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Efforts to Boost South Hadley Falls Gain Steam

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Frank DeToma and Mike Sullivan

Frank DeToma and Mike Sullivan say the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge is the gateway into South Hadley Falls, where revitalization efforts are underway.

In two months, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge that leads from Holyoke into South Hadley Falls will be closed for a day for a “River Roll and Stroll” event.

The family festival is designed to promote healthy living and is being co-sponsored by the Holyoke Bike-Pedestrian Committee and the South Hadley Bike-Walk Committee, a grass-roots effort to help promote recreational opportunities for bicyclists and pedestrians.

“The River Roll and Stroll will give people a look at the Falls and allow them to see the potential that exists while providing an economic boost to businesses there,” said Mariann Millard, co-chair of the event steering committee and chair of the South Hadley Bike-Walk Committee.

One of their goals is to make people aware of the natural resources and hiking trails that wind through conservation land in the town, which will help to expand efforts by town officials who believe increasing recreational opportunities will foster the growth of economic investments.

“We don’t have a rail trail, but want to show the public what we have to offer,” Millard said, adding that the South Hadley Falls Neighborhood Assoc. has put together a walking map of the area that highlights historic buildings and the Bicentennial Canal Park that overlooks the Connecticut River.

The newly created map; River Roll and Stroll on May 7, which was initiated by Sean Condon of Holyoke; and upcoming annual FallsFest Music & Arts Festival on July 29 that attracts thousands of people are part of a growing force aimed at introducing newcomers to the Falls and promoting economic development there.

“We believe the strategic use of public funding and local enthusiasm will encourage more people to live, visit, and work in the Falls and become a catalyst for private investment,” said Frank DeToma, a selectman and chair of the Redevelopment Authority. “Our ultimate vision is to develop a ‘canal village’ that will consist of commercial and residential establishments that capitalize on our historic canal and adjacent riverfront as well as the architectural character of some of the original buildings.”

Town Administrator Mike Sullivan said that, although the Redevelopment Authority is concerned with the entire town, bringing new life to the Falls will provide a significant boost to South Hadley’s economy as a whole.

We believe the strategic use of public funding and local enthusiasm will encourage more people to live, visit, and work in the Falls and become a catalyst for private investment.”

Ira Brezinsky agrees and says collaborative efforts that include work by government officials and businesses have coalesced to shine a light on the Falls and attract people who might not otherwise visit the area.

“It’s an ideal time for business people who want to get a taste of the community and neighborhood to come here, and we will put our best foot forward to welcome people from throughout the region,” said the selectman, co-chair for the River Roll and Stroll, and president of Music and Arts South Hadley, a grass-roots effort that became a nonprofit last year and hosts the FallsFest.

The town has also partnered with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to map out walking trails that need improvement and places where bike lanes and chevrons are needed to increase recreational opportunities.

In addition, a five-year, $5 million infrastructure project that involves improving parks, adding benches, new landscaping, crosswalks, traffic-calming devices, and new sidewalks in the Falls is well underway. So far, $2.7 million has been spent, and this year another $1.2 million will be poured into the redevelopment effort.

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest looks at what the Falls has to offer, plans for its future, and why officials and residents are bullish on the idea of redeveloping the area.

Planned Progress

Sullivan says the Falls is overdue for attention, and holds unlimited potential. It is less than a mile from the $4.3 million Holyoke passenger rail platform, and has centralized sewers and great access to the Connecticut River. In addition, South Hadley has its own municipal light plant, and work is being done to be able to offer secure, high-speed Internet in the future.

The Falls is also rich in history: the first navigable canal in the U.S. was built there in 1795, which made Falls Village (then South Hadley Canal) a busy shipping center and tourist attraction.

Unfortunately, its former vibrancy has been greatly diminished, mirroring what has occurred in many towns and cities across Western Mass., where businesses along riverfronts shut their doors or moved, and disinvestment slowly occurred.

But revitalization efforts began in earnest after a study of the area that was completed about five years ago became a springboard for change. As a result of recommendations in the final draft, the Falls Neighborhood Assoc. was formed, and in 2014 two important advances were made. The first was the long-awaited construction of a new $12 million public library on 2 Canal St. It was dedicated a year ago and contains meeting and reading rooms, and large banks of computers that businesses can use to conduct training classes.

The second advance occurred when a town meeting approved the creation of an advisory board to develop a comprehensive plan for the area.

The final draft is almost complete and will be presented to the public by the Redevelopment Authority, which is the name the advisory board was given, at a special town meeting held expressly for that purpose on June 7.

“A tremendous amount of work has gone into this,” Sullivan said, noting that the committee members are all unpaid volunteers.

There are many components to the plan, which include a focus on the east-west core of the area that is part of a larger, recently established ‘Smart Growth’ overlay district in the Falls.

“Developers who wish to construct relatively high-density housing in Smart Growth districts can do so by right, thus eliminating their need to apply for special permitting from a local planning authority,” DeToma told BusinessWest.

The proposed plan contains many other elements, including repurposing some town-owned properties and redeveloping a number of industrial properties.

But progress is already occurring, and the first residential construction project in decades is underway. Orange LLC is building 12 condominiums in three units directly across from the new library on 1 Canal St. that will each have their own garage and extra parking.

“This is a beautiful spot, and the Victorian look of the buildings is expected to enhance the neighborhood,” DeToma said, adding that Orange LLC also has plans to develop six other condominiums in the old library building on 27 Bardwell St. “The design is very imaginative and interesting, and there will be a great room in every unit.”

Sullivan told BusinessWest that condominiums in South Hadley have appreciated significantly over the past six months. “New ones are selling more quickly than they can be built,” he said, noting that construction on the Rivercrest Condominiums on Ferry Street began last year, and 16 of the proposed 28 units have already been sold.

Business growth has also taken place in the Falls. Over the past 18 months, Mohawk Paper and E Ink Corp. moved there, and South Hadley Fuel scrapped its plans to move out and expanded in town instead.

Sullivan explained that the decision came about in large part because Town Planner Richard Harris alerted South Hadley Fuel owner Steve Chase to an existing but unused underground tank farm near E Ink Inc., which he described as an “opportunity found.”

“As a result, they have opened one of the largest propane storage and distribution facilities in Western Mass,” the town administrator said. “We do all we can to introduce businesses to opportunities that exist here.”

Brezinsky agreed. “South Hadley and particularly the Falls has been very welcoming and engaging to businesses that want to move or expand there. We were able to steer Mohawk Paper through town meeting very quickly to get them what they needed to move here, and there are other examples like this,” he said, explaining that Mohawk Paper moved to the Falls two years ago into a group of buildings formerly known as the U.S. Gaylord properties, and opportunities exist for professional space, retail businesses, manufacturing, and incubator space.

“I believe one of the benefits of the Falls is its scale,” he continued. “It has a small footprint and is very walkable, unlike some former industrial areas where there are blocks of old buildings. The Falls never rose to those heights, so I don’t believe it will take much to get it to the tipping point where it can become a vibrant place again where people live, work, and play.”

DeToma said the northwest corner of the gateway Bridge/Main intersection is a prime location for redevelopment. It consists of three parcels owned by three different entities, but each lot is too small to be of interest to a developer.

“Our proposed redevelopment plan calls for the consolidation of those properties in order to increase their potential for private development,” he said.

Forward Movement

South Hadley recently lobbied to have Pioneer Valley Transit Authority’s Tiger Trolley change its route. Today, it runs over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge on Route 116 rather than the bridge on Route 202. Sullivan said that was important because the Falls is densely populated and town officials wanted to provide access to jobs in Holyoke and South Hadley, especially since Mohawk Paper and Mount Holyoke College are two of the largest employers. He added that the X90A Route that runs from Chicopee to Main Street in South Hadley is one of the fastest-growing routes in the area and also goes over the Route 116 bridge.

Parks in the town are also receiving attention. The town administrator told BusinessWest that Bicentennial Park, which is situated a quarter-mile away from the new library, will be renamed Belsky Park after Ted Belsky, a longtime member of the Select Board, and $97,000 will be spent to install lighting and a deck that will overlook the Connecticut River.

In addition, the town is creating a one-mile loop called the River to Range Trail that will begin in a field near Brunelle’s Marina and offer access to people of different abilities.

“We worked with the Pioneer Valley Planning Council on this,” Sullivan noted, adding that, eventually, the trail will connect to the Summit House on top of Mount Holyoke. “We see it becoming part of a recreational economy. That market is exploding, and we are getting requests for groups for camping areas. Although we are not proposing to open any right now, we have to be cognizant of opportunities as they present themselves.”

The Buttery Brook area is another area of focus. It runs east-west and roughly parallel to Gaylord and Bridge streets, crosses under Main Street via a culvert, and empties into the Connecticut River. DeToma said it is overgrown, but the Redevelopment Authority hopes to restore it to its original, attractive condition and install a multi-use recreational path along its bank.

“There will be two benefits to this,” he explained. “First, it will be a major recreational attraction in our Canal Village central area. Secondly, because this area is part of our Smart Growth district, it should stimulate the interest of developers in constructing affordable, higher-density housing nearby.”

Plans are also in place to build a new bridge over Bachelor Brook as well as a parking lot for 12 cars. The estimated cost is $2.1 million, and South Hadley has already received almost $1 million toward that amount from state and federal grants.

Concerted Efforts

Sullivan said major efforts are taking place to help people rediscover, reconsider, and reinvest in the Falls, and the Redevelopment Plan is the underpinning of the future.

“South Hadley has many opportunities; a lot of cool things are happening here,” he told BusinessWest, noting that South Hadley Electric is planning to create a hub for data storage and hired a new manager to help develop its high-speed Internet plan. “Their rates were key in bringing Mohawk Paper here, and enthusiasm about the area is growing. It has become an organic movement with its own energy, all for the benefit of the Falls.”

