Seller: Raymond A. Jacque
Date: 05/25/17

32 Emily Lane
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $560,000
Buyer: Jonathan H. Marsh
Seller: Richard D. O’Brien
Date: 05/24/17

84 Harlow Dr.
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $305,000
Buyer: Robert E. Mitrowski
Seller: Josef G. Trapani
Date: 05/22/17

260 Leverett Road
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $759,995
Buyer: Kevin M. O’Brien
Seller: Pocomo Road NT
Date: 05/19/17

17 Morgan Circle
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $284,000
Buyer: Robert Salvini
Seller: Siamak Vahdat
Date: 05/18/17

57 Oak Knoll St.
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $727,000
Buyer: Yin C. Lin
Seller: Anna Markus
Date: 05/22/17

6 Whippletree Lane
Amherst, MA 01002
Amount: $407,000
Buyer: Lauren Westafer
Seller: Richard R. Pastorello
Date: 05/23/17

BELCHERTOWN

511 Allen Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $185,500
Buyer: Cynthia Lamacchia
Seller: Home Equity Assets Realty
Date: 05/15/17

260 Bay Road
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $560,000
Buyer: Robert E. Carter
Seller: P. Leonie Wallace
Date: 05/22/17

66 Dressel Ave.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $125,000
Buyer: Mark J. Vickers
Seller: Daniel J. Darcy
Date: 05/19/17

37 Fletcher Ave.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $374,000
Buyer: John H. Speek
Seller: Joseph C. Black
Date: 05/26/17

3 North Main St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: William J. Bartow
Seller: Janet L. Owen
Date: 05/22/17

169 Rockrimmon St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $379,900
Buyer: Hal E. Schneider
Seller: William E. Wallace
Date: 05/19/17

152 Sargent St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $292,500
Buyer: Sabrina Caballero
Seller: Diversified Construction Services
Date: 05/24/17

420 State St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Amount: $260,000
Buyer: Gumcheol Kang
Seller: Daniel A. Barroso
Date: 05/24/17

CUMMINGTON

42 Powell Road
Cummington, MA 01026
Amount: $231,000
Buyer: Joseph Urbanowski
Seller: Merritt Int
Date: 05/16/17

EASTHAMPTON

14 Crescent St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $240,000
Buyer: Kathryn E. Delisle
Seller: Carol A. Whiteley
Date: 05/18/17

12 Kania St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $272,000
Buyer: Michael J. Lannon
Seller: Peter Harand
Date: 05/15/17

6 Maxine Circle
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Corey Plucker
Seller: Valentyna Semyrog
Date: 05/26/17

24 Plymouth Ave.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $260,500
Buyer: Kevin B. Mulligan
Seller: M. Elisabrth Sawyer
Date: 05/26/17

17 Spring St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $239,000
Buyer: Christopher Lee
Seller: Jacqueline Steinbock
Date: 05/23/17

2 West Park Dr.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Amount: $199,500
Buyer: Shelly J. Nichols
Seller: Richard G. O’Loughlin
Date: 05/26/17

GRANBY

63 Ferry Hill Road
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $500,000
Buyer: Elise Gouge
Seller: Benjamin F. Levy
Date: 05/25/17

7 Greystone Ave.
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Brian P. Coffey
Seller: John F. Deshais
Date: 05/15/17

111 Munsing Ridge
Granby, MA 01033
Amount: $422,900
Buyer: Roger L. Cohen
Seller: JCP Capital Group LLC
Date: 05/26/17

HADLEY

303 Russell St.
Hadley, MA 01035
Amount: $1,000,000
Buyer: 1836 Development Ent. LLC
Seller: Richard J. Kicza
Date: 05/16/17

HATFIELD

176 Linseed Road
Hatfield, MA 01088
Amount: $341,000
Buyer: MTGLQ Investors LP
Seller: Kimberly M. Castillon
Date: 05/15/17

133 Main St.
Hatfield, MA 01038
Amount: $259,000
Buyer: Sherri A. Waslick
Seller: Tyrone Lorenzo
Date: 05/25/17

2 Old Stage Road
Hatfield, MA 01088
Amount: $325,000
Buyer: Melissa Zanvettor
Seller: Paul G. Davis
Date: 05/26/17

MIDDLEFIELD

157 Chipman Road
Middlefield, MA 01243
Amount: $350,000
Buyer: Judith Lundgren
Seller: Claire Montgomery
Date: 05/16/17

NORTHAMPTON

236 Chesterfield Road
Northampton, MA 01053
Amount: $318,000
Buyer: Anthony A. Fishel
Seller: Gary R. Theroux
Date: 05/16/17

28 Deerfield Dr.
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $188,000
Buyer: Brian J. Mannherz
Seller: Deutsche Bank
Date: 05/26/17

45 Ford Xing
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $496,995
Buyer: Douglas G. Beattie
Seller: Sturbridge Dev. LLC
Date: 05/19/17

24 High St.
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $320,000
Buyer: Caitlin M. Elsaesser
Seller: William J. Fennessey
Date: 05/24/17

42 Laurel Park
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $126,000
Buyer: Edward J. Stamas
Seller: Norma Roche
Date: 05/22/17

117 Laurel Park
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $168,500
Buyer: Angela Lafrance
Seller: Michelle Marchese
Date: 05/17/17

86 Lyman Road
Northampton, MA 01063
Amount: $315,000
Buyer: Kenneth D. Arnold
Seller: Gary T. Arnold
Date: 05/26/17

55 Main St.
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $400,000
Buyer: Cumberland Farms Inc.
Seller: James G. Mailloux
Date: 05/23/17

190 North Elm St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $389,900
Buyer: Lindsay R. Barron
Seller: Pantar Home Solutions LLC
Date: 05/25/17

332 North Farms Road
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $305,000
Buyer: Kenneth R. Murdock
Seller: Gary M. Warner
Date: 05/26/17

812 North King St.
Northampton, MA 01060
Amount: $175,000
Buyer: Danielle Mimitz
Seller: Melissa A. Zanvettor
Date: 05/26/17

315 Sylvester Road
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $326,000
Buyer: J. Carter Dunn
Seller: FNMA
Date: 05/19/17

190 West Farms Road
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $335,000
Buyer: Molly L. McLoughlin
Seller: Linda A. Chastain
Date: 05/26/17

850 Westhampton Road
Northampton, MA 01062
Amount: $215,000
Buyer: Lisa K. Davis
Seller: Mortgage Guaranty Ins.
Date: 05/25/17

PELHAM

41 Harkness Road
Pelham, MA 01002
Amount: $265,000
Buyer: Joseph Dragun-Bianchi
Seller: Jane Wagenbach-Booth
Date: 05/25/17

SOUTH HADLEY

79 Alvord St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $300,000
Buyer: Neal J. Quesnel
Seller: James E. Quesnel
Date: 05/24/17

164 Granby Road
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Russell Wilson
Seller: Roger L. Cohen
Date: 05/19/17

10 Harwich Place
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $208,000
Buyer: Kyle M. Grumoli
Seller: Donald E. Reed
Date: 05/26/17

10 Jewett Lane
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $305,000
Buyer: Robert J. Pleasure
Seller: Jean Grossholtz
Date: 05/15/17

3 Lincoln Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $219,000
Buyer: F. Villaroel-Ordenes
Seller: Howard B. Gaunt
Date: 05/25/17

150 Lyman St.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $340,000
Buyer: Joanne I. Delong LT
Seller: Russell H. Marion
Date: 05/26/17

7 Ralph Ave.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $180,000
Buyer: Nicholas M. Remillard
Seller: Kristina Deome
Date: 05/17/17

20 Riverlodge Road
South Hadley, MA 01075
Amount: $395,900
Buyer: Michael J. Lynch
Seller: Patrick J. Spring
Date: 05/26/17

SOUTHAMPTON

5 Halons Way
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $430,000
Buyer: Charles Jendrysik
Seller: F&G Development Corp.
Date: 05/26/17

24 Helen Dr.
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $393,000
Buyer: Jody Lemoi
Seller: Ding Z. Chen
Date: 05/19/17

30 Helen Dr.
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $480,125
Buyer: Brian R. Sullivan
Seller: David Garstka Builders
Date: 05/26/17

16 Wolcott Road
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $255,000
Buyer: Raymond M. Welch
Seller: Donald M. Puza
Date: 05/25/17

Woodmar Lane
Southampton, MA 01073
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: David Garstka Builders
Seller: Chester J. Kellogg
Date: 05/26/17

WARE

29 Fisherdick Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: Amanda M. Young
Seller: Belspring RT
Date: 05/15/17

32 Greenwich Road
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $130,000
Buyer: Iline K. Logan
Seller: Catherine A. King
Date: 05/15/17

32 Maple Ave.
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $132,000
Buyer: Connie Leung
Seller: Michael A. Radzick
Date: 05/15/17

5 Parkhill Ave.
Ware, MA 01082
Amount: $150,000
Buyer: John M. Dwyer
Seller: Ellen C. Laflamme
Date: 05/17/17

WESTHAMPTON

235 Northwest Road
Westhampton, MA 01027
Amount: $590,000
Buyer: Kenneth Andrews
Seller: Michael J. Lannon
Date: 05/15/17

WILLIAMSBURG

19 Goshen Road
Williamsburg, MA 01096
Amount: $145,000
Buyer: Jon D. Oligino
Seller: MHFA
Date: 05/19/17

15 Main St.
Williamsburg, MA 01096
Amount: $467,637
Buyer: Chapter 2 LLC
Seller: Nancy L. Basler
Date: 05/23/17

28 Mountain St.
Williamsburg, MA 01062
Amount: $330,500
Buyer: Eric C. Schmitt
Seller: Karen J. Desalvio
Date: 05/15/17

31 Petticoat Hill Road
Williamsburg, MA 01096
Amount: $348,000
Buyer: Diana Chaplin
Seller: Jeffrey D. Igneri
Date: 05/16/17

WORTHINGTON

2 Fritz Road
Worthington, MA 01098
Amount: $247,200
Buyer: Jeannette E. Hawley
Seller: Jeffrey A. Eddy
Date: 05/26/17

222 West St.
Worthington, MA 01098
Amount: $137,000
Buyer: Ann Lagoy
Seller: Irene T. Douillard
Date: 05/19/17

Agawam Is Building a Bridge to a Better Future

Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

A $31.5 million project to replace the Morgan/Sullivan Bridge would create a new and improved gateway into Agawam.

Richard Cohen is now halfway through his 16th year as mayor of Agawam — a tenure marked by four two-year terms, a two-year hiatus of sorts, and then four more terms. (And, yes, he’s seeking a ninth term this fall.)

For that duration, if you will, he’s been coping with many of the same issues impacting this community of roughly 29,000, which is technically a city (hence, it has a mayor), but in most ways considers itself a town. In fact, that’s the word you see over the front door of the municipal offices on Main Street, just a few hundred yards from where most of these ‘issues’ are clustered.

“These are complex matters … there are no easy answers, and that’s why we’ve been dealing with some of them for 15 to 20 years or more,” said the mayor, referring to concerns that include the Morgan/Sullivan Bridge over the Westfield River that forms a border with West Springfield and serves as the gateway in the community.

The bridge, built nearly 70 years ago, has long been inadequate to handle the traffic in that area — especially during the 17 days of the Big E each fall — and plans to replace it have been on the drawing board for years.

That list also includes what has long been known simply as the FoodMart Plaza, located just north of the bridge. FoodMart anchored the plaza more than a decade ago, but after it closed just after the start of this century, filling the retail area has been an ongoing challenge for the community. It also includes a stretch of road known as Walnut Street Extension (it borders the FoodMart Plaza), which is most often described with the words ‘old’ and ‘tired,’ which have been used, well, since Cohen first took office.

And there’s the so-called Lanes and Games property (on Walnut Street Extension), which has been long-closed, an eyesore, and a subject of considerable controversy for most of Cohen’s tenure in the corner office.

As he talked with BusinessWest recently, Cohen was still discussing these same issues, although, in many instances, he was relating what he considers progress and the sentiment that, sometime soon, some of these matters might just be addressed in the past tense.

This new bridge is something that’s long overdue and definitely needed. It’s going to be very complicated when it starts, but the end result will enhance all of the gateways to Agawam and West Springfield.”

Start with the bridge. Designs for a new span, complete with a unique, elevated pedestrian walkway and dedicated bicycle lanes, are now complete, said Cohen, adding that the project should go to bid in August, preliminary work will be underway later this year, and construction should begin in earnest nest spring.

Like most infrastructure projects of this type, this $31.5 million initiative, to be funded with state and federal dollars and undertaken in conjunction with West Springfield, will bring some inconveniences during what is projected to be a three-year construction period, said the mayor. But in the end, it will generate much smoother traffic flow and a far more appealing gateway to the city.

“This new bridge is something that’s long overdue and definitely needed,” he said. “It’s going to be very complicated when it starts, but the end result will enhance all of the gateways to Agawam and West Springfield.”

The FoodMart Plaza, meanwhile, has several new tenants (more on them later), and is bringing more people and vibrancy to the community, he said.

As for the Games & Lanes property, if you’re an optimist, there is some light at the end of the tunnel there. Property owner David Peter, president of Site Redevelopment Technologies, recently informed city officials that the site, long hamstrung by environmental issues in the form of groundwater contamination, is now clean and ready for reuse.

Whether the development community has any interest in the property in its current state remains to be seen, but if it doesn’t, Peter said, he will tear down the structure and then attempt to sell the land.

But for Walnut Street Extension as a whole, it’s more a case of going back to the drawing board.

Indeed, this spring, the City Council unanimously rejected a $5.3 million streetscape-improvement project for that area. Cohen then scaled the project back somewhat, with a $3.6 million initiative, but that, too, was rejected unanimously by the council.

Following these setbacks, Cohen created something called the business modernization advisory committee, which will conduct a needs assessment of the area just over the bridge, including Walnut Street Extension, Suffield Street, and Main Street, and recommend a course of action moving forward.

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest looks at how this community is finally achieving some progress with some of its long-standing issues, but still has considerable work to do.

Coming to a Crossroads

In the run-up to the vote on the Walnut Street Extension plan, Cohen put the well-worn line from Field of Dreams — “If you build it, they will come” — to work as he made his case for the initiative and what it might mean for that area, which has a number of retail establishments, but bears a look from the ’60s or ’70s, not 2017.

And in voting it down, the council, and especially its president, James Cichetti, who is now a candidate for mayor, threw it right back at him.

“This is a great movie line, but really cannot be the basis of our capital planning, can it?” Cichetti wrote in his weekly Council Corner column as he criticized the mayor’s plan for being little more than cosmetic changes, with little, if anything, in it concerning business development or revitalization of the Games & Lanes property.

But Cohen, who chalked up the council’s votes to election-year politics more than anything else, has used that movie line often over the years, and he says there is ample evidence that it is more than catchy rhetoric.

gameslanes

Redevelopment of the Games & Lanes property, top, is considered one of the keys to revitalization of the Walnut Street Extension retail corridor, above.

Indeed, he cited examples ranging from several new parks and park-restoration efforts the city has undertaken, to the now much-more-crowded parking lot at the FoodMart Plaza, to a new laundromat that opened in a spot just over the Morgan/Sullivan Bridge once occupied by Dunkin’ Donuts. Called Stay & Play, the state-of-the-art facility features play areas for children (and adults) and other amenities, and has been a popular spot since it opened.

And then, there’s the pickleball facilities at Borgatti Field. The game, described as a cross between tennis, table tennis, and badminton, and played with a wooden paddle and a plastic Wiffle ball, has caught fire in Agawam, said the mayor, who told BusinessWest that he was one of many people who needed to be told what this game was and how it was played when the courts were first proposed, and now he gives tutorials to the curious.

“Those pickleball courts are so heavily used, I had some people in here the other day looking to add more courts,” he noted. “It’s huge … people are coming from all over to play here.”

Despite these examples of facilities and businesses being built and people coming to various destinations in Agawam, Walnut Street Extension, and especially the Games & Lanes property, remains a case that will test that theory.

As noted earlier, that area has been a thorny challenge since the start of this century. There are more than two dozen businesses in that area, but, as noted, the street has a dated look and feel to it and is sorely in need of a spark.

It could come in the form of redevelopment of the Games & Lanes property, which is ready for reuse (although that appears to be a daunting proposition) or complete redevelopment.

“The building itself is stable,” the mayor said of the Quonset hut-like structure. “The outer layers are greatly deteriorated, but the site itself is now clean — it’s a viable site for resale.”

