Bear Market

Editor’s Note: In this issue, Business-West begins a new series that will provide snapshots of many of the cities and towns in Western Mass. In each issue, a different community will be highlighted in a program intended to inform readers about the issues and challenges facing these cities and towns, while also providing some of the flavor that makes each community different. This series will include communities in the four counties of Western Mass. — Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire — and begins with the Hampshire County jewel Easthampton, one of the region’s newest cities.

Michael Tauznik is Easthampton’s first, and still its only, mayor. He was first elected in 1995, giving him tenure surpassed only by North Adams’s long-time corner-office holder, John Barrett III, who has been in his seat since 1984 and is the longest-serving mayor in the Commonwealth.

Beyond the very unofficial title of ‘dean’ of Springfield-Holyoke-area mayors, Tauznik’s lengthy stint in what can now be called City Hall. has given him a front row seat to an ongoing evolution of this community’s economy. A former mill town where everything from paper to rubber stoppers; from cleaning products to the stretch bands in underwear were produced, Easthampton has become a more arts- and culture-focused community, with much of that old mill space now occupied by painters, sculptors, photographers, upholsterers, furniture makers, and others who find the community an attractive and affordable alternative to Northampton.

Meanwhile, the community’s old town/city hall is undergoing a transformation that underscores this fiscal evolution. It’s called CitySpace, the name given to the effort to convert the Main Street landmark into a center for the arts and arts-related businesses. The first floor is now occupied by a gallery and frame shop, and there are preliminary plans to take the spacious auditorium on the second floor where town meetings were once staged and convert it to a performance venue.

And starting this summer, the city will become home to something called the Easthampton Bear Fest. From June through mid-October, the community’s downtown will host an exhibit of life-sized, fiberglass bears (like the cows seen in some communities and the whales that populate Cape Cod) that are creatively painted, decorated, and festooned by artisans from Easthampton and the region and placed in various public spaces within an easy walking tour. A total of 30 bears, 20 life-size and 10 smaller, will be displayed. The bears will be sponsored by businesses and individuals, and will be auctioned off at the end of the festival to benefit Riverside Industries Art Program, Easthampton Public Schools art programs, the artists who decorate them, and Easthampton City Arts.

That’s quite a change from the days when most everyone who lived in the town worked at one of a dozen major mills.

But while Easthampton is embracing the arts and the artisans, its manufacturing heritage is not exactly a thing of the past. In many ways, it’s still a thing of the present, said Tauznik, with several major players, including Berry Tubed Products, October Co., Stevens Urethane, and others, employing more than 1,000 people.

There are far fewer of the major employers that called this community home decades ago, said Eric Snyder, director of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, adding that Easthampton, like most other area cities and towns, now relies on small businesses and diversity to remain vibrant.

“Easthampton’s progression is still a work in progress,” said Synder, who told BusinessWest that the city is “maturing” as a center of arts and culture and home to small and very small businesses. “We’re still at a point where we’re growing, and there’s greater realization that is what’s happening in Easthampton; people are taking notice of what’s going on here.”

In this issue, BusinessWest, in the course of profiling Easthampton, will examine this maturation process and what lies ahead for this gem in the shadow of Mount Tom.

Brush with Fame

It’s called Art Walk Easthampton.

That’s the name attached to a program started two years ago and staged on the second Saturday of every month. Residents and visitors are encouraged to walk around the community and, while doing so, visit some of galleries and arts venues and get a sampling of local, regional, and national talent.

Such venues include the Blue Guitar Gallery, Easthampton City Arts (the non-profit group formed in 2005 to enhance the collaborative efforts of the artist and business communities in the city), the Lathrop Inn Art Gallery, Nashawannuck Gallery, and the Pioneer Arts Center of Easthamp-ton. Each venue is identified by a bright yellow Art Walk banner; there’s even a similarly colored shuttle bus.

The fact that this community now has a monthly art walk with its own Web site (www.artwalkeasthampton.org) speaks to the changes that have taken place over the past few decades, said Snyder, adding that change is ongoing and constant.

The transformation began while the community was still actually a town, said Tauznik, noting that, over the past 15-20 years, Easthampton has seen many of its old mills become small-business incubators and homes to hundreds of artisans. The first of these conversions was at One Cottage Street, an old mill that once made elastic bands for undergarments and other uses.

The property was eventually taken over by Riverside Industries Inc., a nonprofit agency serving the developmentally disabled, which began leasing out some of the cavernous space for use as studios and workshops. By the late ’90s, a cultural community had taken root on the property, one that continues to grow, thrive, and inspire similar ventures today.

The city’s evolution continued with the biggest of these mill conversions — at the sprawling former home to Stanley Home Products, later Stanhome, on Pleasant Street. The 500,000-square-foot building is home to dozens of businesses and has become both a business address and a destination, with a number of restaurants and shops that bring visitors — and dollars — into Easthampton from outside its borders.

Today, the tenant list includes everything from a maker of decorative gift baskets to a driving school.

There have been other, smaller mill conversions, including the one at the former Paragon Rubber Co. plant just down the road from Eastworks (see story, page 39). The sum of these efforts has given the town a solid foundation on which to build and a chamber membership roster at more than 350, and growing.

“This is really a community of small businesses now,” said Snyder, whose job it is to serve and engage his members. “They’re the backbone of the economy here.”

The emergence of an arts community has brought attention — and large numbers of visitors — to the city’s downtown, said Tauznik, noting that one challenge for the community is to market itself and thus increase its visibility.

Art Walk Easthampton has certainly helped in this regard, he said, and the bear festival provides an additional boost to the efforts to move Easthampton off the list of best-kept secrets.

Like Snyder, Tauznik said Easthampton is in the midst of a maturation process as it grows and promotes its cultural economy. And continued growth will be challenged in the short term by the recession and its impact on town finances.

Like virtually all communities, Easthampton is facing sharp declines in auto excise tax receipts and other forms of revenue, as well as the threat of cuts in local aid from the Commonwealth. Thus, the city will have to become creative itself as it searches for funding sources for projects like CitySpace.

“Finding money to do some of the things we want to do will be difficult, but doable,” he said, noting that the community recently secured funds to help the owners of the Paragon building install new windows along Pleasant Street. “We’re going to have to be diligent and imaginative.”

Not Your Run-of-the-mill Town

“Connecting the Past with the Future.”

That’s one of the working slogans used by Eastworks in its promotional efforts, and in many ways it speaks to what the community is trying to do as it continues to evolve and mature.

It’s not leaving the past behind, said Tauznik, noting, again, that the city embraces its manufacturing heritage and still relies on that sector for needed jobs. But like all communities, it must diversify to remain vibrant.

It has been made considerable strides in that regard, but, as Snyder and the mayor noted, there’s still work to do with this work in progress.

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