DeToma concurred. “The grass-roots efforts are taking on a life of their own. As we point out the value and potential of moving here, many groups are getting involved, and events like the River Roll and Stroll will help South Hadley and Holyoke to grow.”

Which bodes well for the future as residents and officials work together to bring new life to South Hadley in a way that will benefit generations to come.

 

South Hadley at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1775
Population: 17,663 (2017)
Area: 18.4 square miles
County: Hampshire
Residential and Commercial Tax Rate: $20.12 (Fire District 1); $20.66 (Fire District 2)
Median Household Income: $64,610
Median family Income: $76,679
Type of government: Town Administrator, Select Board, Town Meeting
Largest employers: Mount Holyoke College, Loomis Communities, Mohawk Paper
* Latest information available

At Union Station, the Clock Is Running

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unionstation0317afeature
Features

The Time Is Now

Invalid Displayed Gallery

After roughly 40 years of being mostly relegated to Springfield’s past, Union Station is set to begin what will certainly be an intriguing new life. As the station sets to open next month, however, questions remain about just how viable it will be as a business and economic driver. The Union Station in Worcester provides some interesting parallels and talking points.

In many ways, the giant clock in the grand concourse at Springfield’s Union Station has served as a symbol, or metaphor, for that landmark and efforts to revitalize it.

Indeed, for the better part of four decades, time essentially stood still — for the clock (its ornate bronze hands never moved during that time) and for the station itself, which sat mostly idle and, like the timepiece, continued to deteriorate inside and out.

Today, though, the 54-inch-wide clock is functional again, having been repaired by a Medfield-based company that specializes in such work and returned to its place at the south end of the concourse. And the station will soon be functional as well; it is on schedule to be open and serving as a transportation hub next month.

And the comparisons continue. The clock required an extensive makeover, including replacement of its inner mechanism and a surface overhaul. The station? Its multi-faceted renovation has taken several years, and the price tag, when all is said and done, will be north of $80 million.

The clock in Union Station’s concourse before restoration

The clock in Union Station’s concourse before restoration

... and after the work was completed

… and after the work was completed

However, it is at this point that the story lines separate. The clock has been repaired, and its future is no longer in doubt.

The same cannot exactly be said of the station, although there is considerable optimism about what comes next, at least among city development leaders.

Train travel is becoming a larger part of the economic-development picture in the Northeast corridor, and Union Station is well-positioned to play an important part in such efforts. Meanwhile, the station will be a hub for inner-city and perhaps intra-city bus travel as well.

But the station has long been touted as a much larger piece of the economic-development puzzle than that of a mere train and bus station. It is being projected as both a catalyst to further development — of both businesses and residential facilities — as well as home to a number of businesses in its nearly 100,000 square feet of available retail space, a key to its ability to function as something approximating a break-even business.

Chris Moskal, president of the Springfield Redevelopment Authority (SRA), told BusinessWest that three vendors have already signed on the dotted line for spaces adjacent to the concourse, and there is considerable interest in some of the available office space above it.

There is more positive news in the form of language within the host-community agreement between MGM and Springfield, said Moskal. It calls for the casino company to pay $7.5 million over the next 15 years toward the costs of operating the station and fitting out space for tenants — an option MGM chose over actually locating at the station itself.

This $500,000 annually should help the facility stem whatever losses it might incur in meeting what is currently projected to be a $750,000 annual operating budget (a number certainly subject to change), with the bulk of that going toward maintenance and security, said Moskal.

But since the restoration of Springfield’s Union Station began, comparisons to the one in Worcester have been inevitable and seemingly constant, and in many ways, this has been unfortunate for the local landmark, because these comparisons serve as a counterweight to the expressed optimism.

That’s because Worcester’s station has mostly been described locally with terms such as ‘under-performing,’ ‘disappointing,’ and ‘unsuccessful.’ And these words are, in fact, accurate, at least when it comes to the real-estate and fiscal performance sides of the equation; the station is expected to run roughly $600,000 in the red this fiscal year, slightly more than the average lately due to some needed maintenance work, and by most accounts, only half its available commercial space is under lease.

They were attracted to that area because of the train station. People can live there, take the train to a job in Wellesley or Newton or Boston; this rail service shortens the distance to those communities.”

But from a bigger-picture perspective, the station (and the vastly improved commuter rail service that has come because of it) are succeeding in their primary role, that of spurring economic development, said Stuart Loosemore, general council and director of Government Affairs and Public Policy for the Greater Worcester Chamber of Commerce.

Elaborating, he spoke of concentric circles and how development, in the form of market-rate housing, a new hotel, additional restaurants, and more have emanated out from the station, if you will, as train runs from Worcester to Boston have increased to more than 20 a day, including the popular, non-stop Heart to Hub trip, which leaves Union Station at 8 a.m.

“And it gets to Boston in an hour or less,” Loosemore explained, adding that commuting by car will likely take half again as long and bring other inconveniences and expenses, including parking. “That makes it much easier to live in Worcester and get to work or school in Boston; it’s bringing that city much closer.”

Whether similar developments will take shape in Springfield remain to be seen, especially since there isn’t a logical destination for riders, as there is in Worcester with Boston. In keeping with the theme of this story, time will tell.

Soon, though, the speculation about this city’s Union Station — again, about 40 years of it — will soon end, and its next life will begin.

In other words, the time is now.

Hour Town

Tom Erb says the assignment to restore the concourse clock at Union Station, as well as others at that facility, was in most ways typical of those taken on by his family business, Electric Time Co. Inc. And its condition when it arrived at the shop was also typical of what the company has witnessed at several old train-station projects in its vast portfolio, including a recent one in Kansas City.

In short, water had leaked onto and into the clock, manufactured by the Springfield-based Standard Electric Time Co., he explained, requiring extensive repair work to its brass and marble components.

“They were very sad-looking,” he said of the group of clocks and especially the concourse timepiece. “A few of them were missing numbers, which we had to recreate using an oxidizing compound to make them look old … they needed quite a bit of work.

“We replaced the mechanism in the main clock, which was in very bad shape,” continued Erb, whose company has worked on many projects in Western Mass., from restoration of the clock on the Springfield Armory Museum to installation of the massive timepiece now gracing the entrance to the Great River Bridge in Westfield. “We reused the existing clock hands and gave it a small control along with a receiver that latches into atomic time, so the clock will always be absolutely perfect, which is important at a train station.”

The concourse clock is one of many examples of blending old with the new at Union Station, said Kevin Kennedy, Springfield’s chief development officer, as he gave a tour of the facility.

Kevin Kennedy

Kevin Kennedy says the renovated Union Station, and especially its grand concourse, will feature an intriguing blend of the old and the modern.

To get his points across, all Kennedy, who has been involved with redevelopment of the station for roughly 30 years now, needed to do was gesture with his arm across the concourse and just beyond. With that sweep, he pointed out the recently installed retail kiosks, the station’s original (and restored) terrazzo floor, modern exit lights juxtaposed against the original archways, original (and restored) sconces in the ceiling, and wi-fi hook-ups.

“This is an historical renovation,” he explained. “What stands out to me are two things — the neatness of that historical renovation, but also the modern codes of today that require these brightly lit exit signs. You have the 21st century coming together with 1926, and it’s pretty cool.”

The old and new will come together in dramatic and artistic fashion within the renovated tunnel linking the station with downtown Springfield, he went on, noting that there, elaborate murals depicting the history of the station and the city will be installed as part of a project being undertaken in conjunction with Springfield Museums.

While these murals will no doubt become a conversation piece and an attraction in and of themselves, those involved with the station project — especially U.S. Rep. Richard Neal — have stressed that $80 million hasn’t been spent in the name of nostalgia or to establish a museum.

Rather, it’s been spent to create a transportation hub — which the station was for decades before the decline of rail travel — as well as a business center and catalyst for further economic development.

There is little doubt that it will become at least the former. Indeed, 14 trains will soon be moving in and out of the station daily as part of expanded service in the northeast corridor, especially between Springfield and New Haven through what’s known as the Connecticut Line. Meanwhile, the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority will make the station its hub, with roughly 700 buses running in and out every day.

Intra-city bus service remains a question mark, however. Negotiations continue with Peter Pan Bus Lines, headquartered just a few hundred feet from the renovated station, about its possible presence at the facility, and there are other intra-city companies that may become tenants as well, said Moskal.

The business and economic-development sides of the equation involve more question marks, however, and the performance of Worcester’s Union Station since it was renovated in the late ’90s creates still more.

Up-to-the-minute News

As he gave BusinessWest a tour of the available commercial spaces at the station, Kennedy pointed to the large windows while listing several reasons why the assembled square footage might be an attractive landing spot. Actually, to the windows and beyond.

The windows themselves provide large amounts of natural light, which is preferred by many types of businesses, especially those in the creative fields, he said. Meanwhile, as one looks out those windows, they can see I-91, Route 291 (and signs for the Turnpike on both of them), and the point where they intersect, which translates into convenience for employees and customers alike.

Outside some windows, people can also see the 377-space parking garage, a critical component of the station project and another important amenity for a business located downtown, and from still others, people can see downtown and the many forms of progress there.

Thus, the windows reveal a lot, said Kennedy, who noted that the various spaces in the station, stretched across three floors, with one offering views of the station concourse itself, are already attracting interest, and should draw more once a few tenants settle there.

“I think people needed to see this building completed before they could really understand what we had here,” he explained. “Now that it is completed, I think people will take notice, and when we get a few tenants in here, word will start to spread.”

The concourse area itself is already filling in nicely, said Moskal, noting that agreements have been reached for three of the small retail spaces along its east side, with a convenience store, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Subway due to move in over the next few months. A fourth is still available, and there has been interest expressed in it.