Walnut Street Extension is one of the key focal points of the most recent strategic plan for the community, drafted in 2010, said Marc Strange, Agawam’s director of Planning & Community Development.

Its location, just over the bridge and off several major thoroughfares, makes it an obvious priority, he told BusinessWest, and a likely catalyst for further developments in the city.

“The architecture is old and disjointed, and the area needs to be freshened up,” he said, adding that the engineering firm Tighe & Bond was hired to come up with a streetscape plan — the one that was rejected by the City Council.

“This was a missed opportunity — I believe our plan would have greatly enhanced that area for the businesses there,” said Cohen. “But we’re not giving up.”

The mayor said he is optimistic that the business modernization advisory committee can create a game plan for that area that will win the City Council’s approval and, more importantly, achieve desired progress, especially with the new bridge and its capacity to make that section of Agawam more accessible.

Strange agreed. “There is great inertia in that area, with the bridge project, the Colvest Group’s investment in the city, and other initiatives,” he said. “And the business modernization committee has been charged with coming up with ways to capture that inertia, and we think there’s good stuff coming.”

Another priority identified by that strategic plan is still another stubborn issue within the community — development of a large parcel off Tennis Road just off Route 57.

Mayor Richard Cohen says Agawam is generating progress with many of the challenging issues that have dominated his 16-year tenure as mayor.

This matter actually pre-dates his tenure as mayor, said Cohen, adding that a high asking price on the part of the parcel’s owner and anxiety among voters concerning its best use have kept it from being developed.

However, there remains strong interest in the property, and there is potential for progress, said Strange.

“It’s a spectacular location for a regional destination,” he told BusinessWest, adding a broker is trying to identify big-box stores that may serve as anchors on the property.

Getting Down to Business

While the community grapples with larger issues such as the bridge, Walnut Street Extension, and Tennis Road, several smaller projects are in various stages of development, and together, they represent both progress and optimism within the community, said Cohen.

He started with that aforementioned new vibrancy in the FoodMart Plaza. There have been several recent additions, including Building 451, Macho Taco, Aquarius Hydroponics, and a cigar lounge and smoke shop, he said, adding that these new arrivals are bringing more traffic to the area and filling a parking lot that has been mostly empty in recent years.

“I drove by there recently on my way to the high-school graduation, and the parking lot was just humming with people; it was packed,” said Cohen, adding that the only vacancy of note (and a large one, to be sure) is the former satellite location of the Greater Springfield YMCA. He added quickly that there is considerable interest in that location, including a few pub-like establishments.

Meanwhile, there may be more new development in the area just over the bridge. The Colvest Group, which is developing a retail and office complex just a few miles east on Memorial Drive in West Springfield, has acquired a former motel on Suffield Street and some adjacent properties.

No plans have been announced, but Cohen noted that the company has a strong track record for developing successful retail and mixed-use properties (it already developed a CVS in Agawam), and there are hopes — and expectations — that the intersection just over the bridge will be the site of the next one.

Also, an already established, and growing, retail area — the intersection of Route 187 and Springfield Street, not far from where the multi-lane section of Route 57 ends — is due for a much-needed facelift.

The intersection will be expanded to accommodate more traffic and create better traffic flow, said Cohen, adding that the work is sorely needed and should help a number of new businesses in that area.

“This will be a monumental redesign of that whole intersection, with specified turn lanes, widening, and signalization improvements,” said the mayor, noting that, while Agawam and other communities will continue to advocate for the extension of Route 57 into Southwick (something they’ve done for 40 years now), they understand that such a project is a very long shot, and will continue to find ways to live with and improve the current infrastructure.

Other recent additions and improvements, including everything from an $8.1 million track and sports complex at Agawam High School to a new dog park to those pickleball courts, are making the community more livable and attractive to people of all ages, said Cohen.

As evidence, he cited the city’s recent designation as both an AARP-friendly community and a ‘dementia-friendly community.’

“I’m excited about where we are and we’re going,” said Cohen as he summed up matters in his town. “We have something for everyone.”

Bottom Line

Referring to his frequent use of that classic quote from Field of Dreams, Cohen said it’s much more than a line from a 30-year-old movie.

It’s a mindset of sorts, he said, and a roadmap for putting some issues that have been plaguing the community for decades into the realm of the past.

It’s already happened with several parks, the FoodMart Plaza, and even the new laundromat. And it can happen, he believes, with Walnut Street Extension, the Games & Lanes property, and the larger gateway to the city.

“‘If you build it, they will come’ — it’s not just a line from a movie, it’s a fact,” said the mayor, adding that he hopes to provide the City Council, and the community as whole, with much more evidence of that in the months and years to come.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Agawam at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1761
Population: 28,976 (2016)
Area: 24.2 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $16.18
Commercial Tax Rate: $29.98
Median Household Income: $63,682
Median Family Income: $72,258
Type of Government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: OMG Inc., Agawam Public Schools, Six Flags New England
* Latest information available

Elms DNP Graduate to Present Paper at International Conference

CHICOPEE — Grace LaValley, who earned her doctor of nursing practice (DNP) degree in the inaugural DNP class at Elms College, had a paper accepted to the American Assoc. of Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR) for a podium presentation at AACVPR’s 32nd annual meeting in October, where it is a candidate for the conference’s Beginner Investigator Award.

The paper Lavalley will present at the AACVPR conference was her capstone project in the DNP program at Elms College. Each DNP student is required to complete a scholarly capstone project that contributes to the field of nursing. The project topics are related to the areas of nursing where they currently work or areas in which they have a particular interest.

Lavalley’s project earned her the 2017 DNP Capstone Award from Elms College, which honors a DNP student who has developed a distinguished capstone project that demonstrates scholarly rigor, innovation, and outcomes that improve health or health-related outcomes for a specific population, and has the potential to advance nursing science, practice, or policy.

The paper is titled “A Telephone Intervention to Improve Patient Return Rates in Cardiac Rehabilitation: A Pilot Study” and focuses on cardiac rehabilitation, or CR.

“Cardiovascular disease accounts for 17.3 million deaths per year, a number projected to reach 23.6 million by 2030,” Lavalley said. CR improves patient outcomes and reduces risk in the earlier post-discharge period, but it remains highly underused, she added. Despite its benefits, many patients are at risk for not following the CR program, for a variety of reasons.

She and her colleagues decided to investigate whether a telephone call focused on patient motivation, education, risks, and goal setting would improve return rates among patients identified as at risk for non-adherence to the CR program.

“Telephone interventions are known to be an important tool to provide support and help overcome barriers after discharge,” she noted.

They studied 100 patients in Baystate Medical Center’s outpatient CR program and found that those who received the telephone call were more likely to attend their second session of CR as scheduled, compared with patients who did not receive this intervention (80% versus 51%). The overall return rate was higher in the intervention group as well.

“This straightforward strategy represents an attractive adjunct to current management of outpatient CR patients,” she said.

Lavalley’s coauthors are Heidi Szalai, Dr. Quinn Pack, and Andrew Storer, associate professor of Nursing at Elms. Their paper will be published in the September/October 2017 issue of the AACVPR’s Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention.

Storer was the capstone chair for Lavalley’s project; he supervised the project from the development stage through implementation and analysis. The project, he said, “has made a positive impact in the quality of care for the patients, institutions, and communities served.”

Added Lavalley, “this project may be of great value to other cardiac rehab programs around the nation, particularly in this complex healthcare environment,” Lavalley said.

For Sale, for Lease

Commercial Real Estate Sections

A listing of available Commercial Properties

View the PDF chart HERE

Bankruptcies

Bankruptcies Departments

The following bankruptcy petitions were recently filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Readers should confirm all information with the court.

Abt, William Francis
18 Ward Ave.
South Deerfield, MA 01373
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/17/17

Aiken, Holly N.
225 Meadow St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Akinyi, Bella A.
88 Crest Lane
Granville, MA 01034
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Alicea, Luis Alberto
Alicea, Wanda
195 Starling Road
Springfield, MA 01119
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 05/30/17

Andre, Lenna
137 Vienna Ave.
Ludlow, MA 01056
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/13/17

Bassani, Deborah Ann
44 Allison Lane
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Beauregard, Gail Ann
24 Athol Road
Warwick, MA 01378
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/19/17

Bellany, Christopher J.
140 L St., Apt D
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Beynor, Gail J.
1150 Thorndike St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Blais, Karen E.
194 Shawmut St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/25/17

Blais, Marcel Roger
80 Oregon St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 05/22/17

Bruscoe, Jeffrey J.
108 West St.
West Hatfield, MA 01088
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 05/30/17

Bushay, Louis Robert Muise
87 Congress St.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/07/17

Caruso, Michael F.
28 Boyce St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/19/17

Center Auto Sales
Unsderfer, James L.
165 Fiberloid St.
Indian Orchard, MA 01151
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/27/17

Chesky, Phillip A.
12 West Parkview Dr.
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/17

Coleman, Brian
9 Templest, Apt. 606
Springfield, MA 01105
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Connor, Susanne Pauline
4 Stillbrook Lane
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Copland, Thomas S.
134 Ely Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/20/17

Coppa, Robert Lee
P.O. Box 1981
Westfield, MA 01086
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/17

Crawford, James Eugene
54 Kelso Ave.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Crump, Lorraine
184 Thompson St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/13/17

Cuellar, Theresa Lynn
76 Riverboat Village Road
South Hadley, MA 01075
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Curto, Anthony T.
293 Suffield St.
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/17

de Carlo, Carol Gertrude
a/k/a deCarlo Wheeler, Carol Gertrude
167 Pineywoods Ave.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/19/17

Degonzaque, Rose
34 Reed St. – Apt 1
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/12/17

DJ Wheeler Realty
Artisans Under the Sun
Wheeler, Donald James
P.O. Box 654
Agawam, MA 01001-0654
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/19/17

Dubois, Jeremy T.
43 River Road
Sturbridge, MA 01566
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Dulude, Joseph Leo
25 Wilson Ave.
Northampton, MA 01060
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 05/23/17

Fabrizi, Bertha Irene
15 Shirley St.
Wilbraham, MA 01095
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/08/17

Fisher, Jolene Marie
36 Robbins Road
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/24/17

Flores, Ricardo Fabian
57 Little Nahant Road
Nahant, MA 01908
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/20/17

Franta, Dennis T.
PO Box 3
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Gagnon, George D.
194 Walnut St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Gangell, Richard Paul
49 Bay State Road
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Gent, Rebecca Lynn
17 Falcon Circle
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/17

Gloss De Velazquez, Ydelsa E.
133 Springfield St.
Springfield, MA 01107
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/17

Grillo, Lydia
a/k/a Chin, Lydia
4 Moss Lane
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/17

Guzik, Sondra
52 Magnolia Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/22/17

Harvey, Michael R.
182 Northampton St., A
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/24/17

Hight, Anna Louise
98 Maple St., #2
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/02/17

Hillard, Katie A.
32 Ed Holcomb Road
Southwick, MA 01077
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/18/17

Hillenbrand, Meggan Anne
150 Fountain St.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/15/17

Hurley, Ann
130 Connecticut Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/13/17

Ibrahim, Erin Myers
a/k/a Myers, Erin
468 Gifford St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/23/17

Jackson, Cedric
58 Roosevelt Terrace
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/06/17

Jenny’s Cleaning Service
Cizek, Jennifer Lynne
95 Morton St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/15/17

Jones, Harvene A.
a/k/a Mitchell, Harvene A.
19 Lawndale St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Juliano-Nadolny, Joann
144 Hendom Dr.
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/12/17

Kapinos, Joseph T.
Kapinos, Carolyn M.
PO Box 922
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/30/17

Kellogg, Catherine J.
7 Walnut St.
Great Barrington, MA 01230
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/17

Langford, Martin
a/k/a Langford, Marty
33 Norman Terrace
Feeding Hills, MA 01030
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/17

LeBlanc, Lonnie D.
654 Sanders St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 05/26/17

Lynn, Shauna
39 Main St.
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/10/17

MacDonald, Melissa Ann
139 Tiffany St.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/17/17

Mansfield, Sean E.
36 Hunt Seat Dr.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/03/17

Martin, Joseph R.
PO Box 262
Westfield, MA 01086
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Mayock, Frederick O.
83 Yorktown Dr.
Springfield, MA 01108
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

McNeil Research Associates
McNeil, Katherine Julia
101 Edgewood Ave.
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/24/17

Miller, Barbara Susan
174 Briar Way
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/17

Modern Day Scribe, LLC
Domenichelli, Nancy A.
48 Grandview St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Monette, Jeanette M.
a/k/a Sterniak, Jeanette M.
134 College St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/17/17

Moran, Francis Joseph
a/k/a Moran, Frank
169 Slumber Lane
Springfield, MA 01128
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/26/17

Moran, Rhonda Lee
169 Slumber Lane
Springfield, MA 01128
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/26/17

Norman, William Robert
Norman, Christina Marie
a/k/a Gibson, Christina
98 Everett St.
Easthampton, MA 01027
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/24/17

Nowicki, Paul A.
105 North St.
North Adams, MA 01247
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/17

O’Connor, Amy R.
O’Connor, Douglas T.
28 Chartier Dr.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

O’Gorman, Kathleen
912A Creamery Road
Ashfield, MA 01330
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/19/17

Orcutt, Bonnie J.
1251 Saint James Ave.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/02/17

Pabon, Ana D.
118 Victoria St.
Springfield, MA 01104
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/23/17

Patterson, Ronald Arthur
91 Manor Court
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Perrea, Trista M.
107 Pinehurst St.
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/19/17

Peters, Mark Francis
Peters, Barbara Jean
20 Hampton Ave., Apt 30
Northampton, MA 01060
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/08/17

Popielarczyk, Steven T.
Popielarczyk, Janet M.
103 Old Belchertown Road
Ware, MA 01082
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/17/17

Potter, Candice L.
20 Howes St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/26/17

Reynolds, Priscilla A.
445 River Dr.
Hadley, MA 01035
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/17/17

Ricardi, Theresa Ann
61 Hawthorn St.
Chicopee, MA 01020
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Rice, Linda M.
760 Granville Road
Westfield, MA 01085
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/06/17

Rivera, Keila E.
227 Pine St.
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/12/17

Robbin, Amanda Leah
a/k/a Dodd, Amanda Leah
1327 Riceville Road
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Rossetti, Karen M.
330 Flynt St.
Palmer, MA 01069
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/07/17

Roumeliotis, Nadine Noel
494 School St., Apt. 3
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/14/17

Roussell, Nancy A.
64 Prospect St.
Athol, MA 01331
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Sheehan, Susan I.
25 Breton Lane
Holyoke, MA 01040
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/22/17

Skiffington, William J.
40 Rosemont Ave.
Orange, MA 01364
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/09/17

Skills Career Education
Skills, Inc.
Giambrone, Lawrence N.
150 Fearing St.
Amherst, MA 01002
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Smith, Raymond H.
34 Meadowbrook Manor
Agawam, MA 01001
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Sostre, Milta I.
10 Sara Lynn Dr.
Springfield, MA 01129
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Soto, Josefina
38 Whitman St.
Chicopee, MA 01013
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/30/17

Southwick-Hall, Nicholas G.
54 Pine St.
Belchertown, MA 01007
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Stallone, Jacqueline A.
94 Gillette Circle
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/20/17

Stewart, Rebecca Jean
170 Chapman St.
Greenfield, MA 01301
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/19/17

Szymanski, Charles A.
Szymanski, Catherine J.
PO Box 121
Pittsfield, MA 01202
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/01/17

Tourangeau, Mark A.
192 Harkness Ave.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Vanhorne, Guinevere
21 Prospect St., Apt. 101
Northampton, MA 01060
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Vogel, Robert
Vogel, Betty
75 Morton St.
West Springfield, MA 01089
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Weissman, Gordon R.
174 Abbott St.
Springfield, MA 01118
Chapter: 13
Filing Date: 06/05/17

Williams, Kimberley A.
40 Ionia St.
Springfield, MA 01109
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/22/17

Wood, Glenda Ruth
457 Main Road
Colrain, MA 01340
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Zade, Mariya
42 Henry Ave.
Pittsfield, MA 01201
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Zdonick, Stanley Walter
Zdonick, Jill Elaine
122 Albermarle Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106-2604
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Zdonick, Stanley Walter
Zdonick, Jill Elaine
122 Albermarle Road
Longmeadow, MA 01106
Chapter: 7
Filing Date: 05/31/17

Springfield Regional Chamber Tees Off July 20

SPRINGFIELD — Crestview Country Club in Agawam will be the site of the 2017 Springfield Regional Chamber Golf Tournament on Thursday, July 20.

The club features an 18-hole championship golf course designed by renowned golf course architect Geoffrey Cornish, a graduate of UMass, and featuring panoramic views of the Pioneer Valley and the Connecticut River. It has played host to the PGA Tour Travelers Championship Open Qualifier in 2015, the CT Section PGA Championship, several U.S. Amateur qualifiers and, most notably, the LPGA Friendly’s Classic.

The tournament will kick off with registration and practice greens opening at 11 a.m. A course-side lunch, sponsored by the MassMutual Center, will be served from 11 until noon, with a shotgun start at 12:30 p.m. The day will conclude with a reception sponsored by Florence Bank, a buffet dinner, and an awards ceremony.

Golfers will enjoy a scramble format, hole-in-one contests, longest-drive and closest-to-the-pin competitions, a putting contest sponsored by Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, and an opportunity to win a wide selection of raffle prizes, including tickets, gift baskets, and gift cards. Golfers will also have the chance to win the use of a fully stocked golf cart for the tournament, complete with snacks, cigars, additional raffle tickets, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and more.

Sponsorship levels for every budget are available, from the premier presenting-sponsor level to scorecard levels, which reward sponsors with their company name showcased on each printed golfer’s scorecard, to the budget-friendly tee-sponsor level.

The tournament entry fee is $600 per foursome (individual golfers are welcome at $150) and includes greens fees, cart, lunch, reception, and souvenir photo. Non-golfers may attend just the reception for $30 per person.

For information on sponsorship opportunities, contact Jeff Lomma at [email protected] or (413) 755-1313. To register for the tournament, visit www.springfieldregionalchamber.com or e-mail Jessica Hill at [email protected].

Company Notebook

Company Notebook Departments

Smith, Watson & Co., LLP to Open Office in Pittsfield

PITTSFIELD — Smith, Watson & Co., LLP, with offices in Great Barrington, North Adams, and Lakeville, Conn., is expanding by adding a Central Berkshire County presence. The new office, at 7 North St. in Pittsfield, will open its doors in July. “Our top priority has always been to meet the needs of our clients,” said Bryon Sherman, managing partner. Sherman, along with fellow CPAs Robin Markey, Kim Whalen, and Colin Smith, are partners in the firm. The firm will continue to serve its clients from its other three offices. Smith Watson is a full-service accounting firm licensed in multiple states offering a broad range of tax, accounting, and consulting services. Smith Watson’s staff of 19 professionals, including seven CPAs, will expand to include several more senior accountants.

UMass Dining Chefs Capture Gold at Competition

AMHERST — UMass Dining took gold for the seventh year in a row at the American Culinary Federation-sanctioned competition held June 9 during the 23rd annual Tastes of the World Culinary Conference at UMass Amherst. UMass Amherst chefs Pamela Adams, Matthia Accurso, Anthony Jung, and Robert Bankert competed against 14 other culinary teams from across the U.S. and Canada. Skidmore College also achieved a gold for its menu.

Country Bank Awards Scholarships to Students

WARE — Officials at Country Bank are pleased to announce the presentation of 15 scholarships in the amount of $2,000 each, to area high-school seniors. Country Bank scholarships were offered to graduating students within the region. The applicants needed to demonstrate a commitment to their communities through volunteerism and leadership by submitting an essay outlining their experiences along with recommendations from their guidance counselors or teachers. A committee of five Country Bank staff selected the recipients after reading more than 100 submissions. Recipients include Cameron Wright, Belchertown High School; Alysse Carpenter, Leicester High School; Fiona Marie O’Sullivan, Ludlow High School; Jordan Baker, Minnechaug Regional High School; Ashley Gurney, Minnechaug Regional High School; Patricia Murphy, Minnechaug Regional High School; Timothy Canning, Palmer High School; Matthew Remillard, Palmer High School; Cise Nur Balik, Quabbin Regional High School; Kerri Stolberg, St. Peter Marian High School; Jessica Rousakos, Shepherd Hill Regional High School; Delaney Giguere, Tantasqua Regional High School; Rachael Farley, Wachusett Regional High School; Julie Anne Goldberg, Wachusett Regional High School; and Makaela Flamand, Ware High School.

Pioneer Valley Credit Union Recognized by Campaign

SPRINGFIELD — Pioneer Valley Credit Union was recognized with the 2017 America Saves Designation of Savings Excellence for its efforts during America Saves Week/Military Saves Week to encourage members to save money. The award is presented each year to financial institutions that succeed in encouraging people to open and add to wealth-building accounts. Just two in five American households report making good or excellent savings progress. America Saves Week is an annual opportunity for people to assess their savings status and make a plan to start or increase their savings and for organizations like banks or credit unions to support good savings behavior. America Saves Week is coordinated each year by America Saves and the American Savings Education Council.

HCC Gateway to College Graduates Largest Class Ever

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College’s (HCC) award-winning Gateway to College program graduated the largest class in its nine-year history June 6, presenting certificates to 33 high-school students who have been taking college courses at HCC. Those students will now collect their diplomas from eight area high schools: Springfield, Holyoke, Westfield, Palmer, Longmeadow, Agawam, Minnechaug, and Belchertown. Among them, the students also amassed a total of 372 transferable college credits, or enough to fulfill the requirements for more than six associate degrees. Gateway to College is a national program that takes high-school dropouts or students at risk for dropping out and gives them the opportunity to earn their high-school diplomas as dual-enrolled college students. “You gave us a second chance when you didn’t have to,” said student speaker Deborah Manus, from Holyoke. “This is the beginning of bigger and bigger things.” The HCC Gateway to College program has consistently been one of the best-performing Gateway programs in the country, earning top marks for GPA, graduation rate, and retention rate. For the second year in a row, the program has received the Excellence Award from the national Gateway to College organization. Since its founding in 2008, HCC’s Gateway to College program has helped 251 students earn their high-school diplomas while also getting an early start on college. More than half have continued onto college, and so far 30 have earned their associate degrees from HCC, and six have earned bachelor’s degrees. Six Gateway to College graduates earned their associate degrees from HCC on May 27. “What I see in front of me are not the leaders of tomorrow, but the leaders of today,” said student speaker J’Anthony Smith Sr. of Holyoke. “The country’s pretty divided, but there’s hope in every single one of you sitting here today.” HCC Gateway to College graduate Eimy Holguin of Springfield was also the valedictorian for the Springfield Public Schools Alternative High School graduation, which was held on June 8.

LUSO Earns Designation of Savings Excellence

LUDLOW — LUSO Federal Credit Union, a financial cooperative locally owned and operated by its members since 1971, recently received the Designation of Savings Excellence from America Saves for the third consecutive year. This award recognizes the achievements of the top-performing credit unions that surpass the expectations of their members, the public, and the financial experts at America Saves. The Designation of Savings Excellence recognizes and honors the hard work and integrity of credit unions that are able to successfully achieve their goals of compelling people from low- to medium-income households to open and contribute to a wealth-building account. LUSO Federal Credit Union has consistently hit its mark and, in the process, helped members learn the value of personal savings and garner the skills and confidence to make smart financial decisions.

People on the Move

Departments People on the Move

Alex Dixon

Courtney Wenleder

Marikate Murren

MGM Springfield President Michael Mathis announced the appointments of Alex Dixon as general manager and Courtney Wenleder as vice president of Finance and chief financial officer. Dixon assumes responsibility for the resort’s day-to-day leadership and direction, including overseeing all operational aspects of MGM Springfield. Wenleder will direct and oversee the strategic financial planning, operational performance, and financial management of MGM Springfield. Other personnel announcements include Marikate Murren’s promotion to vice president of Human Resources, and several additional senior management hires. Together, these positions will focus on strategic direction, workforce planning and development, and financial planning and oversight to help prepare for the resort’s September 2018 opening. With 10 years of industry experience, Dixon was most recently the vice president and assistant general manager of the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore. There, he helped to open the Horseshoe property both ahead of schedule and under budget. “We are delighted to welcome Alex to the team at MGM Springfield,” Mathis said. “He brings broad industry experience and a passion for delivering hospitality on the East Coast, which will be incredibly valuable to the leadership and operations at MGM Springfield. He has a proven track record for success that will be instrumental in planning, opening, and initiating activities that will undoubtedly further strengthen the performance of MGM Springfield.” Wenleder most recently held the CFO position at New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where she served for nine years and oversaw significant capital investments and property enhancements, including the introduction of the new retail esplanade. Prior to that she was the vice president of Finance and chief financial officer at Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Miss., where she oversaw the reconstruction of the resort following the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. “Courtney’s extensive experience with our resort operations at two of our company’s signature resorts will be a tremendous asset as our team prepares MGM Springfield to join our expanding regional portfolio,” Mathis said. “She will be instrumental in ensuring MGM Springfield achieves our financial and business goals.” In her new role as Vice President of Human Resources, Murren assumes responsibility for planning and directing all aspects of the talent and human resources functions, including ensuring adherence to labor laws, regulations, and HR corporate policies and procedures for MGM Springfield. She will design and oversee the property’s execution of comprehensive strategies, initiatives, action plans, and processes to improve critical organizational performance in the areas of employee engagement and guest service. She was most recently the director of Human Resources for the property, a role she assumed last June. The MGM Springfield team also has welcomed several additional senior managers, both new to MGM and relocating from other MGM facilities: Michael Custodio has been named director of Property Initiatives, Arlen Carballo is director of Financial Planning & Analysis, and Meagan Lippmann is Learning & Development partner. Rounding out the newest senior-management hires is Jason Randall as director, Talent Acquisition & Development. “I’m excited to have all these talented individuals join the MGM Springfield team,” Mathis said. “The breadth of experience, the leadership qualities, and values of this team gives me a high degree of confidence in our ability to lead MGM Springfield through and past the next phase of our strategic journey of delivering on our enlivened vision for the South End.”

•••••

Christina Royal

Holyoke Community College President Christina Royal has been appointed to the board of directors of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a nonprofit public agency that seeks to advance economic development through technological innovation, particularly in key industries such as healthcare, life sciences, information technology, nanotechnology, broadband deployment, and marine sciences. “Through its major divisions — the Innovation Institute, the Massachusetts eHealth Institute, and the Massachusetts Broadband Institute —Mass Tech brings together leaders from industry, government, and higher education to advance technology-based solutions that strengthen regional economies, improve the healthcare system, expand broadband access, and stimulate economic growth throughout the Commonwealth,” according to the Mass Tech website, www.masstech.org. Royal has a strong background in information technology, both in higher education and in the private sector. She was formerly the executive director of Distance Learning and assistant vice president of eLearning and Innovation at Cuyahoga Community College, and the director of Technology-Assisted Learning at Marist College. Before she made the switch to higher education, she worked as a project manager in research and development at CompUSA, and as the director of curriculum at the Beacon Institute for Learning. Royal’s term on the Mass Tech board runs until Nov. 20, 2020. She was sworn in on June 1.

•••••

United Way of Hampshire County (UWHC) announced the appointment of Renee Moss as interim executive director. Moss replaces Jim Ayres, who resigned his position as executive director to serve as president and CEO of United Way of Pioneer Valley. Julie Cowan, UWHC board chair, announced that Moss will serve as interim executive director while the board conducts a search to permanently fill the position. Moss, a UWHC board member, recently retired as longtime executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County. “Renee is well-respected in the community and will bring strong leadership skills to our United Way as we make the transition to a new director. We are grateful that she is willing to give her time and talents to United Way just as she was starting her retirement,” said Cowan. Added Kate Glynn, UWHC board vice chair, “Renee brings impressive experience to the interim director role at UWHC, where she will work with the staff and board on a number of fronts, including the search for a permanent executive. The board of directors is extremely excited to have someone with such a strong nonprofit background and so well-known in the community.” According to Cowan, “Renee was willing to step forward and serve in this capacity. She has been a tremendous board member and volunteer. Our organization is very fortunate to have her step in at this critical time as we prepare for the 2018 Community Campaign.” Moss said she was approached by some United Way officers to see if she would be interested, and she was. “United Way is a great organization, and I’m looking forward to working with the incredible staff.” Moss was with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampshire County for 32 years. Her passion for community collaboration and creating new partnerships is what she enjoyed most about leading that organization. Before moving to Amherst in 1985, Moss taught in the New York City public schools for 10 years. Moss will assume the executive director position on June 26 and is expected to stay until Sept. 22.

•••••

Mike Vedovelli

With more than 19 years of community and economic-development experience in Western Mass., Mike Vedovelli joined Eversource as its newest community relations specialist. Vedovelli will serve as the company’s liaison for communities in Hampden and Hampshire counties. His focus is supporting Eversource’s electric service business. He is a past board member of DevelopSpringfield and the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce, and a graduate of St. Anselm College. Most recently, Vedovelli served as Chicopee’s director of Community and Economic Development. Prior to that, he served more than seven years as the senior regional director for the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. He’s successfully worked on a number of projects involving site location, expansion and technical assistance generating private investment, economic opportunities, and jobs. He has worked with all of the Western Mass. communities and has strong relationships with municipal officials and business leaders.

•••••

Bay Path University President Carol Leary recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with members of the Homeland Security Academic Advisory Council (HSAAC) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leadership. The HSAAC provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Homeland Security and its leadership on matters related to homeland security and the academic community. Since its formation, the HSAAC has delivered more than 120 recommendations resulting in new and expanded programs, resources, and initiatives to support the academic community. “I am excited to see that the department is focused on engaging with colleges and universities across the nation,” Leary said. “I am proud to be a member of the Homeland Security Academic Advisory Council, which has been an invaluable asset to the Department.” During the meeting, the HSAAC Academic Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism presented its report to council members. The report offered a number of recommendations for department consideration that were established through a joint effort of academic leaders and subject-matter experts. DHS leadership also outlined the 2017 National Seminar and Tabletop Exercise (NTTX) event, which will take place Oct. 10-11 at the University of Utah. The two-day event will include workshop sessions, a tabletop exercise, and an after-action review session on preparing participants to respond to a campus emergency. This year’s tabletop event will focus on a failure in campus infrastructure caused by cyberattack. This recurring NTTX series is part of the DHS Campus Resilience Program. The program engages colleges and universities in an effort to foster resilience and bolster campus emergency-preparedness efforts. Following the meeting, Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security Elaine Duke met with HSAAC members for an informational session on the department’s key priorities and challenges.

•••••

Tracey Egloff

James Kelly, president and CEO, announced that Tracey Egloff has joined Polish National Credit Union as vice president of residential lending. Egloff has more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of residential lending, including loan origination, processing, underwriting, compliance, secondary market sales, and loan servicing. She began her career in banking at Northampton Cooperative Bank in 1992 and held various positions in the loan department. She was most recently the vice president of residential lending with successor institution Greenfield Cooperative Bank. She holds a bachelor’s degree from UMass Amherst and is also a graduate of the New England School for Financial Studies at Babson College. “Tracey’s strong background in all aspects of residential lending makes her a perfect choice for helping our members achieve their housing goals and objectives,” said Kelly. “We are extremely pleased to welcome her to the Polish National Credit Union family.”

•••••

Lou Mayo, office manager with Real Living Realty Professionals in Wilbraham, was named the 2017 Realtor of the Year by the Realtor Assoc. of Pioneer Valley (RAPV). The announcement was made during the association’s annual awards banquet held June 8 at the Log Cabin in Holyoke. As the highest honor given to a member, the Realtor of the Year award is bestowed upon the one person who has shown outstanding service and devotion to the 1,650-member organization during the past 17 months in the areas of Realtor activity, community service, and business activity. A Realtor since 1997, Mayo has been a member of the RAPV board of directors since 2012. He was RAPV president in 2016 and also served on the professional standards, strategic planning, and finance committees, as well as the forms and building task forces. At the state level, Mayo is a member of the board of directors of the Mass. Assoc. of Realtors (MAR). He is the chairman of the Mass. Assoc. of Realtors professional standards committee, a forms committee member, as well as a former member the MAR young professionals network committee. He is a MAR Leadership Academy graduate, and is currently a member of the MAR website task force. At the national level, Mayo has attended many National Assoc. of Realtors (NAR) conferences and trade shows and holds the professional designations of Certified Residential Specialist (CRS), Graduate Realtor Institute (GRI), and Certified Buyer Representative (CBR). Mayo’s community involvement includes providing support through charitable giving to Big Brothers Big Sisters and the Salvation Army, as well as serving as a member of the Granby Bow & Gun Club. In conjuction with the RAPV community service committee, he also contrubuted to the development and construction of four playhouses that were donated to local Boys and Girls Clubs. “I believe strongly in the code of ethics and strive daily to achieve its highest ideals as a Realtor,” Mayo said. “In both my personal and professional life, I desire to uplift the image of the Realtor by embodying the knowledge, character, and wisdom of a top professional.”