Meanwhile, the convenience-store developer will also lease two of those aforementioned kiosks in the tunnel, said Moskal, adding that he isn’t sure what will be sold from them, but expects one will likely be dedicated to cell-phone accessories.

Also, a rental car company (the name was not disclosed, but Moskal said it is a major player in that business) has signed on to do business out of the station, with cars to be stored in the parking garage.

As for the office space above the concourse, Moskal said several parties have expressed interest, and he even added the adjective ‘strong’ to describe it.

“We have a number of interested parties, and one of them is very promising,” he said, referring specifically to space on the second floor, which, as noted, has windows with a view of the concourse. “That would be huge for us; this party wouldn’t take all of the second floor, but maybe 70% of it.”

And, like Kennedy, he said signing a tenant or two will likely create some needed momentum. “Once you start to spin that kind of positive news, hopefully, others will take note.”

Overall, the SRA has been “conservative,” a word Moskal used early and often, with regard to projections for tenants and resulting revenues so as not to create unreasonable expectations and disappointment if they are not met. And thus far, those goals are being met or exceeded.

“We set conservative goals — having 30% leased by the second year, and maybe 60% by the third year,” he explained. “And this is a positive for us, because we hope to have more than that under lease.”

The $7.5 million committed by MGM provides a cushion of sorts, especially for the first three years, he said, adding that the hope is that, by year four, that kind of cushion will be less necessary.

On Second Thought

But it is with the bigger-picture perspective that greater optimism likely prevails, and here, Worcester’s station should serve as an inspiration, rather than a cautionary tale, said those we spoke with.

To emphasize this point, Loosemore started with references to what was known as the Osgood-Brady Building, named for the company, which, ironically enough, manufactured railway passenger cars and streetcars there starting in 1914.

Today, it is home to more than 250 students living in more than 80 market-rate apartments carved out of the various spaces. Most of them are there, said Loosemore, specifically for the trains running out of Union Station just a few blocks away.

“They called it ‘purpose-built student housing,’ and I believe this was the first time it was done in Massachusetts,” he explained. “They’re marketing to college students, and part of what attracted them to it is students at the Worcester colleges doing internships in Boston; living next to Union Station, you can get into various areas of Worcester, because you’re right there, but you can also get to access to the train, which will get you to the Boston region and opportunities for jobs, internships, and other expanded learning opportunities.”

A new hotel is also going up in that area, and the developer has stated publicly that commuter rail is a big reason why the project went forward, and in that location. Meanwhile, across the street from the bus depot at the station, a company is building more than 350 units of market-rate housing, Loosemore continued. “They were attracted to that area because of the train station. People can live there, take the train to a job in Wellesley or Newton or Boston; this rail service shortens the distance to those communities.

Indeed, the train station and accompanying commuter rail are creating much stronger connections between New England’s two largest cities, said Loosemore, adding that many are now finding it convenient (and also far more affordable) to live in Worcester and work or go to school in Boston or one of its suburbs.

He added quickly that, while this isn’t the loftiest of goals for the city or its chamber of commerce — both would rather have people living and working in Worcester — such scenarios do bring a host of benefits.

“If I can’t have the jobs, how can I get the workers?” he asked while speaking for the chamber and noting that reliable commuter rail has become at least part of the answer to that question.

And having the workers come back to Worcester at the end of the day has certainly helped prompt growth of the city’s restaurant district, which borders Union Station.

“People come into the station, and they can go around the corner and get dinner or a drink,” he said. “People may work in Boston, but on Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, they’re in Worcester.”

Loosemore, who has been with the chamber for roughly two years now, and has learned much of the history of Union Station and the area around it rather than experiencing it first-hand, said what’s happened there didn’t take place overnight. It came incrementally, and as commuter rail became better, faster (the Heart to Hub run, for example), and more frequent.

Tim Murray, president of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce and former lieutenant governor, expanded on this thought in a recent op-ed in the Worcester Business Journal, in which he drew parallels between progress in that city and the recent success of the region’s pro football franchise.

“The ability to gain the crucial inch that determines victory often comes as the result of hard work, preparation, and never giving up,” he wrote. “These same principles apply to the progress we have made during the past 15 years to expand commuter rail service between Worcester and Boston … hard work, persistence, and preparation has allowed a team of public and private leaders to go from six round trips a day to 20.

“This progress has contributed significantly to the unprecedented private-sector investments in and around Worcester’s Union Station,” he continued. “Developers, property owners, and business owners including the City Square, Theater District, and Gateway Park projects all tout the presence of rail service as a major catalyst for their investments.”

Whether similar developments will come in Springfield remains to be seen, said Loosemore, noting that the City of Homes does not have a logical or potential-laden destination (like Boston) for commuters — yet, anyway.

In time, more routes going north-south and perhaps east-west (many officials are calling for a high-speed Springfield-to-Boston connection) may be added, and Springfield may see some of that growth in concentric circles that Worcester has.

“Having that commuter rail has certainly been a catalyst for development here,” he said in conclusion. “And it may prove to be the same in Springfield.”

Hands Down

Part of the restoration effort involving the clock in the main concourse was refinishing the words spelled out in the middle of the timepiece — ‘Eastern Standard Time.’

Erb told BusinessWest that, decades ago, it would not have been uncommon for train travelers to cross from one time zone into another in the course of their journey, and thus they might need a reminder as to just what the hour was in the City of Homes.

Such long trips, while still doable, are not a big part of the equation in this new era for Union Station. Meanwhile, cell phones automatically adjust for time zones, and that’s how most people note the time these days anyway.

But the clock still serves a very useful function, said Kennedy, adding that, for the first time in four decades, Union Station does as well. It is a transportation hub, as it was when it opened in 1926, but it is also an economic driver, perhaps one to be as successful in that role as Worcester’s.

Time will tell, but for the first time in a long time, the clock is running at Union Station, in every way, shape, and form.

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

Meet This Year’s Judges for 40 Under Forty

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40 Under 40 Features

Editor’s Note: Again this year, five individuals have been chosen to score the nominations submitted for the 40 Under Forty competition. In keeping with past practice, BusinessWest has chosen two former winners to be part of this panel (and a third owns a 40 Under Forty plaque from the Worcester Business Journal). As always, BusinessWest has sought out individuals with experience in business and entrepreneurship.

Ken Albano

Ken Albano

Ken Albano

Attorney Kenneth J. Albano is the managing partner of Bacon Wilson, P.C., and a member of the firm’s corporate, commercial, and municipal practice groups.

In addition to his legal practice, he is very active in the local community. He is chair of the board of the March of Dimes Western Mass Division, and serves on the Board of the New England Chapter of the March of Dimes. Albano is also a board member with Behavioral Health Network, where he has served for more than 20 years. He also works with the American Cancer Society, Make-A-Wish, and the ALS Association.

In June of 2015, Albano was honored with the Mass. Bar Association’s Community Service Award in recognition of his exceptional volunteer work.

 

Jean Deliso

Jean Deliso

Jean Deliso

Jean Deliso, CFP is president and owner of Deliso Financial and Insurance Services. She focuses on financial preparation for retirement as well as times of transition such as divorce or widowhood.

Deliso has been working in the financial field for 30 years, her first seven in public accounting and the balance working in the financial-services industry. She has been a member of New York Life Chairman’s Council since 2012 and a qualifying Member of the Million Dollar Round Table for the past 18 years.

She currently serves as chairman of the board of the Baystate Health Foundation, and is immediate past chairman of the Community Music School of Springfield. She is also past chairman of the board of the YMCA of Greater Springfield, past board member of Pioneer Valley Refrigerated Warehouse, as well as past trustee of the Community Foundation of Western Mass. and the Bay Path College advisory board. She is a supporting member of the National Assoc. of Life Underwriters and the Hampden County Estate Planning Council.

Samalid Hogan

Samalid Hogan

Samalid Hogan

A 40 Under Forty winner in 2013, Samalid Hogan is director of the western regional office of the Mass. Small Business Development Center (MSBDC) Network. She has more than 12 years of economic-development and project-management experience.

In 2015, she was the consulting project manager for the Holyoke Innovation District on behalf of the MassTech Collaborative and Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. Previously, she was the senior project manager and brownfields coordinator at the City of Springfield’s Office of Planning and Economic Development. Hogan also served as a senior economic-development and policy analyst at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, and founded CoWork Springfield, a networking organization and co-working space.

In 2016, Hogan was awarded a Grinspoon Entrepreneurial Spirit Award and recognized by the Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce as a Woman Trailblazer and Trendsetter.

Patrick Leary, CPA

Patrick Leary

Patrick Leary

A member of BusinessWest’s inaugural 40 Under Forty class in 2007, Patrick Leary is a partner at Moriarty and Primack, an accounting firm with offices in Springfield and Lincoln, Mass., and Bloomfield, Conn., and directs accounting, auditing, and business-advisory services. His concentration is on closely held and family-owned businesses, as well as providing business-advisory services for a wide variety of industries.

He serves as the first vice chairperson of the Greater Springfield YMCA, chair of the board of directors of Human Resources Unlimited, a member of the of the board of directors and executive committee of the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce, treasurer of United Way of Pioneer Valley, and treasurer of the Colony Club.

Leary is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants. He is licensed to practice public accounting in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York.

Matt Sosik

Matt Sosik

Matt Sosik

Matt Sosik began his career in banking with the FDIC in Holyoke. In 1997, he became the CEO of Hometown Bank in Webster, Mass. After serving in that capacity for nearly 17 years and growing Hometown Bank almost 1,000%, he accepted the role as CEO and president at bankESB in 2013.

Since his arrival, he has overseen two mergers and has more than doubled the size of the parent holding company to more than $2 billion.