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The Springfield Thunderbirds announced the addition of Charles Venezia to the front-office staff as an account executive. Venezia joined the Thunderbirds upon graduation from Western New England University, where he played football and was named an All-Academic team member for his conference three years in a row. On the field, he helped lead the Golden Bears to two conference titles. En route to graduating with his degree in sport management, Venezia spent the 2016-17 academic year interning with the Thunderbirds during the club’s inaugural season.

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Berkshire Bank announced that Sharon Blanchette, first vice president, BSA/AML officer, moderated the cybersecurity panel at the Assoc. of Certified Anti Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) Connecticut chapter’s third annual conference on May 19. This year’s ACAMS conference focused on the theme “Anti Money Laundering in a Changing World,” which took place at Mohegan Sun. Blanchette attended this event, moderating the cybersecurity panel for the audience and serving as a panelist on the Bank Secrecy Act audit panel. “Cybersecurity is an important and ever-growing topic of discussion in the financial industry, particularly as we continuously adhere to the Bank Secrecy Act,” said Blanchette. “We are constantly defining and redefining compliance and regulations to stay current in a technologically advanced world, so to be able to serve on a panel to discuss this topic and bring further awareness to our community was an exciting opportunity.”

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Rebecca Gray

American International College (AIC) graduate Rebecca Gray, class of 2017, won first place and a $500 cash prize at Springfield Technical Community College’s (STCC) recent Shark Tank competition. Gray delivered one of seven two-minute pitches to a panel of four judges from the local business community. Gray’s idea for her company, Coastline Industries, focuses on efficient, eco-friendly, and renewable energy in the form of underwater turbines. “Solar energy loses 7% of its efficiency in the first year and, if not maintained, can lose up to 40% efficiency in that first year,” she noted. “Wind turbines add to an increase in noise and stress level of birds and interrupt their migration patterns, all contributing to a high environmental impact.” Gray’s proposed underwater turbines would be built 500 yards from the shoreline in New Hampshire and 100 yards below sea level, producing low environmental impact with little disruption to marine life. “The judges provided five minutes of feedback and very intense questioning about the contestants’ business proposals,” Gray said. While Gray’s idea is not a new one — Scotland already uses underwater turbines and is on track to build the world’s largest field this fall with 270 turbines — it is a new concept for the U.S., Gray said. “The United States is far behind in introducing renewable energy due to bureaucracy and other considerations. Eight turbines could power 5,200 homes, and 39% of the nation’s homes are within a thousand-mile reach of a shoreline.” As part of the competition, presenters had to develop a business model, including startup costs. “While the initial project for Coastline Industries will cost approximately $23.6 million to complete, this venture is eligible for $7 million in federal grants and up to $15 million in low-interest federal loans,” Gray said. “The venture seeks $1.6 million in private funding. The starting energy mill of eight turbines, powering 5,200 homes, would bring in $5.72 million in revenue the first year alone. The entire investment will be made back within five years.” Gray’s idea resonated with the panel, and she was granted the top prize of $500. “They said I did a really good job of answering questions on the spot, had confidence in my answers, and knew what I was talking about.” The newly minted AIC graduate, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, is a New Hampshire native who now resides in Springfield. She will begin a full-time job in finance this July with plans to enter a master’s program in the fall.

Picture This

Departments Picture This

Email ‘Picture This’ photos with a caption and contact information to [email protected]
A photo essay of recent business events in Western Massachusetts

To Their Health

picthistotheirhealth1

Springfield College recently partnered with the Canyon Ranch Institute to implement and evaluate a public-health project called Healthy Table. The goal of the program is to improve healthy eating, cooking, and shopping habits for individuals and families living in the vicinity of Springfield College. As part of the program, participants are able to speak with experts regarding nutrition, learn how to cook nutritional meals, and shop for healthy meals on a budget. Participants must be overweight, or at risk for or diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, or have high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Each class is co-taught by a chef and a registered dietitian. At left, top: Springfield College Assistant Professor of Nutritional Sciences Donna Chapman and Catering Director Nick Testa lead participants through a healthy meal option in the kitchen at Cheney Hall. Bottom: Chapman leads the group through a trip to Big Y to talk about shopping for healthy food options.

Taking Flight

Bradley International Airport recently launched service between Hartford and Edinburgh, Scotland on Norwegian Air, Bradley’s second non-stop, trans-Atlantic addition in the past year. The airport welcomed the arrival of the aircraft with a traditional water-cannon salute and celebrated the inaugural flight with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Passengers headed to Edinburgh were treated to a Scottish-themed sendoff at the gate, which included cupcakes, giveaways, and entertainment. Norwegian will operate year-round, three times a week, with a twice-weekly schedule during the winter season. The outbound flight leaves Bradley at 9:35 p.m., with an arrival of 9:30 a.m. in Edinburgh. The inbound flight departs Edinburgh at 5:15 p.m. and arrives at Bradley at 7:55 p.m. Charles Gray, board chairman for the Connecticut Airport Authority, noted that “this new international route highlights Bradley Airport’s continued growth and is a reflection of Bradley’s growing popularity among European carriers.”

Briefcase

Briefcase Departments

Springfield Officials Announce Downtown Street Improvements

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, Chief Development Officer Kevin Kennedy, and Public Works Director Christopher Cignoli announced several major streetscape improvements to downtown Springfield in the anticipation of the grand opening of Union Station and MGM Springfield. The city’s Main Street Refresh Project will target Main Street from Union Station to Central Street. Work will include numerous sidewalk repairs, tree plantings, intersection and crosswalk improvements, and enhancements to the railroad underpasses along Main Street, Dwight Street, and Chestnut Street. The project will also include a new pedestrian wayfinding system currently in the final phases of design. The project is designed to complement MGM Springfield’s significant investment in downtown infrastructure. That work just getting underway includes signal improvements at key intersections, major utility upgrades, new paving, curb and sidewalk work for improved pedestrian access, and more. MGM Springfield will distribute regular communications to the city and residents to give notice of where and when travel disruptions may occur. The project will have a total cost of $6.9 million, including approximately $5.5 million from MGM Springfield and $1.4 million from the city of Springfield. Work is anticipated to begin immediately and scheduled to be completed by late spring 2018.

Massachusetts Adds 2,900 Jobs in May

BOSTON — The state’s total unemployment rate increased to 4.2% in May from the April rate of 3.9%, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development announced. The preliminary job estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate Massachusetts added 2,900 jobs in May. Over-the-month job gains occurred in education and health services; leisure and hospitality; professional, scientific, and business services; information; and construction. The April estimate was revised to a loss of 800 jobs. From May 2016 to May 2017, BLS estimates Massachusetts has added 58,300 jobs. The May state unemployment rate remains lower than the national rate of 4.3% reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The labor force increased by 17,100 from 3,694,200 in April, as 4,900 more residents were employed and 12,200 more residents were unemployed over the month. Over the year, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased four-tenths of a percentage point from 3.8% in May 2016. There were 17,300 more unemployed people over the year compared to May 2016. The state’s labor force participation rate — the total number of residents 16 or older who worked or were unemployed and actively sought work in the last four weeks — increased two-tenths of a percentage point to 66.7% over the month. The labor-force participation rate over the year has increased 1.7% compared to May 2016. The largest private-sector percentage job gains over the year were in information; construction; professional, scientific, and business services; and education and health services.

Horace Smith Fund Awards $216,000 to Area Students

SPRINGFIELD — On Thursday, June 15, the Horace Smith Fund will hold its 118th corporators’ meeting and scholarship awards ceremony at the Carriage House at Storrowton Tavern in West Springfield for recipients, their parents and school counselors, and corporators. Wayne Webster, chair of the board of trustees, announced that there will be 18 scholarship recipients and three fellowship recipients this year. Each scholarship provides a total of $10,000 over four years, and each fellowship provides $12,000 over three years. This year’s scholarship recipients include Thomas Hendrickson, Agawam High School; Aqsa Maham and Willard McKinstry, Chicopee Comprehensive High School; Xavier Farrell, High School of Science & Technology; Jordan Kei-Rahn, Longmeadow High School; Ashley Gurney, Minnechaug Regional High School; Timothy Canning, Palmer High School; Richard Nguyen, Roger L. Putnam Vocational-Technical Academy; Padraig Smith, Saint Mary High School; David Giang, Kiara Mickens, and Brendan Truong, Springfield Central High School; Ilona Znackharchuk, Westfield High School; Lindsay Gearty, West Springfield High School; Ngan Tran, Springfield Central High School, Bay Path University; Parris Porter, SABIS, Hampshire College; Amelia Vega, Holyoke High School, UMass Amherst; and Kevin Pelletier, Chicopee Comprehensive High School, Westfield State University. The three fellowship recipients are graduates of the following high schools and colleges: Melanie Gomes, Chicopee High School, Brandeis University; John-Marc Austin, Austin Family Homeschool, Elms College; and Alexander Smith, Minnechaug Regional High School, UMass Amherst. Students were selected on a variety of criteria, including test scores, class rank, extracurricular activities, and a personal essay.

Cultural District Celebrates Public Art Venture Downtown

SPRINGFIELD — The Springfield Central Cultural District (SCCD) launched its second district-wide public art program, following the success of last summer’s utility-box mural program. Three painted pianos have been installed in the metro center of Springfield, with the mission of activating space, encouraging pedestrian activity, and providing artist income. The pianos are located at Market Place Shops, located behind 1341 Main St., as well as at 1350 Main St. and 1550 Main St. This program of public pianos is linked to the international street-pianos movement, with participating cities including London, Paris, and Sydney.

Tanglewood’s $30 Million Expansion Is an Initiative of Note

Sections Tourism & Hospitality

The Sounds of Summer

By Kathleen Mellen

An architect’s rendering of the how the $31 million expansion project will change the landscape at Tanglewood.

Audiences have flocked to the Berkshires for Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summertime concerts since 1936, when the musicians offered a three-concert series, under the baton of then-music director Serge Koussevitzky, in a large tent at Holmwood, a storied estate in Lenox.

That first series, which would ultimately morph into the world-renowned Tanglewood Music Festival, was attended by nearly 15,000 people.

Then, in 1937, when the festival presented its first concert at Tanglewood, a gift to the BSO from the Tappan family estate, it drew the largest crowd to ever assemble under a tent, for an all-Beethoven program.

And the love affair has continued.

Last year, 350,000 guests visited the venerable annual music festival in Lenox, which offers weekly summer concerts by the BSO, performances by the Boston Pops and Tanglewood Music Center orchestras, as well as a lineup of famed guest artists in classical, contemporary, and popular music. That number has grown significantly over the past decade, and has remained fairly constant for the past five years, or so, said Anthony Fogg, the BSO’s artistic administrator and director of Tanglewood.

“It is a reflection of increasing, renewed interest in the great music that we’re offering,” Fogg told BusinessWest.

In response to these growing demands, the BSO in February announced a $30 million expansion of its music festival’s facilities and 524 acres campus in Lenox. The new complex will include a state-of-the-art, four-building complex designed to support performance and rehearsal activities at the Tanglewood Music Center (TMC), and to serve as the home of the new Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI).

The new buildings will supplement the music festival’s main performance spaces — the 5,700-seat Serge Koussevitzky Music Shed, built in 1938, and the 1,200-seat Seiji Ozawa Hall, named for BSO’s former, long-time music director (1973-2002), built in 1984.

We see this as a way of increasing the flow of visitors to the Berkshires. It will be a beautiful facility, with acoustics of the first order, dining facilities, and the possibility for recording. I’m confident it’s going to be a very attractive venue, and we hope the community will embrace it.”

“We’re very much viewing this as a long-term investment in classical music as an art form, which is essential to our lives,” Fogg said in a recent interview.

The new building complex, scheduled to open in spring 2019, has been designed by William Rawn Associates, led by William Rawn and Cliff Gayley. It will be located at the top of the lawn leading down to Ozawa Hall, which was also designed by the architectural firm. The new facilities will be climate-controlled, which Fogg says will offer an opportunity for members of the larger community to use the space during the off-season, for such things as conferences, celebrations, and musical performances.

“We see this as a way of increasing the flow of visitors to the Berkshires,” he said. “It will be a beautiful facility, with acoustics of the first order, dining facilities, and the possibility for recording. I’m confident it’s going to be a very attractive venue, and we hope the community will embrace it.”

In Concert with the Environment

The expansion is part of a multi-year fund-raising effort, which has received donations from private and corporate donors, which Fogg declined to name at this time, saying Tanglewood will make a formal announcement about fund-raising sometime this summer.

To date, enough money has been raised to cover the cost of building the complex itself, but further funds will ensure there is a well-funded endowment to cover future operating expenses and programming, he noted, adding that the ultimate fund-raising goal is in the neighborhood of $40 million.

At the heart of the four-building project will be Studio 1, a 200-seat concert space designed with Tanglewood’s signature setting in mind. The festival’s iconic, 100-foot-tall red oak tree and the landscape beyond will be visible through a wall of glass that measures 30 feet high by 50 feet wide, and which will serve as an expansive backdrop to the stage. A 50-foot-wide retractable glass wall, also part of the design, will open directly out to a porch and the surroundings.

“We wanted to keep a sense of an easy relationship between the buildings and the landscape,” Fogg said. “We were very conscious of maintaining a feeling of openness and airiness. You can’t only hear some of the greatest musicians and some of the greatest music of all time, but you do it in this transparent atmosphere.”

Studios 2 and 3 will offer rehearsal and performance space for small and medium-sized ensembles, and can accommodate audiences of 60 and 40, respectively. For flexibility, Fogg said, all the spaces can quickly and easily convert from one use to another.

In addition, the buildings are designed to take advantage of new sound and recording technology, and “are wired to the maximum,” he said. “They are decked out to embrace whatever new technology comes along. There are very exciting possibilities.”

We have a situation where our fellows are really overcrowded and working in conditions which are not the most conducive to the best work. Ozawa Hall [where the fellows rehearse and perform] is probably the most-scheduled facility on the campus. It goes from 6 in the morning until 1 in the morning, and we found that fellows are starting dress rehearsals for upcoming concerts at 10 p.m. That’s not the right sort of working environment.”

A 150-seat café housed in the complex will become a hub for visitors, TMC fellows and faculty, TLI participants, and performing artists, and a place where visitors and musicians can interact.

Among the beneficiaries of the new space will be the Tanglewood Music Center, a world-renowned summer institute created in 1940 by Koussevitzky to further the tradition of classical music, and to serve as an American center for advanced musical study for young professional instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. About 1,500 musicians compete annually for roughly 150 positions, and those who are accepted receive fellowships that cover tuition, room, and board. Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, and Sarah Caldwell were among its first students.

But, frankly, Fogg said, space has become a problem for the program and its participants.

“We have a situation where our fellows are really overcrowded and working in conditions which are not the most conducive to the best work,” he noted. “Ozawa Hall [where the fellows rehearse and perform] is probably the most-scheduled facility on the campus. It goes from 6 in the morning until 1 in the morning, and we found that fellows are starting dress rehearsals for upcoming concerts at 10 p.m. That’s not the right sort of working environment.”

The new facility will address those and other needs by providing significantly more rehearsal and performance space for the TMC, and will enhance, support, and streamline activities to assure that Tanglewood continues to attract the most competitive class of fellows.

Knowing the Score

The new complex will also be home to Tanglewood Learning Center, which will offer all-new programming designed to provide the festival’s patrons with an array of educational and enrichment experiences that encourage a closer connection between artists and audiences, including seminars and panel discussions, film presentations, conversations with artists, and access to special concerts and master classes.

“An artist can come here and not only have the opportunity to give a great performance, but also spend a couple of days talking about how they got to that point — about the work they are doing … the process of creation,” Fogg said. “Those sorts of insights into the way an artist thinks, I think, will be absolutely key.”

Special offerings will include a ‘passport program,’ which will allow subscribers access to BSO and TMC closed rehearsals, TMC master classes, and backstage visits with musicians, guest artists, and conductors, among other activities.

“This will be an opportunity for those who are already aficionados of classical music, who already have some knowledge, to deepen their knowledge,” Fogg said. “It’s also an opportunity for those who are a little on the outside, who may want to find out more about classical music — why it works, why it’s important, and how it fits into our lives.”