Sosik is a member or former member of numerous nonprofit boards, including United Way chapters, the Rotary, and hospital boards. He was a 40 Under 40 honoree in 2001 with the Worcester Business Journal.

Economic Development in Palmer Accelerates

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Linda Leduc, Meena Patel, and Charlie Blanchard

Linda Leduc, Meena Patel, and Charlie Blanchard say the new Junction Variety store will include 1,800 square feet of space suitable for retail or office use.

A dozen years ago, Meena and Bharat Patel purchased Junction Variety store in Palmer. They established a loyal client base, but several years ago, the cost of operating the antiquated building, combined with the need for extensive repairs and inadequate parking, forced them to make a decision about whether to remain in town and build a new structure or move their business elsewhere.

“We decided to stay here; I love Palmer,” said Meena. “The people are very supportive, and we have good relationships with our customers.”

Last June, ground was broken on a new, 40,000-square-foot facility. It is expected to be completed within a few weeks, and once the store is moved, the old building will be demolished, and a parking lot with 20 parking spaces will take its place.

Junction Variety will occupy 2,200 square feet of the new structure, which will almost double its current size, and the remaining 1,800 square feet will be available for lease as office or retail space.

The project is part of a flurry of commercial activity that began last year and is rapidly accelerating, creating momentum in this community.

“It’s definitely a sign of the recovering economy. Things are happening a lot faster now than they did in the past, and we are very busy,” said Town Planner and Economic Development Director Linda Leduc, who explained that, a few years ago, projects were permitted that never moved forward, but today construction often begins months after the permitting process is complete.

The list of developments, moves, and expansions nearing completion or underway is lengthy, as Leduc and Town Planner Charlie Blanchard explained during a lengthy interview with BusinessWest. It includes four new solar farms (last year the town had five, which brings the total to nine), construction of a $17.2 million Emergency Department at Baystate Wing Hospital that will begin this year, a $2 million expansion of an advanced-manufacturing company that was recently finished, grassroots efforts in Three Rivers that are leading to change, and churches in residential neighborhoods being reused in creative ways.

Construction is also underway at Town Hall. A $400,000 heating and air-conditioning system was installed over the past two years and paid for with funds from the Green Community Act. And this year, renovations are being made to the entire building to make better use of space vacated by the Police Department when it moved into a new, $7.4 million facility several years ago.

Specifically, the public meeting room will be expanded and gain a new entrance; a new conference room and additional storage space will be created; the Board of Health, Conservation Department, Building Department, and Veteran’s Agent will move into larger offices; and new lighting, windows, and carpeting will be installed throughout the building.

“We have a lot of activity taking place for a town this size,” said Blanchard, attributing it not only to renewed confidence in the economy, but to the willingness of officials and the Town Council to work with businesses and make changes to accommodate their needs.

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest takes a look at projects that were recently completed, underway, or on the drawing board throughout the four villages that make up the town of Palmer.

Diverse Undertakings

Change continues to take place in Depot Village, the first commercial district travelers pass through after they exit the Mass Turnpike.

Last year, Mark Baldyga of Baldyga Inc. stopped selling travel trailers and made the decision to focus on autobody work and used-car sales, which necessitated a move, because his 1221 South Main St. location didn’t provide the frontage and exposure he needed.

Finding a suitable property proved difficult, but he hoped to remain in Palmer because he grew up in the town, has spent more than 30 years on the Fire Department, and has an employee who is also a firefighter.

“I have a good reputation, and people here know me, which is one of the main driving forces for my business,” Baldyga said, adding that he has close ties with the community.

His search led to a two-acre parcel on Route 20 with the frontage he needed. However, before he purchased it, he petitioned the town to change the area from general zoning to highway business so he could move forward with his plan.

The petition was accepted, and Baldyga split up the acreage, which was needed because the rear portion of the plot contained a multi-family home.

Ground was broken last spring for a new, 5,500-square-foot building that is nearing completion; he expects to reopen in a few weeks.

He told BusinessWest that the neighbors were not only accommodating, but supported the zoning change, and it has worked out well for everyone involved.

“The town will get more taxes, businesses of a similar nature can move here now, and my tenants are happy because I made improvements to their apartments and cleaned up the property,” he noted, adding that, if the zoning change hadn’t been approved, he would have had to leave Palmer.

Michael’s Party Rentals purchased Baldyga’s former location, and President Michael Linton said the company moved from its Ludlow locations and did a substantial renovation of the 20,000-square-foot building, included the addition of a showroom, design center, and state-of-the-art tent-washing machine.

Other moves have occurred in Depot Village. Last year, the Fire Service Group purchased the former American Legion building on 1010 Thorndike St., which allowed the company to expand from a smaller location, and construction plans have been approved for a Dollar General store on the corner of Breckenridge and Park streets that will be built after the single-family home on the site is demolished.

Progress has also taken place at Detector Technology, a precision-manufacturing firm located in Palmer Industrial Park.  Blanchard said the company needed room to expand and purchased a building from Wayne Buxton, who was using it to house his ShedWorks Inc. business.

“Wayne needed to downsize but wanted to stay in Palmer, so he kept half of the lot and is building a new, smaller structure on it,” Blanchard noted, explaining that Detector Technology recently finished a $2 million renovation of the former Shedworks.

Baystate Wing Hospital is also building a $17.2 million, 37,000-square-foot Emergency Department on its Palmer campus. Ground was broken in November, and the institution is meeting all its timetables.

“They are a major employer and are making a big investment that will be beneficial to our residents as well as the region,” Leduc said.

The town’s capped landfill on Emery Street is another property that has been given new life. Leduc said a request for proposals was issued for the site several years ago, but nothing came to fruition until Syncarpha Solar, which owns and operates a solar farm on the adjacent former Palmer Metropolitan Airport, made the decision to build a second facility on the landfill.

“We were happy they were interested in generating additional solar power on the site,” Leduc said, adding that the town had five solar farms, and, in addition to the new one on the landfill, Nexamp, Nextsun Energy, and Beaumont Solar also built solar facilities last year.

“Two are operating, and the other two are waiting to be interconnected, but once that happens, Palmer will be generating almost 25 megawatts of electricity on its nine solar farms,” she noted.

The facilities will bring in new revenue and result in energy savings. Palmer will receive $121,000 annually for the next 25 years in lease payments from the solar farm on the capped landfill, and will begin getting net metering credits this year from Blue Wave Solar on Baptist Hill in Three Rivers, which Blanchard estimates will save the town 30% to 40% of the generated cost of electricity.

New Life

Two other projects Leduc describes as “exciting” involve the conversion and reuse of former churches.

Artist Bruce Rosenbaum and his wife, Melanie, recently purchased St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on Main Street in Thorndike. It had been vacant for several years, and will become their residence and the new home for Mod Vic Steampunk Design when the couple moves from Sharon.

“It was a perfect situation,” Leduc said, explaining that churches often are located in the middle of residential districts, and although the town is willing to rezone whenever it makes sense, it’s not always possible.

The Rosenbaums created the first functional steampunk house in the world, and their business repurposes and infuses modern technology and gadgets into period, relevant antiques and salvage objects.

“We work with clients in the U.S. and internationally to design one-of-a-kind pieces, creatively combining eras and ideas to transform the ordinary into incredible steampunk functional art,” Bruce said, adding that the couple has clients all over the world and looked throughout the Commonwealth and in Connecticut before deciding that St. Mary’s Church was a great place to expand their business.

The 1876 gothic structure, with 30-foot ceilings and tall stained-glass windows, three wooded acres, and 30 parking spaces in the middle of a residential neighborhood appealed to them, especially since they have clients in Amherst, Holyoke, Northampton, and Springfield, including MGM.

They worked with the town to get a home-occupation permit before purchasing the home earlier this month, and are looking forward to relocating and creating a showroom and gallery in the historic space, as well as holding steampunk workshops for families.

In addition, Amherst Railway Society purchased the Crossroads Christian Church on South Main Street in Depot Village and plans to move there on June 16.

“It’s a nostalgic reuse of a historic church and very fitting since Palmer is known as the Town of Seven Railroads,” Leduc said.

Collaborative efforts to revitalize Main Street in Three Rivers are also bearing fruit, thanks to work by the consortium On the Right TRACK (the acronym stands for Three Rivers Arts Community Knowledge), which has been working to build a cultural and creative economy in the village.

The Quaboag Valley Community Development Corp. was awarded a $13,500 Adams Art Grant for fiscal years 2016 and 2017, and the town completed a market-assessment and business-recruitment tool as well as a feasibility study showing that a building on 2032 Main St. obtained through the tax-title process has potential for redevelopment.

“The town will put out a request for proposals as soon as we have grants in place for the building,” Leduc said.

A number of property and business owners also began meeting 11 months ago in a grass-roots effort to help the revitalization effort, which includes changing the perception of the area and filling vacant storefronts.

Community Development Director Alice Davey said Nancy Roy, of Interactive Schoolhouse, was instrumental in starting the group. The agency received $35,000 from MassDevelopment and used the money to hire Union Studio in Providence, R.I. to design a conceptual plan for the center. The consulting firm held a public presentation several weeks ago to get input from residents, and the final report is expected in the near future.

Davey said suggestions put forth during the meeting included making the downtown more pedestrian-friendly, building a walking path with river access around the perimeter of Laviolette Park and upgrading the parking there, and expanding Hryniewicz Park, which is used for movie nights, concerts, and other events staged by the town’s recreation department and the Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s an exciting time for Three Rivers,” she noted. “The public meeting was well-attended, and residents and property owners eagerly anticipate the final plan and development of a course of action to implement some of the recommendations.”

Forward Movement

Bruce Rosenbaum says steampunk is more than just art: it’s a way to creatively problem-solve, learn how to adapt to a situation, and be resilient.