The new buildings will be the first year-round structures at Tanglewood, with both heating and air-conditioning, and have been designed with an eye toward sustainability.

An architect’s rendering of one of the new facilities at Tanglewood.

“We’re looking for LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] status,” Fogg said, “and we believe we will be able to achieve Gold.”

To that end, natural ventilation and abundant day lighting are designed to minimize energy use. Other notable sustainable features include rainwater harvesting for irrigation; high-efficiency mechanical systems with low-velocity ductwork, meeting acoustic requirements; efficient LED theatrical lighting; water-saving plumbing fixtures; red-cedar cladding harvested from renewable sources; and recyclable zinc roofing.

“We have been extremely mindful of all of these things,” Fogg said. “We’re doing the best we can to achieve the highest standard of responsiveness to the environment, which is so important.”

In addition to the buildings, a new horticultural initiative, designed by landscape architects at Reed Hilderbrand, will revitalize and strengthen Tanglewood’s bucolic landscape, with the planting of 144 trees, improvements to stormwater-management systems and pedestrian walkways, and the restoration of views of the 372-acre Lake Mahkeenac, also known as the Stockbridge Bowl. A new horticultural-stewardship program will create and implement uniform strategies for documenting, maintaining, preserving, and enhancing Tanglewood’s horticultural assets.

“Tanglewood’s expansive setting is both a blessing and a curse,” Fogg said. “It offers the opportunity to do fantastic things, but it’s also a great responsibility … we’re taking this as an opportunity to see how we can find a unity of approach to the grounds.”

In Harmony with History

A groundbreaking ceremony will take place later this summer, at a date to be announced. Organizers hope Tanglewood luminaries will be on hand, and are in the process of trying to accommodate the hectic schedules of some of its artistic principals, including BSO’s music director, Andris Nelsons; Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart; and the Pops’ conductor laureate, John Williams.

“Their schedules are incredibly complicated,” Fogg said. “But, it [the groundbreaking] will be toward the end of the season. The construction company needs to start work absolutely as soon as the season finishes, to try to get as much done before the winter hits. They are optimistic, confident, that we can move toward an opening in spring of 2019.”

Thus begins the start of a new chapter in the history of one of the region’s great destinations — and a summer home for music lovers of all ages.

Agenda

Agenda Departments

Movie Premiere

June 29: The Basketball Hall of Fame will turn Columbus Avenue into Hollywood Boulevard for a premiere of Grey Lady, a new film by Springfield resident John Shea. This is a one-time, exclusive event, and Shea hopes to reconnect with local luminaries and old friends. Shea will be present at 6 p.m. for a benefit cocktail party before the audience moves into the theater at 6:45 p.m. He will also host an exclusive party after the film, and will take questions from the audience. Shea wrote and directed the film, and also plays a small role as an island police chief. This event is sponsored by Florence Bank. The bank’s president, John Heaps, has known Shea since the third grade at Holy Cross School. It was Shea’s idea to bring his film home to Springfield (he is a Cathedral High School graduate) and donate the proceeds to local charities. Tickets to the benefit are $100, and proceeds will go to Gray House, the Bing Arts Center, and the Community Foundation’s Dr. John V. Shea Scholarship Fund. Party entertainment will be provided by the Eric Bascom Trio. “The reason I’m doing this is to return as much as I can to the town where I grew up. I’m looking forward to renewing relationships with many of my Springfield friends,” said Shea, who calls Los Angeles home today. He has returned to the area many times; he helped with the campaign to establish the new Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum, has been a marshal in the Holyoke’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and sang with the Springfield Symphony. Tickets are available online at the Bing Arts Center box office or at www.bingartscenter.org.

HMC Cookout

July 1: Holyoke Medical Center (HMC) will open its new, $25.3 million Emergency Department early next month. As part of the grand-opening events, from noon to 2 p.m., the hospital will host a free community celebration and cookout. This will be an opportunity for families to come and tour the new Emergency Department. In addition to the tour, hamburgers, hot dogs, watermelon, and ice cream will be provided.

Nomination Deadline for Healthcare Heroes

July 10: Healthcare Heroes, an exciting recognition program involving the Western Mass. healthcare sector, was launched this spring by HCN and BusinessWest. Sponsored by American International College, Bay Path University, Elms College, and Renew.Calm, with additional sponsorships available, the program was created to shed a bright light on the outstanding work being done across the broad spectrum of health and wellness services, and the institutions and individuals providing that care. Nominations are now being sought — and will be accepted until July 10 — in the following categories: Patient/Resident/Client Care Provider; Innovation in Health/Wellness; Community Health; Emerging Leader; Collaboration in Health/Wellness; Health/Wellness Administration/Administrator; and Lifetime Achievement. The nominations will be scored by an independent panel of judges, to be announced in the coming weeks. The winners will be chosen in July and profiled in the September issue of HCN. The guidelines to consider when nominating individuals, groups, or institutions in these various categories are available HERE.

Jimmy Mazz Concert

July 19: The annual summer concerts at Orchard Valley at Wilbraham are underway. Local favorite Jimmy Mazz will perform at 6 p.m. on the front lawn at Orchard Valley, located at 2387 Boston Road in Wilbraham. The public is invited to enjoy his Vegas-style entertainment with a contemporary twist. The free community summer concerts are held monthly during the summer months and open to the public. Light refreshments will be available. For more information or to RSVP, call (413) 596-0006.

EANE Compensation & Benefits Conference

July 20: The Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast (EANE) announced that its annual Compensation and Benefits Conference, themed “The Game Has Changed,” will be held on Thursday, July 20 at the Publick House in Sturbridge. It will focus on trends in employee compensation and benefits. “The one-size-fits-all model no longer applies to employee compensation and benefits. Employers need to understand the demographic, legislative, and competitive dynamics that have created the trend toward personalization of employee benefits,” said Meredith Wise, EANE president. “Our conference this year is all about these outside influences that are game-changing.” The full-day program will feature Lauren Stiller Rikleen, a nationally recognized expert on developing a thriving, diverse, and multi-generational workforce. She is the author of You Raised Us – Now Work With Us: Millennials, Career Success, and Building Strong Workplace Teams. Additional conference presentations will include “How to Survive High-deductible Health Plans,” “Is the 40-hour Work Week Dead?” and “The Trump Effect on Employee Compensation and Benefits.” The cost for the program is $285 per person with discounts for three or more. Register at www.eane.org/special-events or by calling (877) 662-6444. The program will offer 6.25 credits from the HR Certification Institute and SHRM. Sponsoring the program are Johnson & Hill Staffing Services and the HR Certification Institute.

Babysitters Academy

July 22: Baystate Mary Lane will sponsor a Babysitters Academy in July to ready area youth for summer and fall babysitting responsibilities. The one-day program will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The class will be held in the Main Conference Room located on the second floor. The Babysitters Academy is a certified babysitter program for young adults ages 11½ to 16. The Saturday session offers potential babysitters instruction in baby care, first aid, CPR, fire safety, home security, child behavior, and accident prevention. Participants are given a course booklet containing helpful tips and other information, and will receive a graduation certificate upon completion of the course. The program is offered by the Parenting program at Baystate Medical Center. There is a $75 fee per student, then $30 for each additional family or group member. Space is limited. For more information or to register, visit baystatehealth.org/parented and click on ‘Infant and Child Care,’ or call (413) 794-5515.

Brightside Golf Classic

July 24: More than 200 golfers are expected to participate in the 37th annual Brightside Golf Classic at Springfield Country Club in West Springfield. “This event raises funds to continue Brightside’s mission to support our community’s most vulnerable children and their families,” said Allison Gearing-Kalill, vice president of Fund Development for Mercy Medical Center and its affiliated services. Two tee times are available. Breakfast and registration for the morning session begins at 7 a.m. with a shotgun start at 8 a.m. Lunch and registration for the second session will begin at 11:30 a.m. with a 12:30 p.m. shotgun start. The evening reception will be held immediately following the tournament from 5 to 8 p.m. Prices include green fees, golf cart, breakfast or lunch, a gift and swag bag, and reception featuring cocktails, food stations, auction, networking, and live entertainment. On-course food and beverages will be provided by event sponsors throughout the day. Golfers will also be eligible for a chance to win prizes and participate in raffles during the day. The 2017 Golf Classic chairs are Hank Downey, vice president and Commercial Loan officer, Florence Savings Bank; John Kendzierski, president, Professional Drywall Construction Inc.; Matthew Sosik, president and CEO, Easthampton Savings Bank; and William Wagner, Chief Business Development officer and vice chairman of the board, Westfield Bank. Brightside for Families and Children provides in-home counseling and family support to more than 650 children and their families throughout Western Mass. Services include resource coordination, parenting-skills development, behavioral-technique instruction, community-support programs, and other programs tailored to prevent hospitalization from occurring. Specialized assessments such as neuropsychological evaluations and testing are also available. For more information on sponsorships, donations, and attending the event, contact Gearing-Kalill at (413) 748-9986 or [email protected]. Information is also available at www.mercycares.com/brightside-golf-classic.

Business & Innovation Expo of Western Mass.

Nov. 2: Comcast Business will present the Business & Innovation Expo of Western Mass. at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield, produced by BusinessWest and the Healthcare News. The seventh annual business-to-business show will feature more than 150 exhibitor booths, educational seminars, breakfast and lunch programs, and a day-capping Expo Social. Current sponsors include Comcast Business (presenting sponsor), Inspired Marketing (show partner), MGM Springfield (corporate sponsor), Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst (education sponsor), and the Better Business Bureau (contributing sponsor). Additional sponsorship opportunities are available. Exhibitor spaces are also available; booth prices start at $800. For more information on sponsorships or booth purchase, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100.

Nov. 2 Business Show Will Put the Spotlight on Innovation

Business & Innovation Expo of Western Mass. Events

Countdown to the Expo

It’s a subtle name change, but a rather large adjustment in tone for what has become a fall tradition within the region’s business community.

Indeed, the annual show at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield is now known as the Business & Innovation Expo of Western Mass., and this change — the addition of that word ‘innovation’ on the marquee — speaks volumes about the business-to-business show’s new and expanded mission, said Kate Campiti, associate publisher of BusinessWest, which has managed the show since 2011.

“For more than 200 years now, this region has had an incredibly strong tradition of innovation in business,” said Campiti. “And that tradition has taken many forms, from new products to new processes to new ways of thinking about to how to meet the needs of a constantly changing society. That tradition continues today, and the Expo will make this abundantly clear.”

Elaborating, she said the Nov. 2 show, still very much in the planning stages, will be, in effect, a showcase of innovation and the many forms it takes in a changing, highly competitive business climate.

“Innovation isn’t just a theme for this event,” said Campiti. “It will be a compelling thread that runs through the programming, the educational seminars, the special presentations, and more. This will be a celebration of innovation in some ways, but, more importantly, it will be a powerful statement about how that tradition of innovation continues today.”

Once again presented by Comcast Business, the Expo has become a fall tradition in Western Mass., attracting more than 2,000 visitors and more than 150 exhibitors to the MassMutual Center.

As always, there will be a strong business-to-business component to the show, said Campiti, adding that the event provides opportunities for businesses to showcase their products and services, and for these businesses and attendees to make important connections.

But there will be an educational component as well, she said, and much of the focus will be on innovation and the many forms it takes.

“People tend to think of innovation as new-product development, and that’s a big part of it,” she noted. “But there is information in all aspects of business — from process improvement to how companies attract and retain talent; from the use of technology to make a business more productive and efficient to development of systems to not only generate ideas but cultivate them into advances; from how an emergency room handles peak traffic flows to how a bank safeguards its customers from fraud.

“Innovation is vital to the success of every sector of our economy, from education to healthcare to manufacturing,” she went on. “And the Expo will show innovation isn’t simply a watchword, but a philosophy, or attitude.”

In addition to Comcast Business as presenting sponsor, Inspired Marketing is the show partner, MGM Springfield is participating as corporate sponsor, the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst is the education sponsor, and the Better Business Bureau is a contributing sponsor. Additional sponsorship opportunities are available.

Details of the show will be presented in upcoming issues of BusinessWest and online HERE.

For more information on the show, to register, or to request information on becoming a sponsor, visit the website or call (413) 781-8600.

Hartford-Brainard Airport Air-traffic-control Tower Wins Award

WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — The American Assoc. of Airport Executives (AAAE) and U.S. Contract Tower Association (USCTA) presented Hartford-Brainard Airport and Midwest ATC Service with the 2017 Willie F. Card Contract Tower Service Award. The award recognizes one Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contract tower for “exemplary air-traffic safety and customer service performance” at the AAAE/USCTA’s annual FAA Contract Tower Program Workshop.

“The CAA is proud that Hartford-Brainard Airport, the air-traffic-control tower, and its controllers at Hartford-Brainard Airport were recognized for the hard work and dedication that they bring to our operation on a daily basis,” said Connecticut Airport Authority (CAA) Executive Director Kevin Dillon. “The Willie F. Card Award is a prestigious acknowledgment, and this makes clear that Hartford-Brainard Airport is a national model for operational effectiveness and efficiency.”

The FAA Contract Tower Program was established in 1982, and there are currently 253 airports in 46 states participating in the program. Operating functions at these towers are contracted out by the FAA to private entities who staff the facilities with FAA-certified air-traffic controllers. According to FAA statistics, contract towers handle approximately 28% of all national tower operations, but they account for only 14% of the FAA’s overall budget for air-traffic-control tower operations. Midwest ATC Service operates the contract tower at Hartford-Brainard Airport under FAA oversight.

“Midwest ATC is proud to have the Hartford-Brainard air-traffic-control tower as a member of our ATC team,” said Midwest ATC Service Director of North American Operations Andrew Groth. “Thank you to the CAA for their continued support, which was instrumental in achieving this award.”

Region Needs a Healthy Hartford

Opinion

Editorial

We’re certain there are some — perhaps many — in this area taking some kind of fiendish delight in the sorrows being visited upon Connecticut’s capital city.

As detailed in several recent reports, Hartford is on the ropes in many respects. It is in financial disarray and near bankruptcy, as Springfield was 15 years ago. Crime is a huge problem, and one that’s getting worse. The insurance industry, which has been the city’s lifeblood (and its identity), continues to downsize. And now, it appears that Aetna, a corporation that means as much to Hartford as MassMutual does to Springfield, will be relocating its corporate offices out of the city.

These are very trying times for the city, and, as we said, it would be easy for people in and around Springfield to exercise some schadenfreude as they read these reports.

After all, the cities have been involved in some form of rivalry for decades now, real or imagined. That famous quip from a Hartford scribe about the Fort being “that sausage restaurant” aside, the cities have measured themselves against one another for some time, even if the comparisons are somewhat unnatural.

Indeed, Hartford is a capital city and remains the insurance capital of the country, if not the world, and home to many more large corporate entities than Springfield. The rivalry has been real, though, and this recent decline in Hartford’s fortunes comes as the needle in Springfield continues to point up — in most all ways.

As skeptical as we’ve sometimes been about the so-called Knowledge Corridor and the practice of putting Hartford and Springfield together in the same sentence and the same marketing materials, such a partnership likely remains the best method for achieving growth in this larger region.”

Indeed, a $950 million casino complex will be opening in just over a year, Union Station is staging a rebirth, a new innovation center is opening downtown, and there appears to be momentum everywhere one looks.

So it’s time to gloat. Only, it isn’t.

As skeptical as we’ve sometimes been about the so-called Knowledge Corridor and the practice of putting Hartford and Springfield together in the same sentence and the same marketing materials, such a partnership likely remains the best method for achieving growth in this larger region.

As we’ve noted before, in this era of supercharged competition for jobs and companies, numbers are all-important. Springfield’s numbers — and its overall image — may be improving, but to compete with other states and metropolitan regions, it can’t rely on its numbers (or its improved health) alone.

But putting Springfield’s numbers together with Hartford’s is only part of the story. The cities — and the region as a whole — needs to be an appealing landing spot, especially for the young people who are increasingly dominating the workforce. And at present, Hartford is becoming increasingly less appealing to that demographic.

Meanwhile, a healthier Hartford bodes better for Springfield and other communities on this side of the border in many ways, including jobs and commerce — most companies near the border do plenty of business on both sides of the line.

So while it might be tempting for those in the 413 to take some kind of satisfaction in Hartford’s woes, that isn’t the attitude we should be taking.

If we want to start calling it the Springfield-Hartford region or the Springfield-Hartford corridor, that’s fine, but Western Mass. needs a healthy Connecticut capital city if it is going to build on its current momentum.