“You look at an object, know the purpose it was designed for is obsolete, then find a way to give it new life and make it beautiful and functional,” he said, adding that the idea translates to people and cities, and he is excited to work with Palmer “as the town re-imagines itself.”

That certainly applies to Three Rivers, and progress is indeed underway that will put the Town of Seven Railroads on the map as it moves forward on a fast track that is attracting new businesses and helping existing ones to expand and grow.

 

Palmer at
a Glance
Year Incorporated: 1775
Population: 13,050 (2015)
Area: 32 square miles
County: Hampden
Tax Rate, residential and commercial: Palmer, $21.57; Three Rivers, $22.25; Bondsville, $22.06; Thorndike, $23.01
Median Household Income: $51,846
median family Income: $68,200
Type of government: Town Manager; Town Council
Largest Employers: Baystate Wing Hospital; Camp Ramah of New England; Big Y World Class Market
* Latest information available

National Library Relocations Adds New Chapters to Its Success Story

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nlrfeature-0217a
Features

A Real Page Turner

Diane Pikul

Diane Pikul, Northeast regional sales manager for National Library Relocations.

You might say this is a business that does things by the book. But that tells only part of the story. It also stores, moves, cleans, and inventories everything from maps to photographs; from pieces of art to railroad equipment. And if you called National Library Relocations a ‘volume business,’ that wouldn’t exactly be accurate, either. Here, they measure collections in linear inches and feet — lots of them. In fact, just last summer, the company, with a huge warehouse in Palmer, moved more than 20 miles of books.

As she walked among the seemingly endless rows of books, journals, and boxes of photographs, Diane Pikul stopped to admire what is easily one of the more intriguing items now in her care.

And one that, like those books on the shelves, tells a story. Well, sort of.

The old train lantern is from the collection owned by the National Railway Historical Society. Pikul, Northeast regional sales manager for National Library Relocations (NLR), looked for some clue as to how old this artifact was, and couldn’t find one. She did learn, however, that the lantern was put to use in Chicago.

It is stored next to a large wooden rack that once held dozens of train schedules, an indication of just how dominant that mode of transportation was a century ago and even 60 years ago. And it’s just one small part of a collection measured not in pieces, or volumes, as one might expect, but in linear feet, as will be explained later.

The story it helps tell? Well, it’s more the NLR story than anything else.

Indeed, the railway historical society’s library was kept in the Robert Morris Building in Philadelphia’s Center City, a handsome Gothic Revival structure built in 1914 by hotelier Rutherford Jennings that later served as a college dormitory and academic building and then as an office tower until 2007. That’s when it was acquired by 806 Capital with designs to remake it into a hotel, plans that were scuttled by the recession and later revamped to feature upscale apartments.

We’re unique because we can offer customers a unique blend of experience from the fields of architecture, library science, and transportation.”

To make a long story short, the NRHS needed a new home for its library collection — and it still needs one, although Pikul says it’s closing in on a site. The extended search for new quarters, which has featured a number of twists and turns, explains why this collection, which was supposed to be in NLR’s care for maybe a year or two, has now been at the company’s location in the old Tambrands complex in Palmer for close to a decade.

“It’s a really fascinating collection and a great client — they’re a joy to work with,” said Pikul, who deploys such language to talk about most every client — and means it when she says it.

Indeed, the client list includes some of the most famous and revered institutions in the world, from Harvard University to the Smithsonian to the Clark Art Institute. And what NRL provides to those clients is solutions to problems, or issues.

They range from renovations to fallout from natural disasters; forced relocations (like the NRHS’s) to simple space limitations, which many facilities are now facing.

That constituency includes Wellesley College, which currently stores thousands of books and journals at NLR. Collectively, these items fall into the category of “lesser-used,” said Pikul, which doesn’t mean not used. Indeed, requests from students and teachers at the renowned women’s college for items in the stacks at NLR come in almost daily — with the volume increasing during finals week, she noted, adding that they are overnighted and in the hands of those who requested them within 24 hours.

It also includes Bay Path College, Springfield Technical Community College, and a host of other clients, she said, adding that long-term (or what could also be considered permanent) storage is just one line on the company’s list of services.

Others include far more temporary storage for libraries dealing with some of those aforementioned issues, especially renovations and expansions, and also cleaning of collections, inventorying items, and, as the name of the business suggests, moving them as well.

“We’re unique because we can offer customers a unique blend of experience from the fields of architecture, library science, and transportation,” said Pikul, a former librarian at STCC, as she explained what sets the company apart.

And despite those rumors that the Internet will soon make books and libraries somewhat obsolete, Pikul is firmly of the belief that this is a growth industry. Indeed, as more books are published and institutions grapple with space limitations, storing lesser-used books, as Wellesley and other schools do, is far less costly than building an addition or a new library, she explained.

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at a rapidly growing company in a truly unique industry, a business that continues to add new chapters to a compelling success story.

Reading Between the Lines

Pikul has a large, well-appointed office within NLR’s 28,000-square-foot home in what is now known as the Palmer Technology Center, home to dozens of small businesses. But you won’t find her there much these days.

Instead, she’s on assignment, if you will, handling aspects of a massive initiative involving several of the Five Colleges in the Amherst-Northampton area to relocate parts of their vast library collections in a huge annex now being constructed on a 12-acre parcel in Hatfield.

Due to open in the spring, the facility will have the capacity to shelve 2.1 million to 2.5 million volumes, which is sorely needed because the space now being used by the colleges — the famous Cold War-era bunker built into the side of Bare Mountain in the Holyoke Range in 1957 — has now reached capacity.

The current schedule calls for starting to move things in May, said Pikul, adding that much of her time over the past several months has been spent on this project — “I go into the office on weekends to do payroll; people like to get paid,” she joked — in preparation for the move. NLR has been hired to clean items and get them ready for travel, storage, and, if needed, retrieval.

And in many ways, the annex project, although much larger in size and scope than most initiatives, is exemplary of what the company does and how it does it.

Diane Pikul shows off the train lantern

Diane Pikul shows off the train lantern, part of the collection amassed by the National Railway Historical Society, that is one of the more intriguing items now in her care.

NLR goes  — meaning Pikul usually goes — where its clients need it to go, be it to area libraries or to the University of the Pacific’s main campus in Stockton, Calif. (she and other team members will be going there next month to measure a collection in advance of a renovation project), or to Harvard’s campus in Cambridge, where NLR handled a number of projects over the years, including the relocation of one of the its collections to China.

“That was a fun project … that library was shipped to the Ocean University in Qingdao,” she said, searching her memory bank for details on a project undertaken a dozen years ago. “We packed the books into boxes and then used conveyor belts to put the boxes into sea containers; it took a few months for the books to get there, and they used a manual I wrote to put the collection back on shelves; everything is packed left to right and top to bottom.”

Such projects help explain why Pikul, who has been with NLR for nearly two decades now, talks repeatedly about just how much she enjoys what she does.

“I love my job — I think I have the best job in the world. We have terrific clients, and helping them with their collections is very rewarding work,” she said, adding that her role blends elements of library science, architecture, mathematics (adding up all those linear feet), and even antiquities. The company moved a Gutenberg Bible on one of its assignments, for example, and more valuable items stored at the Palmer site, including some pictures of trains owned by the NRHS, are kept in what’s known as the ‘inner-sanctum room,’ which features additional security and climate control.

Our story begins nearly 50 years ago with NLR President Scott Miller. He was working for a company that was part of the Allied Van Lines family in the mid-’60s when his unit was assigned the task of moving a library. Eventually, the company — and Miller — became good at this kind of work. After struggling to find employment after graduating from college with a degree in architecture, Miller returned to Allied (and moving libraries) before starting his own venture in 1985.

Then, as now, libraries comprised the main focus, said Pikul, adding that, from the beginning, there has always been a steady supply of work, because there are tens of thousands of school, college, and municipal libraries, as well as museums and archives, and eventually, most all of them will require some of the services offered by the company.

This is made clear by a look at NLR’s portfolio of projects. It’s broken down by year, and each one has dozens of bullet-pointed undertakings.

In 2011, for example, the company did work with almost every college in the Ivy League, including Harvard (a frequent customer, as noted), Columbia, Princeton, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania. But the ledger also lists work with dozens of other colleges, several school libraries, nearly two dozen public libraries, a medical library, and several ‘special libraries,’ including those at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and Travis Air Force Base in California.

The consistency and high volume of work is also reflected in Pikul’s comments about next summer — and the one after that, as well — because that is traditionally the busiest time of year as colleges and public schools try to get work done when students are on break.

“This coming summer is completely booked,” she said slowly and without acknowledging there was a decent pun within that explanation. “This past week, I’ve been telling people, ‘we’ve been booked for eight months now; I can’t even give you a quote.’ They call and say, ‘we’d like to move in May,’ and I say, ‘this May, really?’

“When things are really good, we’re booked a year in advance,” she went on. “I have several projects booked for 2018 already.”

Good Story Lines

As she talked about the various forms of work undertaken by NLR, Pikul said that, as one might expect, part of it is simple physical labor — loading books onto trucks (or shipping containers, as in that case involving Harvard mentioned earlier) and transporting them to and from the warehouse in Palmer, or to other locations, including China.

But the vast majority of this work would be described as both delicate and intricate, undertaken by people — a good deal of them retired librarians or educators — who have an understanding of books and library science itself.

Indeed, Pikul and those she works with (mostly on a project basis, although she is hopeful to add more permanent employees in the future) have a thorough understanding of not simply the Dewey Decimal System, but the many other library classification methods.

These include the Library of Congress System, the Cutter System, the Pettee, or Union Classification System, and many others, she said, adding that this cumulative knowledge enables the company to play an invaluable consultative role for clients and potential clients.

Elaborating, she said NLR representatives can provide advice on everything from how much space to leave for a collection or parts of it (not only for today but years and decades down the road) to how to design a library or expansion, to the best course of action when mold attacks a book or a collection — which it often does.

And Pikul, as you might expect by now, is well-versed on that subject as well.

“My staff is trained to recognize mold issues,” she said. “Sometimes, you get dead mold, which you can just wipe right off. But sometimes it can be colorful — black or psychedelic (I’ve seen some interesting things out there), and that’s when our staff knows enough to stop, recognize that there’s something wrong, and bring the item to me.

“If it’s a small thing, we can treat it with isopropyl alcohol, isolate the item, see how it dries, and then decide whether it can go back in the collection,” she went on. “If it’s really, really bad, those spores can spread and get into carpeting and curtains and upholstery.”

Meanwhile, simple cleaning of books is not exactly simple, she said, adding that great care is taken to preserve the materials, meaning no chemicals are used in these processes.

the company moved more than 20 miles of books last summer alone

At NLR, they measure volume of business not by volumes, but by linear feet of materials; the company moved more than 20 miles of books last summer alone.

Actually, there are several options for clients when it comes to cleaning, depending on how serious they want to get with such an undertaking.

“If they’re going from one building to another, and it’s a newer collection, we can do a reverse vacuum where we just blow the dust off the tops of the books,” she explained. “We can do a light cleaning where we’re doing the spines and the tops of the books just to get the surface dust off, and then there’s a really detailed cleaning we’ve done for some clients, especially special collections, where we clean all six sides of the book and wipe the shelf down using cloth treated with mineral oil so it’s anti-static and you’re not getting dust glomming back onto the shelf.”

The vacuums are triple-filtered, like those used in hospitals, and the brushes used are made of natural horse hair so as not to scratch the items, she went on, adding that attention to details like this has enabled NLR to become one of the top companies nationally in what is now a highly competitive field.

Looking forward, Pikul said the company is looking to grow, has the capacity to do it — there is considerably more space at the Palmer Technology Park for the company to rent if it so desires, and it has already expanded several times — and the need will certainly be there.

As evidenced by the massive project in Hatfield involving the Five Colleges, schools, public libraries, and other kinds of institutions will continue to add to their collections, and many will need help storing, cleaning, and moving items, or perhaps all of the above.

Part of the growth equation is education, said Pikul, adding that libraries need to understand that those assignments listed above are not — or should not be — do-it-yourself projects.

Thus, the best marketing strategy the company has is word-of-mouth referrals, and there have been hundreds of those over the years, she told BusinessWest.

“We rely on testimonials — they’re very important in this business because of the work that’s involved and the trust that clients are putting in us,” she explained, adding that the phone is ringing even more often these days thanks to the company finally earning placement on the state bid list for such projects involving the moving of libraries.

Tome-honored Practices

As for those references to linear feet, Pikul actually summoned a different unit of measure to convey how busy this company has been.

Indeed, just last summer — remember, that’s the busy season — it moved some 20 miles of books.

How many volumes is that? Pikul doesn’t know, and doesn’t really care, because that number is not particularly relevant; 500 children’s books would certainly take up far less space than 500 books from a law library.

This is just one of the many intriguing nuances in a business where things are done by the book — and the journal, map, microfilm box, and, yes, train lantern.

That’s what makes it so fascinating, and enjoyable, to Pikul, and why it’s a business story that has become a real page turner.

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

Thunderbirds Celebrate the Past, Focus on Present and Future

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thunderbirdsfeature-0217a
Features

Looking Forward, Not Back

Nate Costa

Nate Costa says the first part of the T-Birds season was about paying tribute to the past; since Jan. 1, though, the team has been working even more diligently to forge its own identity.

Nate Costa was talking about how the eight months since the launch of Springfield’s new American Hockey League franchise, the Thunderbirds, has been both long and quick at the same time.

To get his point across, he pointed to his office in the team’s complex at the MassMutual Center and just how unlived in (or not ready for this writer’s camera) it is.

Indeed, while the credenza over his desk seems somewhat organized, complete with a good-sized bobblehead collection, a photo from his college commencement, and other mementos, the rest of it would certainly not fit that description. A dorm fridge sits on the floor unplugged, the energy-rating tag still attached to the door. Several photos, plaques, and other items, including a wooden clock commemorating the New York Giants’ victory in Super Bowl XXI (Costa’s a huge fan of that team), take up space on shelves or the floor, rather than the walls.

Meanwhile, there are several boxes of team replica jerseys stacked in one corner. They are destined, hopefully, for bars, restaurants, and clubs across the area in an effort to enlist their support — and wall space — in efforts to build momentum and a fan base (more on that later).

“This office … just hasn’t been a priority,” said Costa, the team’s executive vice president, uttering those words slowly for emphasis before going into great detail about what has been a priority. And this would be anything and everything that goes into building the Thunderbirds brand and making this AHL franchise part of the fabric of the community.

A long, quick eight months in, Costa believes he and his team have made significant progress on both scores, enough to imply strongly that he can already declare this inaugural season a success on many levels.

That list does not necessarily include the AHL’s Atlantic Division standings, where the T-Birds are firmly entrenched in sixth place, only a few points ahead of cellar-dwelling Hartford and nearly 30 points behind pace-setting Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

But it would include average attendance (roughly 4,500, a marked increase over last year) and the demographic breakdown of those crowds (fans of all ages, but an encouraging number of young people), as well as a host of intangibles Costa noted, including ‘energy,’ ‘buzz,’ and ‘brand recognition.’ (A ‘swear jar’ placed at the T-Birds offices to store fines deposited by those who uttered the former franchise’s name, ‘Falcons,’ has been retired, because no one really does that anymore).

“The vision for this, right from the get-go, was creating a brand and creating an identity in Springfield that was centered not just on community involvement and hockey, but entertainment,” he explained. “That’s family-friendly entertainment that’s affordable and provides value. And I think we’ve accomplished much of that in terms of laying a foundation for something that’s consistent.”

Overall, Costa said his team, using its own imagination while also borrowing heavily from the success of other franchises, has succeeded in creating a game experience that is succeeding in drawing fans no matter what the team’s record happens to be. Perhaps the best example of this is Friday-night games, or the Friday 4-for-All, as the team calls them.

Live music featuring local bands precedes those tilts, which also feature free parking in the Civic Center Parking Garage (as all games do), $1 concessions (hot dogs, soda, and popcorn), and $4 Coors Light draughts.

The package has proven attractive enough to lure college students and families alike, said Costa, adding that the Friday-night games are becoming a fixture, if they haven’t crossed that threshold already.

“Friday nights … you can’t get a better value anywhere in town,” he said. “And it’s starting to spread in terms of awareness. Overall, there’s an atmosphere in the building that wasn’t there before.”

But there’s more, including so-called ‘winning weekdays’ — if the team wins one of those rare non-weekend games, attendees get a free ticket to the next one — as well as a host of on-ice game-day experiences created to attract young people and spur group-ticket sales, and an array of giveaways, special offers, and promotions.

And then, there’s Ric Flair, the former professional wrestler and consummate self-promoter, who will be the special attraction at the Feb. 10 (another Friday) tilt against Hartford.

“The Syracuse Crunch brought him in one night a few years ago, and it was a smash success — it was one of the biggest nights they’ve had in a long time,” said Costa, offering one of many examples of how the team is borrowing best practices. “We’re not sold out yet, but we’re on our way; he’s as topical as ever.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Costa about the progress achieved to date with building a fan base for the T-Birds and the challenges that remain.

Changing Their Tune

Costa grew up in Springfield — he’s a Cathedral High School alum — and has many vivid memories of watching Springfield Falcons games with his father and grandfather at the old Springfield Civic Center.

Generations of people have such memories involving Springfield teams also named the Indians and Kings, he noted, adding that professional hockey in Springfield dates back to the Roaring ’20s. This legacy was certainly on Costa’s mind as he worked with a team of owners to launch the Thunderbirds franchise last spring, and in many ways, the first part of the season was dedicated to the tradition and those who kept it alive, he told BusinessWest.

“I wanted to pay tribute to the history, because I’m a product of that,” he explained. “It wasn’t necessarily the sport, it was the experience — it was getting to spend time with my dad or my grandfather, and it was time that really stuck with me. So the beginning part of our season was really spent celebrating that history.”

Right down to “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” the rally-the-crowd song that has been played before, during, and after AHL games in Springfield for decades, which also greeted the T-Birds as they took the ice or scored a goal.

But starting with the Jan. 4 tilt against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (one of those weekday games the T-Birds won, thus sending attendees home really happy), there was a different sound being heard.

It was “Out of Our Heads” by the Dropkick Murphys, featuring the lyrics:

“Are we gonna make it
Or is this how we’ll go?
Are we gonna take it sitting down?
Hell no!
We’re going to cause a riot
We’re going to rip it up
We’re going to storm the gates
This place is going up.”

As he explained this choice and the retirement of “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” Costa said it was a well-thought-out decision that in many ways speaks to what his team (meaning the one in the backroom, not the one on the ice) is doing with this franchise across the board, or across the boards, as they say in this business.

“Our internal mindset was, once we get to Jan. 1, we’re going to flip that switch and embrace that new brand we’ve created in this market around the T-Birds,” he explained. “We switched to ‘Out of Our Heads’ because we were creating our own identity, and one that identifies with a young fan.

“We hear so much about people having memories with their parents and hearing ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll,’ he went on. “I want to create those same memories for a younger generation that may not identify with ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll,’ but does identify with something that’s more current. I’m trying to look forward, and not necessarily backward, and that’s what we’re trying to do continuously.”