Doing Business as Certificates

DBA Certificates Departments

The following business certificates and trade names were issued or renewed during the month of June 2017.

AMHERST

Amherst Coffee
28 Amity St.
Mukunda Feldman

KRRK Property Management
420 Montague Road
Charles Reid

Misstery Machine Designs
13 Ridgecrest Road
Antonina Paus-Weiler

Panda East
103 North Pleasant St.
Panda Enterprises Inc.

R & M Contracting
141 Columbia Dr.
Melissa Paciulli, Richard Paciulli

CHICOPEE

Priya Indian Cuisine
460 Memorial Dr.
Kamaraj Pandurangan

Pure Yoga
103 Bridle Path Road
Katrina Anop

Unique Styles Boutique
924 Chicopee St.
Karen Phillips

Vin Spa, LLC
1263 Granby Road
Elzbieta Niedbala

DEERFIELD

Engineered Tooling Solutions / Cooper Sales
64 Eastern Ave.
Richard Cooper

First Mutual Mortgage
250 Conway Road
Gary Bowen

EASTHAMPTON

The Boutique Easthampton
92 Cottage St.
Marianne Gregersen

Elite Concrete Service
5 Industrial Parkway
Shimon Washburn

Esoteric Empyre
26 Cottage St.
Andrew Kuppermann, Christopher Harman, Marcel Gosselin

Mary Ann’s Dance and More
396 Main St., Suite 1
Mary Ann Hanlon, Richard Hanlon

Mercedes Energy
116 Pleasant St., Suite 218
Mercedes Catania

Punch Fitness Club
116 Pleasant St., Suite 251
Chad Moir

EAST LONGMEADOW

Reflections by Claudia
87 Shaker Road
Catherine Belleville

Studio Nails
30 Shaker Road
Nga Nguyen

GREENFIELD

Carsons Cans, LLC
42 Adams Road
Walter Kleeberg

Community Yoga & Wellness Center
16 Federal St.
Susan Peck

Greenfield Auto Specialists
335 High St.
Greenfield Auto Specialists

Greenfield Imported Cars Inc.
335 High St.
Greenfield Imported Cars Inc.

Greenfield Veterinary Clinic
18 French King Highway
Cindy Cole

The Imaginary Bookshop
68 Devens St.
Crista Reed DeRicco

MA Baked Potato, LLC
138 Federal St.
Amish Pasilch

Pygmalion’s Tattoo & Piercing
201 Main St.
Jeremy McIntosh, Gregory White

Right Shine Creations
173 Deerfield St.
Pia Martin II

Smitty’s Pub
26 Chapman St.
Michelle Smith

Thompson Excavating
366 Leyden Road
Milo Thompson

Village Shops Laundromat
63 French King Highway
John Dunphy
Wandering Brook Farm
446 Country Club Road
Peter Kuzmeskos

HOLYOKE

A Plus Convenience and Smoke Shop
301 High St.
Mohammed Shafique

Appleton Mart
330 Appleton St.
Wai Chan

Journeys Kidz #7007
50 Holyoke St.
Genesco Inc.

La Copa, LLC
447 Main St.
Aida DeJesus

Shi by Journeys #3051
50 Holyoke St.
Genesco Inc.

Skin Catering, LLC
1 Country Club Road
Leanne Sedlak

South Summer Motor
525 South Summer St.
John Gallivan

LUDLOW

ATI Physica
483 Holyoke St.
Robert McDonnell, Dylan Bates, Robert McKenzie

Elite Contracting Services Inc.
135 Carmelinas Circle
Anabela Fernandes

Mr. Home
74 Cislak Dr.
Bill Sweeney

Theater Extreme
193 Holyoke St.
Jason Carrington

NORTHAMPTON

3BL Media, LLC
136 West St., Suite 104
Gregory Schneider

Angie’s Reiki Rocks
20 Hampton Ave., Suite 180
Angelina Duquette

Anytime Fitness
135 King St.
Jeffrey Swanson

AT&T Mobility
140 Main St.
Linda Fisher

Captain Candy
150 Main St., Suite 13
Nolan Anaya

Greenhavens II
64 Burncolt Road
Douglas Havens

Hampshire Cardiovascular Associates
22 Atwood Dr.
Hampden & Franklin County Cardiovascular Associates, LLC

Northampton Golf Inc. / Northampton Country Club
135 Main St.
Christine Casagrande, James Casagrande

Sassy Pants Vintage and Used Clothing
2 Conz St., Unit 42
Kathleen Molongoski

That’s a Plenty Farm
19 Bright St.
Michael Katz, Catherine Katz, Joshua Katz

PALMER

Drolet Tactical
47 Walnut St., Apt. 2
Michael Drolet

Local Building & Remodeling
4212 Church St.
Anthony Robitaille

Northern Playground Surfacing
1290 Park St.
Northern Tree Service Inc.

Slices of Three Rivers
2022 Main St.
Scott Stawas

Wendy’s
1213 Thorndike St.
Amish Paxitah

SOUTHWICK

Chuck It Handyman Services
42 Congamond Road
Irvin Hooten

Oak & Keg
20 Point Grove Road
Vimal Patel

Quality Plumbing Inc.
309 South Longyard Road
Illia Olbrys

SPRINGFIELD

Angel Expression Apparel
1655 Main St.
Angel Ayala

B’s Towing
110 Old Lane Road
Branden Stanek

B.B. Xpress
525 Belmont Ave.
Latoya Redd

Best Value Auto Service
927 Boston Road
Usman Sheikh

Expert Image Construction
91 Canterbury Road
Jose Torres

For the Love of Hair
1655 Boston Road
Jeneta Kelly

Glorivee’s Daycare
54 Timber Lane
Glorivee Muniz

Hola Restaurant
455 Belmont Ave.
Joanny Queazada

L & G Signs & Designs
1 Allen St.
Leroy Davidson

Los Altisimos
12 Orange St.
Luis Gonzalez Cruz

Medero’s Cleaning Service
29 Chapel St.
Ricardo Medero

Property Care Solutions
201 Osborne Terrace
Mark Joseph

Ramon Trucking
59 Carlisle St.
Ramon Cruz

River Valley Chiropractic
1003 St. James Ave.
Spencer Burling

Roma Pizzeria
1655 Boston Road
Aydin Roomaninezhad

We Care Day Care
814 Parker St.
Victoria Davila

Weiner Between the Buns
68 Cleveland St.
Irma Alvarado

Williams Home Improvement
71 Greene St.
William Aponte

WARE

Handyman Tim
7 Pleasant St.
Timothy Davis

WESTFIELD

Best Colors
11 DuBois St.
Igor Kaplyuk

C & L Towing
1166 East Mountain Road
Clifford Laraway

Comfort Air
21 Barbara St.
Vladimir Lesnik

DJ-ZJ Entertainment Services
327 Munger Hill Road
Zachary Sherpa

Fast Track to College
106 Old Farm Road
Glenda Hynes

Guided Touch Therapy
26 Orange St.
Thomas Campbell

MG Snow Plowing
542 West Road
Michael Gogol

Olesksak Home Services, LLC
31 Schumann Dr.
Olesksak Home Services, LLC

Stanton Contracting
147 Tannery Road
Richard Stanton III

WILBRAHAM

Al’s Home Improvement
280 Stony Hill Road
Alan Frame

Boardwalk Contractors
528 Ridge Road
Thomas Dean Sr.

Carte24
1028 Stony Hill Road
Sa Nguyen

Creme Coiffure Salon and Accessories
2141K Boston Road
Elizabeth Hill

Keating Wilbert Vault Co. Inc.
1840 Boston Road
David Dumala

Nature Inspired Designs
9 Brainard Road
Reginald Levesque

PH Performance Truck
2 Railroad Ave.
Peter Zimmerman

Vapors Haven, LLC
2341 Boston Road
David Lucchesi, Eva-May Lucchesi

Wilbraham Seafoods
2341 Boston Road
George Giannakopoulos

Wilbraham U-Store-It
2040 Boston Road
Paul Cantalini

Incorporations

Departments Incorporations

The following business incorporations were recorded in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties and are the latest available. They are listed by community.

AGAWAM

Db Entertainment Solutions Inc., 1186 River Road, Agawam, MA 01001. Daniel J. Hendrix, same. Entertainment and production company.

CHICOPEE

Europa Deli Inc., 55 Cabot St., Chicopee, MA 01013. Krystyna Kania, 912 Pool St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Food store.

FEEDING HILLS

Dino Corp., 1151 North Westfield St., Feeding Hills, MA 01030. Dino R. Mercadante, same. Restaurant business.

INDIAN ORCHARD

Enterprise Resource Group Corp., 32 Montgomery St., Indian Orchard, MA 01151. Ismail Syed, same. The company provides technology integration services.

LENOX

Dimario Inc., 25 Hillside Dr. Lenox, MA 01240. Michael J. Dimario, same. Plumbing & heating equipment repair & installation.

LUDLOW

D A Vance Inc., 68 Michael St., Ludlow, MA 01056. Debra A. Vance, same. Stenographer/real estate agent.

Elite Contracting Services Inc, 96 Clearwater Circle, Ludlow, MA 01056. Anabela B. Fernandes, same. Construction, utility and road reconstruction.

NORTHAMPTON

D & S Hospitality Inc., 48 Main St., Northampton, MA 01060. Steven Phillip Cambell, 4 Fairfield Ave, Easthampton, MA 01027. Restaurant, music venue.

PITTSFIELD

Deluxe Windows Inc, 82 Wendell Ave., Suite 100, Pittsfield, MA 01201. Andrey Ryaboy, same. Window sales.

SOUTH DEERFIELD

Endeavour Transportation Inc, 110a Hillside Road, South Deerfield, MA 01373. Ronald Barnes, same. Trucking and transportation.

WEST SPRINGFIELD

Deeper Life Bible Church, Springfield, 534 Union St., West Springfield, MA 01089. Joseph Adebayo Olayiwola, 42 Tremont St., New Britain, CT 06051. Church.

Court Dockets

Court Dockets Departments

The following is a compilation of recent lawsuits involving area businesses and organizations. These are strictly allegations that have yet to be proven in a court of law. Readers are advised to contact the parties listed, or the court, for more information concerning the individual claims.

HAMPDEN DISTRICT COURT

Moises Santiago p/p/a Judith Montero, Juliet Santiago p/p/a Judith Montero, and Judith Montero v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp.

Allegation: Assault, false imprisonment, and invasion of privacy: $24,999

Filed: 5/12/17

Bobcat of Connecticut Inc. d/b/a Bobcat of Greater Springfield v. Nicholas G. Sanderson d/b/a NGS Dirtworks

Allegation: Money owed for equipment rental and soil conditioner: $14,245.12

Filed: 5/15/17

Bobcat of Connecticut Inc. d/b/a Bobcat of Greater Springfield v. Adriano Consentini d/b/a Cosentini Landscaping

Allegation: Money owed for damaged excavator rented by defendant: $11,913.58

Filed: 5/22/17

Debra Klueffel v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP

Allegation: Minor child backed electric shopping cart over plaintiff’s foot causing injury: $3,059.60

Filed: 5/26/17

HAMPDEN SUPERIOR COURT

Lisa Cruz v. LA Fitness International, LLC

Allegation: Invasion of privacy, negligence: $500,000

Filed: 5/8/17

Kathleen L. White and Raymond E. White v. Tzay J. Ciu, M.D.; John P. Frangie, M.D.; the Cataract & Laser Center West, LLC; and D & G Associates Inc.

Allegation: Medical malpractice

Filed: 5/15/17

Gemal Zahran v. WJSM Management, LLC; Slawomir Ubank; and Wladyslaw Urbanek

Allegation: Dog bite causing injury: $25,050

Filed: 5/17/17

Edward K. Cumby v. Baystate Medical Center Inc.

Allegation: Negligence, slip and fall causing injury: $100,000

Filed: 5/31/17

HAMPSHIRE SUPERIOR COURT

Matthew Tarczynski v. Irfan Kashif d/b/a Dairy Market

Allegation: Slip and fall causing injury: $67,056

Filed: 5/25/17

Country Bank for Savings v. Ware Holdings, LLC and George A. McLaughlin III

Allegation: Breach of contract: $25,000

Filed: 5/25/17

Ryan Feek v. University of Massachusetts Amherst

Allegation: Failure to pay accrued vacation time: $12,328

Filed: 5/25/17

Our Annual Guide to Summer Events in Western Mass.

Cover Story Sections Tourism & Hospitality

Fun in the Sun

Summertime is a great time to get away, but in Western Mass., it’s also a great time to stick around and enjoy the many events on the calendar. Whether you’re craving fair food or craft beer, live music or arts and crafts, historical experiences or small-town pride, the region boasts plenty of ways to celebrate the summer months. Here are 35 ideas to get you started, in a region that’s home to many more.

SEE: List of Tourist Attractions in the Region

July

Pioneer Valley Beer & Wine Festival
300 North Main St., Florence
www.lookpark.org
Admission: $35 in advance, $40 at the door
July 1: Hungry — or thirsty — for something to do as the summer months take hold? Look Park presents its second annual Beer & Wine Festival at the Pines Theater from noon to 5 p.m. Attendees will get to sample local beer and wine from the Pioneer Valley, live music, and a host of local food vendors. Non-drinkers (designated drivers and under 21) may purchase tickets for $10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Berkshires Arts Festival
380 State Road, Great Barrington
www.berkshiresartsfestival.com
Admission: $7-$14; free for children under 10
July 1-3, Aug. 17-20: Ski Butternut may be best-known for … well, skiing, of course. But the property also plays host to the Berkshires Arts Festival, a regional tradition now in its 16th year. Thousands of art lovers and collectors are expected to stop by to check out and purchase the creations of more than 200 artists and designers, inclouding more than 40 exhibiting for the first time. 1berkshiresartsfestival

Fireworks Shows
Various Locations
July 1-4: The days surrounding Independence Day are brimming with nighttime pageantry throughout the Pioneer Valley. Holyoke Community College kicks things off on June 30. July 1 brings a display at Beacon Field in Greenfield and Szot Park in Chicopee, while on July 3, Michael Smith Middle School in South Hadley and East Longmeadow High School get into the act. July 4 will bring the spectacle to Riverfront Park in Springfield, McGuirk Stadium at UMass Amherst, and Six Flags New England in Agawam.

Old Sturbridge Village Independence Weekend Celebration
1 Old Sturbridge Village Road, Sturbridge
www.osv.org
Admission: $14-$28; free for children under 4
July 1-4: At this celebration of America, visitors can take part in a citizens’ parade, play 19th-century-style ‘base ball,’ march with the militia, make a tri-cornered hat, and sign a giant copy of the Declaration of Independence. Children and families will enjoy the friendly competition of the Farm Yard Games, and a reproduction cannon will be fired. On July 4, a citizen naturalization ceremony will take place on the Village Common.

Monson Summerfest
Main Street, Monson
www.monsonsummerfestinc.com
Admission: Free
July 4: In 1979, a group of parishioners from the town’s Methodist church wanted to start an Independence Day celebration focused on family and community, The first Summerfest featured food, games, and fun activities. With the addition of a parade, along with booths, bands, rides, and activities, the event has evolved into an attraction drawing more than 10,000 people every year.

Dog Shows
1305 Memorial Ave., West Springfield
www.thebige.com
Admission: Free
July 5-9, Aug. 24-27: The Eastern States Exposition fairgrounds certainly haven’t gone to the dogs, but it will seem that way for five days in July, when Yankee Classic Cluster Dog Shows shows take over the Better Living Center. On tap are dog shows from the Kenilworth, Holyoke, Farmington, and Naugatuck Kennel Clubs. Then, in August, the fairgrounds will host dog shows from the Newtown, Ox Ridge, and Elm City Kennel Clubs.

Made in Massachusetts Festival
1305 Memorial Ave., West Springfield
www.madeinmassfest.com
Admission: $20 general admission, $35 for admission plus tasting combo ticket
July 8-9: The Eastern States Exposition will host this festival featuring craft vendors and products unique to Massachusetts. The event will showcase the state’s top breweries, wineries, local food, live entertainment, specialty crafts, and much more. In addition, kids will enjoy a mobile arcade full of games, a laser-tag arena, huge obstacle courses, bounce houses, an inflated soccer ball arena, face painting, and more.