That sentiment applies to basically every bullet-pointed item in the strategic plan, he continued, listing everything from marketing to the strategy for group sales to those on-ice promotions, to specific initiatives like Friday 4-for-Alls.

Starting with marketing, he said that, while the team still partakes in what would be considered traditional methods and platforms, its focus is on social media and the methods for reaching younger audiences.

“We’re doing a ton of marketing in a way that’s different from what we’ve seen in years past,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re putting a ton behind digital … being on Facebook and being intelligent about what we’re doing is exposing our product to a completely different fan; the majority of people who are on Facebook, who are on Instagram, who are on Twitter are young people.”

the key to success for all the teams in the AHL

Nate Costa says the key to success for all the teams in the AHL, and especially the T-Birds, is to focus on providing entertainment, not just hockey.

The same philosophy being applied to marketing also prevails with other strategies for attracting and retaining fans, he went on, citing the Win on Weekdays promotion as just one example.

“We had two Wednesdays; we won the first one and had a really good redemption on the people coming back to the next one,” he explained. “We were able to grow our revenue, and it was a positive. Hopefully, what happens is we win a couple of those, you create a buzz, and you give people something to talk about. It’s a fun promotion.”

Changing On the Fly

As he talked about hockey, the AHL, the mindset of looking forward, not backward, and the involved process of turning league games into can’t-miss happenings, Costa focused most of his time and energy on what’s happening in Springfield.

But to put things into perspective — and also to show that everything he was talking about was certainly doable — he started by discussing what has happened in some other AHL cities, including Grand Rapids, Mich., San Antonio, Texas, where Costa cut his teeth in group sales, and especially Utica, N.Y.

That city of 65,000 people in Upstate New York’s Mohawk County, known perhaps more for the beer that’s been brewed there since 1888 than anything else, had an AHL franchise (the Devils, an affiliate of the NHL team with that same nickname) in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but lost it essentially due to lackluster support.

So when there was movement to locate the Vancouver Canucks’ affiliate there in 2013, the plan was greeted with a good deal of skepticism, said Costa, who was then working for the league in its Team Business Services Department.

“I was there when they bought the franchise,” he recalled. “And there were a lot of doubters, a lot of people who laughed a bit and said, ‘why would they put a team back in tiny Utica with its 3,800-seat arena?’”

But former AHL and NHL player Robert Esh had a different vision, he went on.

“He took a major-league attitude toward it,” Costa explained. “And he had a vision for what a franchise could do for a small city like that.”

To make a somewhat long story short, the Comets have sold out every game for the last two or three years, said Costa, and tickets have become a hot commodity.

“A Comets’ game is now the thing to do in Utica,” he said. “You can’t get a ticket, you can’t sniff a ticket now, and it’s because of the brand that he’s built. The game-night experience is unbelievable; it’s NHL-quality.”

In some ways, the T-Birds management team has borrowed from the Utica franchise when it comes to the game-night-experience side of the equation, said Costa, but also from the specific mindset of making one of the team’s games the thing to do — on Friday night, yes, but really any night they’re playing.

And the team has borrowed from other franchises as well, he said, especially with regard to the focus and drive put on group sales, which, as noted, is where Costa got his start in pro hockey with the San Antonio Rampage.

When Costa started there, the team was at or near the bottom of the league in attendance. It quickly rose in the ranks through group sales and season tickets.

“We started selling youth-hockey experiences and selling to schools — showing them experiences at the building that they couldn’t get by going to a Spurs game,” he explained. “We found our niche. You could spend $12 and sit in the same building where you would spend $200 to see the Spurs, and get a great experience.”

Net Results

In a nutshell, the assignment is the same in Springfield, said Costa, adding that, while there isn’t an NBA franchise also playing at the MassMutual Center, there are four pro sports teams just 90 minutes down the Turnpike, as well as a host of other attractions vying for the time and attention of families and young people.

Creating an experience for a fraction of the cost of one of those other options is one key to success for the T-Birds, he said, adding that the team is currently taking advantage of several opportunities it has created.

Actually, one was created by the MassMutual Center and its still fairly open schedule. Indeed, there are no other primary tenants competing for prime nights, as in most other AHL cities (San Antonio and Cleveland, where the NBA champion Cavaliers are the lead tenant, are prime examples), so the T-Birds have more Friday and Saturday dates to play with than other teams.

Another opportunity that came about is free parking, achieved through prolonged negotiations with the Springfield Parking Authority, And still another is the $1 price tag put on the hot dogs, soda, and popcorn, and $4 for a cup of Coors, said Costa, adding that they resulted from lengthy talks with Spectra Food Management, which handles concessions at the MassMutual Center, about price points that will yield dividends across the board.

“We’re jointly looking at this as a chance to provide, on one day a week, Friday, an opportunity to expose our product to more people and different fans,” he said of that specific deal, but also the combination of factors that have come together, adding that the strategy is obviously working.

“If you come here on a Friday night now, or a Sunday night when we have an extreme value like for our Sunday Fun Days, you see a ton of kids,” said Costa. “That’s not to say that there weren’t kids before — I came here, and there were absolutely kids. But there’s a different energy in the building, and it’s continued to grow.

tbirdsrick

 

“And it’s not just young kids,” he went on. “We’re seeing more 21- to 35-year-olds than ever before; we’re seeing a lot more college kids coming out on Friday nights, because there’s value, and we’ve put a premium on our game-night experience.”

So much so that Costa and his team are trying to somehow replicate Friday’s energy and atmosphere on Saturday.

But when it comes to exposing the product to new audiences, the real key is group sales, said Costa, adding that they not only help fill the parking garage and the arena, but they create experiences — from listening to local bands to being chosen to sing the National Anthem, to getting on the ice with the team — that will bring people back.

“That’s how we’re going to fill this building,” he said of group sales. “We have to get out and grab people and bring them in. With groups, a lot of them are young people, and when you expose them to the product and bring them in en masse, you make fans for life. Those are the ones who are going to go to mom and dad and say, ‘I had a great time; can we come again?’”

As for those jerseys in the boxes in Costa’s office, he ordered them with the hope, and expectation, that they would be framed and find their way onto the walls of area bars, restaurants, and clubs.

Those establishments would be sold a package (still to be formalized) whereby they would get the framed jersey and thus become part of the efforts to build visibility and buzz for the team.

“My real vision is to have this team become part of the fabric of the community,” he explained. “This bar program is part of that; we can develop a price point that’s easy for them to get to, and then they become partners with us, and we can become partners with them.

“If people go to these places, they see a piece of what we’re about, and they feel that connection to us,” he went on, adding that building these connections is essentially his job description.

A Winning Attitude

When asked when he might get around to hanging his Giants clock or even plugging in his refrigerator, Costa didn’t even bother answering.

His office hasn’t garnered more than a tiny bit of his time and attention over the past eight months, and that isn’t about to change.

Instead, he’s focused on that ongoing challenge of creating a large, stable, committed fanbase for the T-Birds, an assignment he’s embraced with vigor, imagination, and a mindset he’s seen work elsewhere and that he knows will work here.

That philosophy is to celebrate the past, but focus on today and tomorrow, and, as the Dropkick Murphys shout in “Out of Our Heads,” ‘storm the gates.’

In other words, Springfield’s hockey team has changed its tune — in all kinds of ways.

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

Pittsfield Moves On and Up from Its Industrial Past

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

By Kathleen Mitchell

Mayor Linda Tyer

Mayor Linda Tyer says Pittsfield has made great strides in re-inventing itself and moving beyond its industrial past, dominated by General Electric.

Mayor Linda Tyer is a strong believer in the power of collaboration.

Several weeks ago, she gave the first State of the City address in Pittsfield’s history and outlined a myriad of multi-faceted projects that have come to fruition in the last year as a result of collaborative efforts.

Tyer told BusinessWest that investments designed to revitalize the city have taken root and change is occurring on a daily basis, which is good, because it’s needed as the city continues the process of reinventing itself.

“Pittsfield has a long history as an industrial town primarily because of GE’s large manufacturing facility,” she explained, referring to the massive complex that once employed more than 13,000 people. “The city relied on it for decades as its economic driver for real-estate taxes, employment, and community engagement.”

GE closed in the ’80s, which was a devastating blow and led to what Tyer refers to as a “grieving period that created self-doubt for the people who live here.”

Although a period of disinvestment followed, change began in 2000 when city officials decided to redefine Pittsfield’s identity.

Tyer was on the City Council at that time and recalled the city realized a robust cultural economy existed in the towns around them, but Pittsfield, which is the geographic and commercial hub of the area, was not participating in it.

Investments began downtown, and thanks to a collaborative effort by partners that included city officials, the community, state and federal legislators, and investors, today Pittsfield’s downtown boasts a thriving district that includes the Barrington and Colonial theaters, an independently owned movie theater, popular restaurants, and market-rate housing that followed as thousands of visitors flocked to the area.

“People want to live in our downtown, which is proof that the investments paid off,” Tyer said.

City officials have also helped local businesses, and the mayor said the belief that there are no jobs in Pittsfield is a myth. Indeed, numbers are rising: last January, the unemployment rate was 6.6%, which dropped to 3.3% by November.

“We strengthened workforce relationships last year and developed innovative training programs,” Tyer said, explaining that the workforce system generated $1.8 million that was used to train 1,250 people in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, STEM careers, finance, and customer service, and 70% of them found employment.

The city has also worked to retain local companies. Last July, after Covanta announced that it planned to close its Pittsfield facility, the City Council granted the waste-burning plant $562,000 to help with capital repairs and keep it open. The move saved 25 jobs and prevented a huge increase in trash-disposal costs, as a shutdown would have forced Pittsfield to have its trash and recyclables hauled away at an estimated annual cost of $462,000, in addition to losing $960,000 in property taxes, water and sewer user fees, and host-community fees over a four-year period.