Brimfield Outdoor Antiques Show
Route 20, Brimfield
www.brimfieldshow.com
Admission: Free
July 11-16, Sept. 5-10: After expanding steadily through the decades, the Brimfield Antique Show now encompasses six miles of Route 20 and has become a nationally known destination for people to value antiques, collectibles, and flea-market finds. Some 6,000 dealers and close to 1 million total visitors show up at the three annual, week-long events; the first was in May.

Yidstock
1021 West St., Amherst
www.yiddishbookcenter.org/yidstock
Admission: Festival pass, $236; tickets may be purchased for individual events
July 13-16: Boasting an array of concerts, lectures, and workshops, Yidstock 2017: The Festival of New Yiddish Music brings the best in klezmer and new Yiddish music to the stage at the Yiddish Book Center on the campus of Hampshire College. The sixth annual event offers an intriguing glimpse into Jewish roots, music, and culture.

Post #351 Catfish Derby
50 Kolbe Dr., Holyoke
www.post351catfishderby.com
Admission: $10 entry fee
July 14: The American Legion Post #351 touts its 37th annual Catfish Derby as the biggest catfish tournament in the Northeast. Fishing is open to the Connecticut River and all its tributaries. The derby headquarters and weigh-in station are located at Post #351. A total of $1,425 in prize money is being offered, with a first prize of $300. Three trophies are available in the junior division (age 14 and younger).

Green River Festival
One College Dr., Greenfield
www.greenriverfestival.com
Admission: Weekend, $119.99; Friday, $34.99; Saturday, $64.99; Sunday, $64.99
July 14-16: For one weekend every July, Greenfield Community College hosts a high-energy celebration of music; local food, beer, and wine; handmade crafts; and games and activities for families and children — all topped off with four hot-air-balloon launches and a spectacular Saturday-night ‘balloon glow.’ The music is continuous on three stages, with more than 40 bands slated to perform.

Glasgow Lands Scottish Festival
300 North Main St., Florence
www.glasgowlands.org
Admission: $5-$16, free for children under 6
July 15: Staged at Look Park, this 23nd annual festival celebrating all things Scottish features Highland dancers, pipe bands, a pipe and drum competition, animals, spinners, weavers, harpists, Celtic music, athletic contests, activities for children, and the authentically dressed Historic Highlanders recreating everyday life in that society from the 14th through 18th centuries.

Positively Holyoke Summer Concerts
221 Appleton St., Holyoke
www.holyokerotary.com
Admission: Free
July 19, July 26, Aug. 2, Aug. 9: The Holyoke Rotary Club will present a series of four Wednesday night concerts at Holyoke Heritage State Park, featuring, in order, Darik & the Funbags, Out of the Blue, Union Jack, and Trailer Trash. The concerts begin at 6 p.m., but a beer garden and grill will open at 5:30. Parking is free, and the rain date for each concert is the following day.

Franklin County Beer Fest
66 Thunder Mountain Road, Charlemont
www.berkshireeast.com
Admission: $25 in advance, $30 at the door
July 22: Join fellow brew enthusiasts for an afternoon of food, music, and drink. The second annual Franklin County Beer Fest will be held at Berkshire East Mountain Resort and will feature beer from several local breweries, local ciders, and local mead and libations. ID required. Online ticket buyers before July will receive a souvenir glass.

Old Sturbridge Village Craft Beer & Roots Music Festival
1 Old Sturbridge Village Road, Sturbridge, MA
www.osv.org
Admission: $14-$28; free for children under 4
July 23: OSV’s craft beer festival is back, with more brews, bands, and bites than ever before. More than 30 craft breweries from across New England will offer an opportunity to sample and purchase some of the region’s top beers, ciders, and ales, while local chefs prepare farm-to-table fare. At five indoor and outdoor stages, more than a dozen musical artists will bring the sounds of Americana, bluegrass, country, folk, and roots music.

Hampden County 4-H Fair
1305 Memorial Ave., West Springfield
www.easternstatesexposition.com
Admission: Free
July 29: More than 200 young people from Hampden County, and 4-H members from Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, and Worcester counties, will showcase projects they have made, grown, or raised during the past year. Events include a horse show and other animal exhibitions, a fun run, a talent show, a fashion revue, a lead line and wool competition, and more.

August

West Side Taste of the Valley
Town Common, West Springfield
www.westsidetaste.com
Admission: Free
Aug. 10-13: This community event annually draws over 30,000 people from all over the Pioneer Valley to sample various dishes from a diverse mix of restaurants. The weekend is also highlighted by family-friendly entertainment, live musical acts, a midway of rides and games for kids and teens, animal rides, a petting zoo, and Saturday’s class car cruise, a display of classic, antique, and special-interest cars owned by local residents.

Middlefield Fair
7 Bell Road, Middlefield
www.middlefieldfair.org
Admission: TBA
Aug. 11-13: The Highland Agricultural Society was established in 1856 for the purpose of holding the agricultural fair in Middlefield. In those days, it was known as the Cattle Show, and the grounds were filled with local farmers’ prized cattle. Although the fair has changed in its 150-plus years, it retains that tradition, adding food, a truck pull, a petting zoo, animal exhibits, rides, games, and live including Ray Guillemette Jr.’s Elvis tribute, “A-Ray of Elvis.”

Springfield Jazz and Roots Festival
Court Square, Springfield
www.springfieldjazzfest.com
Admission: Free
Aug. 12: The fourth annual Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival will offer a festive atmosphere featuring locally and internationally acclaimed musical artists. More than 10,000 people are expected to attend and enjoy featured performers including Lizz Wright, Miles Mosley, Rebirth Brass Band, Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Christian Scott, Zaccai Curtis & Insight, Natalie Fernandez, and Community Grooves.

Westfield International Airshow
175 Falcon Dr., Westfield
www.westfieldairshow.org
Admission: Free; upgraded paid seating available
Aug. 12-13: The first airshow at Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in seven years will feature the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, a team of F-16 fighter jets that fly in close proximity. Other displays include the Geico Skytypers, a team of six pilots who create aerial smoke messages in the sky, as well as the Third Strike wingwalking act, the the Black Daggers U.S. Army Parachute Team, and a host of others.

Westfield Fair
137 Russellville Road, Westfield
www.thewestfieldfair.com
Admission: $6-$8, free for children under 12
Aug. 18-20: One of the earlier late-summer agricultural fairs that proliferate across Western Mass., the 90th edition of the Westfield Fair promises traditional fare like livestock shows, an antique tractor pull, live music, rides and games, an animal auction, a craft barn, a petting zoo, midway rides, and, of course, lots of food.

Cummington Fair
97 Fairgrounds Road, Cummington
www.cummingtonfair.com
Admission: $5-$12, free for children under 10
Aug. 24-27: The Cummington Fair was initiated in 1883 as the Hillside Agricultural Society. Today, it lives on as a showcase for agriculture and livestock in the region, in addition to a robust schedule of entertainment, featuring live music, magic, a demolition derby, a lumberjack show, the Kenya Acrobats, a square dance, crafts, games, food, and much more.

Downtown Get Down
Exchange Street, Chicopee
www.chicopeegetdown.com
Admission: Free
Aug. 25-26: Now in its third year, Chicopee’s downtown block party, which drew 15,000 people to the streets around City Hall last year, will feature live music from nine bands, as well as attractions for children, local food vendors, live art demonstrations, and, for the first time, a 5K race.

Celebrate Holyoke
Downtown Holyoke
www.celebrateholyokemass.com
Admission: Free
Aug. 25-27: Celebrate Holyoke is a three-day festival that made its return in 2015 after a 10-year hiatus, drawing an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 people downtown over the course of the weekend. This year’s festival will include live musical performances, food and beverages from local restaurants, activities for children, and goods from local artists and makers.

September

Stone Soul Festival
1780 Roosevelt Ave., Springfield
www.ssfestival.weebly.com
Admission: Free
Sept. 1-3: New England’s largest African-American festival offers family-oriented activities, entertainment, and cultural enrichment, and is a vehicle for minority-owned businesses to display their wares and crafts. Entertainment at Blunt Park includes gospel, jazz, R&B, and dance. Sunday’s free picnic includes ribs and chicken cooked by talented pitmasters, backed by live gospel music performed by local and regional choirs.

Three County Fair
41 Fair St., Northampton
www.threecountyfair.com
Admission: $8-$10
Sept. 1-4: For almost 200 years, the Hampshire, Franklin & Hampden Agricultural Society has promoted agriculture, agricultural education, and agricultural science in the Commonwealth. The purpose remains the umbrella under which the Three County Fair is presented to the public. But the fair also includes carnival rides and games, thoroughbred horse racing, crafts, and, of course, plenty of food.

Blandford Fair
10 North St., Blandford
www.theblandfordfair.com
Admission: $5-$10, free for children under 6
Sept. 1-4: Not much has changed in almost 150 years of the Blandford Fair, but that’s what makes it so charming. Fairgoers can witness the classic rituals of the giant pumpkin display, the pony draw, and the horseshoe tournament, plus more modern additions, like the fantastically loud chainsaw-carving demonstration and the windshield-smashing demolition derby.

Franklin County Fair
89 Wisdom Way, Greenfield
www.fcas.com
Admission: $7-$10, free for children under 9
Sept. 7-10: Named one of the “10 Great New England Fairs” in 2015 by Globe magazine, the 169th edition of the Franklin County Fair will roll into the Franklin County Fairgrounds with every type of fair food imaginable, midway rides, and entertainment ranging from bands and roaming clowns to a ventriloquist, demotion derby, livestock shows, horse draws, a truck pull, and much more.

Glendi
22 St. George Road, Springfield
www.stgeorgecath.org/glendi
Admission: Free
Sept. 8-10: Every year, St. George Cathedral offers thousands of visitors the best in traditional Greek foods, pastries, music, dancing, and old-fashioned Greek hospitality. In addition, the festival offers activities for children, tours of the historic St. George Cathedral and Byzantine Chapel, vendors from across the East Coast, icon workshops, movies in the Glendi Theatre, cooking demonstrations, and more.

Hilltown Brewfest
837 Daniel Shays Highway, New Salem
www.hilltownbrewfest.com
Admission: $35 in advance, $40 at the door
Sept. 9: The ninth annual Hilltown Brewfest is a fund-raiser for local fire departments. The event at Cooleyville Junction promises a relaxing afternoon featuring some 30 brands and 100 brews of beer, wine, cider, and Berkshire Distillery products. Selections include products by both local craft brewers, winemakers, and distillers in the Quabbin and Pioneer Valley regions as well as similar craft producers across New England.

Mattoon Street Arts Festival
Mattoon Street, Springfield
www.mattoonfestival.org
Admission: Free
Sept. 9-10: Now in its 45th year, the Mattoon Street Arts Festival is the longest-running arts festival in the Pioneer Valley, featuring about 100 exhibitors, including artists that work in ceramics, fibers, glass, jewelry, painting and printmaking, photography, wood, metal, and mixed media. Food vendors and strolling musicians help to make the event a true late-summer destination.

FreshGrass Festival
1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams
www.freshgrass.com
Admission: $48-$110 for three-day pass
Sept. 15-17: The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is known for its musical events, and the Fresh Grass festival is among the highlights, showcasing more than 50 bluegrass artists and bands over three days. This year, the lineup includes Brandi Carlile, Railroad Earth, the Del McCoury Band with David Grisman, Shovels & Rope, Del & Dawg, Bill Frisell, and many more.

The Big E
1305 Memorial Ave., West Springfield
www.easternstatesexposition.com
Admission: $8-$12; 17-day pass $20-$40
Sept. 15 to Oct. 1: It’s still the big one, and there’s something for everyone, whether it’s the copious fair food or the livestock shows, the Avenue of States houses or the parades, the local vendors and crafters or the live music — this year featuring Cole Swindell, the Village People, Martin Sexton, Sheila E., the Sugarhill Gang, Fastball, the Lovin’ Spoonful, and many more.

Belchertown Fair
Main Street, Belchertown
www.belchertownfair.com
Admission: Free
Sept. 22-24: This community fair, which draws more than 30,000 visitors every year, celebrates the town’s agricultural roots as well as its active growing community. The weekend features a wide variety of family-friendly activities, from an exhibit hall and animal exhibitions to a parade, plenty of live music, pumpkin decorating for kids, a balloon twister, and an old-time beautiful baby show.

Old Deerfield Craft Fair
10 Memorial St., Deerfield
www.deerfield-craft.org
Admission: $7, free for children under 12
Sep. 23-24: This award-winning show has been recognized for its traditional crafts and fine-arts categories and offers a great variety of items, from furniture to pottery. And while in town, check out all of Historic Deerfield, featuring restored, 18th-century museum houses with period furnishings, demonstrations of Colonial-era trades, and a collection of Early American crafts, ceramics, furniture, textiles, and metalwork.

Chamber Corners: Upcoming Events

Chamber Corners Departments

1BERKSHIRE
www.1berkshire.com
(413) 499-1600

July 19: Chamber Nite, 5-7 p.m., hosted by United Cerebral Palsy.

July 25: Entrepreneurial Meet Up, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Shire Breu-Hous.

GREATER CHICOPEE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.chicopeechamber.org
(413) 594-2101

June 29: Business After Hours, 4:30-6:30 p.m., hosted by Valley Blue Sox, Mackenzie Stadium, Holyoke. Game time: 6:35 p.m. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members.

GREATER EASTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.easthamptonchamber.org
(413) 527-9414

June 28: Speaker Breakfast: “Why Ping-pong Tables Do Not Define Your Business Culture,” 7:30-9 a.m., hosted by Williston Northampton School, 19 Payson Ave., Easthampton. Featured guest speaker: Tim Retting of Cincinnati-based InTrust. Sponsored by BusinessWest, Easthampton Savings Bank, Finck & Perras Insurance Agency Inc., Innovative Business Systems Inc., United Personnel, and Williston Northampton School. Cost: $25 for members, $30 for non-members.

July 13: Networking by Night featuring the Oxbow Water Ski Team, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Oxbow Marina, Old Springfield Road, Northampton. Sponsored by BusinessWest, Fleury’s Outdoor Equipment Inc., and American Boat Restoration. Cost: $10 for members, $15 for non-members.

July 28: The Chamber Island Golf Tournament, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., hosted by Southampton Country Club, 329 College Highway, Southampton. Sponsored by BankESB, Polish National Credit Union, Finck & Perras Insurance Agency Inc., Taylor Real Estate, Westfield Bank, Applied Mortgage, Green Earth Energy Photovoltaic, and Richards Fuel & Heating Inc. Registration and breakfast at 9 a.m., shotgun start at 10 a.m., Fun Island Feast to end the day. Breakfast and dinner catered by Myers Catering. Come in your best island attire. Cost: $135 per golfer, $540 for a team. Visit www.easthamptonchamber.org for additional information.

GREATER NORTHAMPTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.explorenorthampton.com
(413) 584-1900

July 12: Arrive@5, 5-7p.m., hosted by Three Sisters Sanctuary, 188A Cape St., Goshen. Sponsored by BusinessWest. Cost: $10 for members.

Sept. 13: Arrive@5, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Family Legacy Partners, 48 Round Hill Road, Suite 2, Northampton. Co-host: CheckWriters Payroll. Sponsored by Northeast Solar, Finck & Perras Insurance Agency Inc., and Coldwell Banker Upton-Massamont Realtors. Cost: $10 for members.

GREATER WESTFIELD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
www.westfieldbiz.org
(413) 568-1618

July 13: 40th annual Pancake Breakfast, 7-11 a.m., hosted by South Middle School, 30 West Silver St., Westfield. Premium event sponsor: Baystate Noble Health; youth camp sponsor: MedExpress Urgent Care; sausage sponsor: BMC HealthNet Plan; media sponsors: BusinessWest, the Westfield News; placemat sponsor: Appalachian Press; ticket sponsor: Puffer Printing; coffee sponsor: Dunkin Donuts, Mayor Brian Sullivan. This is a community event. Attractions include a bounce house, face painting, fire engine, music, live broadcast with WSKB 89.5 FM, and vendor bingo (win a $50 restaurant gift card). Vendor tables are available: $75 for chamber members, $100 for non-chamber members (you must provide your own table). Cost: $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, and $3 for kids under 12. You may purchase tickets at the event or by visiting www.westfieldbiz.org. For more information, to volunteer, and/or to reserve a tabletop, call Pam at the chamber at (413) 568-1618.

SPRINGFIELD REGIONAL CHAMBER
www.springfieldregionalchamber.com
(413) 755-1310

July 20: Annual Golf Tournament, 11 a.m., hosted by Crestview Country Club, 281 Shoemaker Lane, Agawam. Registration and practice greens open at 11 a.m., followed by lunch and a shotgun start at 12:30 p.m. The day concludes with a reception, buffet dinner, and awards ceremony. Cost: $600 per foursome, $150 for individual golfers. Sponsorship opportunities are available. Register online for events at www.springfieldregionalchamber.com or e-mail [email protected] for more information.

YOUNG PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY OF GREATER SPRINGFIELD
springfieldyps.com

July 20: July Third Thursday, 5-7 p.m., hosted by Dockside Restaurant at Brunelle’s Marina, 1 Alvord St., South Hadley, in partnership with Northampton Area Young Professionals and Young Professionals of Amherst.

Pieces Falling into Place for Revival at the Paramount

Features

Curtain Call

An architect’s rendering of what a renovated Massasoit Block might look like.

Like all those who have fond memories of taking in movies and shows at the Paramount Theater, Herbie Flores has long dreamed of the landmark’s revival. But nostalgia has never been enough of a force to generate a rebirth. What’s needed is a viable plan, financing, and a vibrant downtown that can fuel such an ambitious venture. Flores, who calls himself “a realist, not a dreamer,” believes the needed pieces to the puzzle are falling into place.

Herbie Flores doesn’t have to look far to find some inspiration as he moves forward with ambitious plans to restore the historic Paramount Theater complex in downtown Springfield.

All he has to do is glance across Main Street.

With a slight turn of the neck, one can see the parking garage attached to the massive, nearly $100 million renovation of Union Station, which has been enjoying a nearly two-month-long coming-out party this spring.

“How long did it take them to get that done?” he asked in reference to the station, knowing the answer was four long decades marked by doubts, conjecture, and countless starts and stops. “They didn’t give up on it … they kept at it, and they got it done.”

I’m a realist, not a dreamer. I know what it takes to make something like this a reality.”

For more inspiration, he can look farther north on Main Street and a project in his own portfolio. That would be the comprehensive, $14 million rehabilitation of the Memorial Square Apartments completed this spring.

But Flores, president of the New England Farm Workers Council, which owns the Paramount property among a host of others along that stretch of Main Street between Fort Street and the Arch, has never really lacked for inspiration when it comes to the Paramount and adjoining Massasoit Hotel.

Indeed, he has long been motivated to revitalize this landmark steeped in history, only he’s understood from the outset that proper motivation isn’t nearly enough.

“I’m a realist, not a dreamer,” he said, before admitting quickly that one probably has to be both when it comes to this project. “I know what it takes to make something like this a reality.”

Herbie Flores says that, with the Union Station project completed and MGM Springfield set to open in 2018, the Paramount project takes on greater significance.

It takes a number of pieces to fall into place, he went on, adding that this is what is finally happening, starting with a City Council vote on June 19 to approve a $3.65 million loan application with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to put a much-needed new roof on the property, replace windows, and undertake façade work, steps that will secure the structure, prevent further deterioration, and put a somewhat new, more modern face on the city landmark.

Another piece falling into place is the securing of private financing for what will likely be a $40 million project when all is said and done, said Flores, who believes the curtain could rise again at the Paramount in early 2019 or perhaps even earlier.

“I’m very confident that we’re going to make this happen — it’s real,” he said. “Over the years, many of Springfield’s older buildings have been torn down and replaced with new ones. But this is in the heart of the city, and we don’t need to tear it down; I think this could be a crown jewel for Springfield.”

As he talked about the Paramount and his plans moving forward, Flores said recent developments in Springfield, including Union Station, MGM Springfield, and others, have raised the stakes for the Paramount project, and in several ways.

Indeed, he said those initiatives underscore the need to get the Paramount project done, and they raise the bar in terms of the scope and character of the project.

“Now that we have this casino and the renovated Union Station, we have to take this project to a higher level,” he explained. “We need a project that reflects all the great things happening in Springfield.”

Kevin Kennedy, Springfield’s chief planning officer, agreed.

“With the bookend projects, MGM and Union Station, now done or nearly done, it only makes sense to move forward with what are arguably the two most difficult projects — the Paramount and 31 Elm Street,” said Kennedy, referring, with the latter, to long-discussed efforts to create new uses for a former hotel adjacent to Court Square.

“With 17,000 people coming to Union Station every day and another 10,000 people visiting MGM each day, it doesn’t make sense to leave that eyesore in its current condition,” Kennedy went on, referring to the Paramount.

Kennedy put the Paramount on the ‘most difficult projects’ list for a reason — actually, several of them. First, the landmark has become greatly deteriorated in recent years, as that leaky roof has allowed water to enter and wreak havoc. Also, the project needs to make sense from an economic perspective, meaning recovery of the huge investment needed to restore the property to its former state.

Flores firmly believes that a hotel/theater complex can and will be viable, especially as Springfield continues to stage its own revival. For this issue, he talked with BusinessWest about how the curtain may soon rise and usher in a new chapter in the history of the Paramount — and the city itself.

Marquee Performance

As he talked about the Paramount project, Flores, who never sits still for very long, got up from his seat and went to retrieve a book someone gave him a while back.

Titled After the Final Curtain, it’s a coffee-table book of sorts crammed with powerful photos of grand old theaters, most of them built a century or more ago during the heyday of such movie palaces, in various — and usually serious — states of decline.

While there are a few stories of successful restoration and reuse in this mix — the $90 million rescue of the Loews Kings Theatre in Brooklyn and revival of the Studebaker Theatre in Chicago may be the best examples — most of the facilities highlighted are beyond the point of return and continue to deteriorate. That list of notable landmarks includes everything from the Uptown Theatre in Philadelphia to Loews Canal Theatre in New York.

An architect’s rendering of what might be the new look of the Paramount’s interior.

Springfield’s Paramount is not featured in the book, and Flores, like most area residents who can fondly recall seeing movies and shows there decades ago, doesn’t want it to become one of the theaters now referred to solely with the past tense.

But nostalgia has never been enough of a force to get the Paramount project done — just as in the case of those theaters mentioned above, said Flores, adding that there must be a workable business plan in place to secure not only the needed financing, but a viable future for the endeavor.

In many ways, he’s been working on such a plan — while also taking on a host of other projects, such as the Memorial Square Apartments — since the Farm Workers Council acquired the Paramount in 2011 for $1.7 million.

Since then, the theater has hosted a few shows and events, including a formal announcement in early 2013 of Penn National’s proposal (ultimately not chosen by the city, which favored MGM’s plan) to build a casino in the North End of Springfield. The Paramount was going to be one of the centerpieces of that plan, said Flores, who still has an architect’s rendering of a revitalized theater from that proposal in his conference room.

It’s been joined by a few newer renderings over the past few years as Flores has slowly forwarded what he believes is a workable plan for the landmark.

I’ve worked on enough historical buildings to know the time it takes to do things the right way. In the end, you want to end up with a good product.”

It calls for an 81-room hotel (with options to expand that number to 120) to provide a reliable revenue stream for the theater, which will be renovated and become host to different types of shows and programs.

Over the first 85-odd years of its existence, the Paramount — later called the Julia Sanderson Theater and then the Hippodrome — has played host to everything from rock concerts and boxing matches to ballet performances, and Flores projects the same kind of flexibility in the future.

Extensive renovation work is needed, said Flores and Jose Perez, development consultant for the project, as they provided a tour of the Paramount to BusinessWest. They stopped early and often to point to various areas where water has been coming in through the leaky roof.

Overall, though, the landmark has good bones and a solid infrastructure, they noted, adding that, physically, it can be restored to its original luster.

As for its prospects for once again being a successful business operation — and it’s been decades since it could claim such status — those we talked with said that goal is attainable, especially given the improving climate in the city.

Ultimately, Flores expects the restoration of the Paramount and the entire Massasoit Block, as it’s called, to be a catalyst for further development in what he called “Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood,” a reference to the other properties and storefronts along Main Street.

“There will be a focus on entertainment — if you have a hotel, you need bars and restaurants,” he said, making one of several references to “building blocks” and how a project of this type usually develops in stages.

“I’ve worked on enough historical buildings to know the time it takes to do things the right way,” he said. “In the end, you want to end up with a good product.”

When asked about a timeline for the project, Flores said the doors to the Paramount might be open in the spring of 2019. He then paused and offered that it might even be ready at about the same time MGM Springfield is set to open in September 2018.

He acknowledged that this was ambitious, but then said, “it’s better to dream big than not to dream at all.”

Those same sentiments could be applied to every aspect of this ambitious project.

Almost Show Time

As he wrapped up his tour of the Paramount, Flores pointed to one of the famous Tiffany chandeliers in the main lobby.

“I’ve been offered $150,000 for that,” he said matter-of-factly, repeating sentiments given to numerous press outlets over the years, adding quickly that he has never seriously entertained such offers.

Instead, he remains focused on the bigger picture, a complete restoration of the Paramount, not selling off its various pieces.

Both the dreamer and the realist in him believe the project is not only doable, but necessary as Springfield continues to add new chapters to its revival story.

Flores remains dedicated to making the Paramount the next chapter in that book, and not the one about majestic theaters still waiting, against all odds, for a chance to raise the curtain again.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

A New Era for Tower Square

Opinion

Editorial

When a property like Springfield’s Tower Square comes onto the market — as the property’s owner, MassMutual, announced Monday — the common reaction is to think that something is wrong, and that such a development is bad news.

Maybe that is the case here, but MassMutual is certainly spinning things a different way, and maybe the rest of us should be thinking in those terms as well.

In acknowledging that Tower Square, opened as Baystate West in 1971, was on the block, a MassMutual spokesperson said this action is being taken because of all the positive developments taking place in Springfield and the realization that commercial real estate downtown is ‘hot,’ or at least much hotter than it has been in some time. Selling now, he said, is a wise move from an investment perspective.

And it is hard to argue with that thinking. Indeed, it only makes sense that this iconic property is worth more now than it has been at perhaps any point in the past 30 years or so. And what’s that old adage about real estate, stocks, and just about everything else — ‘buy low, sell high.’

Thus, this news should be greeted enthusiastically on a number of levels. First, it should be taken as a sign that Springfield’s recovery, or renaissance, as some have called it, is real, and that, as MGM Springfield moves ever closer to opening its $950 million casino, even better times are coming for the City of Homes and its long-struggling downtown.

When it opened to considerable fanfare (it was Springfield’s first building of more than a dozen floors), it was the place to be. Its storefronts were full, and its ground floor and mezzanine were packed with people. Oldtimers (meaning people over the age of 50) can and often do tell stories about spending an entire Saturday in a two- or three-block area downtown, starting at Johnson’s Bookstore, moving on to Baystate West, then going to Steiger’s and Forbes & Wallace.”

The news could also be taken as perhaps the start of a new era in the history of Tower Square, which has perhaps been the best mirror on the city’s health and well-being that we’ve had.

Indeed, when Springfield and its downtown were much healthier, Tower Square, or Baystate West, as it was called before 1996, was the unofficial symbol of success and vibrancy.

When it opened to considerable fanfare (it was Springfield’s first building of more than a dozen floors), it was the place to be. Its storefronts were full, and its ground floor and mezzanine were packed with people. Oldtimers (meaning people over the age of 50) can and often do tell stories about spending an entire Saturday in a two- or three-block area downtown, starting at Johnson’s Bookstore, moving on to Baystate West, then going to Steiger’s and Forbes & Wallace.

Almost all of those destinations are now gone — victims, some say, of the Holyoke Mall’s ascendance, but certainly victims of changing shopping habits and changing fortunes downtown.

By the mid-’90s, Tower Square had become, in essence, a symbol of Springfield’s decline. Most storefronts were empty, others were occupied by discount retailers, and the mall itself was eerily quiet and mostly devoid of people except for those lined up at Dunkin’ Donuts. When proponents of a downtown casino wanted to press their case for how the city needed a spark, they started by pointing to Tower Square and what wasn’t happening there.

So maybe Tower Square is once again becoming a symbol for Springfield, a symbol of its rebirth, of its soaring fortunes in the wake of the casino, Union Station, and a host of other developments.

Time will tell, obviously. No one really knows what kind of market will develop for this still-challenged property — many of its storefronts remain vacant, although occupancy remains solid.

Across this region and across the country, there are worries that traditional shopping malls will soon be obsolete, if they have not reached that state already. Whoever acquires the Tower Square property will have to be imaginative and diligent as they go about trying to build additional vibrancy and foot traffic.

For now, though, the sale of Tower Square should be taken as a positive development, and perhaps a sign that an exciting new era is set to begin for this landmark.

Sarah Jordan joins PNCU as Marketing Specialist

CHICOPEE — James Kelly, president and CEO of Polish National Credit Union (PNCU), announced that Sarah Jordan has joined the credit union as a marketing specialist.

Jordan’s responsibilities include internal and external communications, marketing and public-relations campaigns, community relations, and website management. She comes to PNCU from Westfield Bank/Chicopee Savings Bank, where she served as marketing coordinator.

She is a graduate of the University of Hartford with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, and has held marketing and communication assignments with the Greater Chicopee Chamber of Commerce, where she is a member of the marketing committee; the Barney School of Business Leadership Council; and the National Society of Leadership and Success – Sigma Alpha Pi. She has also been an active volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, the Spaulding After School Program, and Loaves and Fishes.

“We look forward to Sarah’s success in promoting Polish National Credit Union and its products and services to both current and future members,” said Kelly. “We are pleased to welcome her to our team.”

East-West Rail Would Benefit the Entire State

Opinion

By Eric Lesser

It’s no secret that Boston is booming. On my drive to the Statehouse every week, I see new buildings, new apartments, new restaurants. I can’t throw a baseball there without hitting a construction crane.

The city’s reputation for leading advances in biomedicine and investing in tech startups has made it the envy of the world.

But outside Boston’s 617 area code, the story of our state is much different.

Long before I reach my exit for downtown, I pass the long-abandoned factories of Westinghouse, American Bosch and Chapman Valve. While Boston’s unemployment rate is about 2%, Springfield’s is nearly 7%.

Our Commonwealth’s lopsided growth is leaving Western Mass. behind — and it’s hurting the entire state.

As new companies draw more and more young professionals to Boston, the high cost of housing squeezes their finances and they struggle to pay back student loans.

East-west rail would give employees in Western Mass access to higher-paying jobs in Eastern Mass. And it would give those who are struggling to afford housing in Eastern Mass. more affordable options in Central and Western Mass.”

Meanwhile, those young people leave behind gaping holes in the communities they move away from: Fewer families, an aging population, a growing housing glut, and a declining tax base.

Reliable, high-speed commuter rail service between Springfield and Boston would help solve this two-sided problem by creating an exchange between regions.

East-west rail would give employees in Western Mass access to higher-paying jobs in Eastern Mass. And it would give those who are struggling to afford housing in Eastern Mass. more affordable options in Central and Western Mass.

The current economy of Massachusetts is not properly using our different regions’ comparative advantages to their full potential.

Western Mass. is a beautiful place to live and raise a family, with plenty of open land to accommodate even more residents.

Eastern Mass. has the opposite problem, but offers more job opportunities and more paths to career advancement.

East-west rail is not just a Springfield project or a Western Mass project. This is a project that would benefit the entire Commonwealth — and business leaders are starting to take note.

The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce has endorsed east-west rail as a way to open up expansion opportunities and consumer markets to businesses in Boston.

Realtors and housing advocates have told me that east-west rail would not only ease Boston’s critical housing shortage, but would also be a boon to housing markets outside the city.

But the most important voices in this discussion are those of the workers and families themselves.

On June 19, I took a whistle-stop tour across the state to raise awareness of my proposal to study the feasibility of a high-speed rail line between Springfield and Boston. When I stopped in Palmer, I met an older woman who told me about the many times she had been laid off because a company had closed or downsized or moved to a different region.

Each time, she said, she would have to go back to school or retrain for a new skill. And each time, when she looked for a new job, the openings were farther and farther away from Palmer — from her hometown, her friends and her family.

When Western Mass gets left behind, this is what it looks like: A laid-off worker with very few options.

It is unacceptable that a woman in Western Mass. who has worked her whole life should have to worry about finding another job not because she is untrained for it, but because there are no jobs available within an hour’s drive.

This is the story being told outside of Boston’s 617 area code. And it would have a happier ending with an east-west rail link that would bring this woman — and other workers like her — to job opportunities closer to home.

Senator Eric P. Lesser is chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development & Emerging Technologies, vice chair of the Joint Committee on Financial Services, and leads ‘Millennial Outreach’ for the State Senate. He represents the First Hampden & Hampshire District in Western Mass.

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