Fiscal challenges lie ahead. But many steps will be taken to stabilize the issue, including cost containment, debt management, new revenue, and strategic investments that will prepare Pittsfield to not only survive, but thrive well into the future.”

The Hubbard Avenue facility incinerates 85,000 tons of waste per year and turns it into steam energy, which is then sold to Crane & Co. and Neenah Technical Materials. Republic Services hauls the city’s curbside collection to the site, including recyclables that are stored and later shipped in bulk to the Springfield Massachusetts Materials Recycling Facility.

The financial package Covanta received included state energy-tax credits, extended its contract with the city until 2020, and allowed the company to continue to sell steam energy to Crane and Neenah.

“But Covanta wasn’t the only company on our radar,” Tyer said, adding that five additional businesses were provided with assistance from a variety of incentive programs.

For this, the latest installment in its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest looks at revitalization efforts in Pittsfield and what is being done to make it a place where Millennials want to live, which is one of the mayor’s goals. She noted they typically choose that place first, then look for a job, which is markedly different than past generations who moved to areas where they found employment.

“Millennials have a very different way of planning their lives,” said Tyer. “But we plan to capitalize on our growing art, culture, and entertainment economy; maximize our spectacular natural environment by updating our recreation and open space; invest in our housing stock; safeguard our educational institutions; and support small and mid-sized businesses and their aspirations for growth in new markets for the people who live here now as well as future generations that will call Pittsfield home.”

Neighborhood Focus

Over the past year, the Tyler Street business corridor has been the focus of combined energy, effort, and investment. The area is adjacent to North Street, Pittsfield’s downtown thoroughfare, and is bookended by Berkshire Health Systems, the city’s largest employer, and the William Stanley Business Park.

In December 2014, Pittsfield’s Community Development Department, the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority, and the Tyler Street Business Group applied to have the neighborhood become a state-designated Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) district.

The application was accepted, and the agencies have formed a core partnership in this program, administered by MassDevelopment, that leverages public dollars to stimulate private investment in selected neighborhoods in gateway cities.

“We are very privileged to have MassDevelopment as a partner,” the mayor said. “This will allow Pittsfield to receive enhanced technical assistance, real-estate services, and equity investments to support our vision for redevelopment. We’re learning what the citizens want, as well as working to understand the needs of small businesses there, and will develop a plan to help Tyler Street become a unique, thriving, working, residential neighborhood where typical day-to-day needs can be met within walking distance.”

Amewusika “Sika” Sedzro is the TDI fellow for Pittsfield, and she noted that MassDevelopment hired a consulting firm to conduct an assessment of the area and come up with recommendations for an action plan.

Two meetings were held to get public input, and a forum was staged for developers to find out what is needed to spur interest in structures that have been vacant for long periods of time.

The final report was due when BusinessWest went to press, but Sedzro said it quickly became clear that developers want easy access to data about available parcels, information about incentive programs, and a streamlined process to help bring submitted plans to fruition.

“There is a lot of property of this size available in the Tyler Street District, and we’re working with businesses and developers to understand the barriers to entry given current market conditions,” Sedzro noted, adding that she is available to talk about properties and incentives available from the city and MassDevelopment that include low-interest loans, access to capital, and technical assistance.

The Tyler Street neighborhood has a growing Latino and Asian population, and a number of new businesses have been opened by entrepreneurial immigrants.

“It’s a really positive indicator, especially since Berkshire Health, Sabic Innovative Plastics, and the William Stanley Business Park are in close proximity to the neighborhood,” Sedzro said, explaining that Pittsfield TDI plans to coordinate measures that could lead to an even more diverse economy.

The city is also working to expand the Housing Development Incentive Program into the Tyler Street District, which could benefit a developer who hopes to purchase the St. Mary’s Church campus and convert three of its buildings into market-rate housing. The campus has been vacant for more than two decades and contains the church, a school, a convent, and a rectory.

The developer is in negotiations with the Diocese of Springfield, and the city and state are working to provide incentives to move forward.

The Tyler Street TDI is part of the Morningside neighborhood, and last June that area received a $75,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation.

“It’s a grass-roots effort that includes efforts aimed at the arts, pride of place, and increasing food options and availability,” Sedzro said.

The money will be used to create a soup kitchen in the Berkshire Dream Center, an urban working farm in Springside Park, and an augmentation of community gardens that would allow their produce to be used by local businesses.

Continued Improvements

The cultural and entertainment district in Pittsfield’s downtown continues to grow as infrastructure improvements add to its attractiveness.

A four-phase streetscape project was recently completed, and North Street has a new look that includes street resurfacing, sidewalk improvements, decorative street lighting, increased seating, medians with plantings, and high-visibility crosswalks compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

New, solar-powered parking kiosks were installed last month as part of the city’s parking-management plan, and are equipped with a parking app that provides a simplified way to manage parking needs.

“Pittsfield’s parking is still friendly; the first 30 minutes are free, and so are nights and weekends,” Tyer said, noting that parking is also free for people with handicap placards.

A grass-roots movement led voters to approve the adoption of the Community Preservation Act in November, which will provide funds that can be used for public and private projects including historic preservation, recreation, open space, and housing.

“The next step is to establish a community-preservation committee that will develop a plan and identify priorities so projects can be funded early in 2018,” Tyer said.

She outlined other collaborations in her State of the City Address that include the revitalization of Willard and Rosemary Durant Park in the Westside.

Neighborhood volunteers installed a new playground and swingset paid for by Community Development Block Grant funds, and Greylock Credit Union has made a commitment to build a permanent pavilion there.

Other collective efforts aimed at youth include a free Sticks for Kids golf program and Dig This Volleyball initiative that have helped children learn new skills. In addition, donations from local businesses have led to innovative art and education programs, and grant money will pay for a strategic plan to provide high-quality education to more preschool children.

The city is also getting help with municipal finances due to a community compact that was formed with Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito’s office and gives officials access to financial expertise from UMass Collins Center.

Tyer said they hope to meet two goals as a result of the collaboration. The first is to create a comprehensive, five-year financial forecast that will serve as a guide in establishing budget priorities and matching them against projected revenues and funding obligations such as pensions, health insurance, and debt service.

The second is the development of a comprehensive budget document that will allow the City Council and residents to understand the mission of different city departments and the spending plan for the upcoming year.

“Fiscal challenges lie ahead. But many steps will be taken to stabilize the issue, including cost containment, debt management, new revenue, and strategic investments that will prepare Pittsfield to not only survive, but thrive well into the future,” Tyer said.

She added that the city is also addressing blight. Last summer, four vacant residential properties were demolished, and six additional properties were scheduled for demolition last month.

Bright Future

All of the economic-development efforts planned or underway have involved a collaborative effort between stakeholders that include community organizations, businesses, residents, and city, state, and federal officials.

“My administration respects and values cross-collaborations internally and seeks partnerships outside of city government that will help Pittsfield to thrive; we have turned the corner in terms of designing our future, and the city is on its way to becoming the vibrant, dynamic place it deserves to be,” the mayor said, noting that many well-attended events were held last year, including the municipal airport’s first air show, the 10th Third Thursday street festival, and the fifth Upstreet Arts Festival, which attracted more than 10,000 people.

Indeed, this former industrial city is on an upward trajectory. Its future is brighter than it has been for decades, and the positive forecast should continue as Pittsfield redefines its image and alerts developers and businesses to opportunities in its diverse neighborhoods.

 

Pittsfield at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1761
Population: 44,737 (2016)
Area: 42.5 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $39.78
Commercial Tax Rate: $19.63
Median Household Income: $50,765 (2015)
median family Income: $65,297 (2015)
Type of Government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: Berkshire Health Systems; General Dynamics; Petricca Industries Inc.; SABIC Innovative Plastics
* Latest information available

Springfield Symphony Orchestra to Welcome Irish Tenors

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Features

A Festival, Not a Concert

The Irish Tenors

The Irish Tenors will be coming to Springfield for what’s being described as a festival, not merely a concert.

Peter Salerno says the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (SSO) doesn’t merely want to present music to the people of this region.

Instead, it wants to be what he called “responsive and responsible” to the community — while also presenting music — and, in the course of doing that, become even more woven into its fabric.

And this mindset, if you will, explains not only why the Irish Tenors will be appearing at Symphony Hall on March 4 at 7:30 p.m., but why that performance is merely part of something much bigger.

“We wanted to celebrate this region’s Irish heritage, not just this year, but for many years to come,” said Salerno, executive director of the SSO, adding that this desire falls into that category of being responsive.

As for the ‘responsible’ part, he said it explains why the performance of the Irish Tenors will be accompanied by everything from an Irish dinner before the event to efforts to mark (and educate people about) the Irish Rebellion —  also known as the Easter Rising or the Easter Rebellion because it took place that week — in 1916.

“We wanted this to be a festival, as opposed to just a concert,” he explained, adding quickly that the ‘just a concert’ line was a figure of speech, and that performance will be momentous in its own right. Indeed, it will feature the world-famous group that has been performing around the world for nearly 20 years now, and 51 musicians from the SSO.

But it will be a true festival and celebration, he went on, adding that such efforts are part of an ongoing SSO strategic initiative to broaden its visibility and overall impact within the community and engage larger and more diverse audiences.

This strategy was certainly in evidence in early December, as the SSO presented not a holiday concert, but a holiday ‘extravaganza,’ which included the Children’s Chorus of Springfield, what is now an annual holiday silent auction, Santa Claus, and much more.

And it will be evidence at a number of other performances as well, including the season’s finale, “Video Game Live,” on May 13. Salerno described this as an immersive concert that features the musical scores from the greatest video games of all time, plus large-screen video footage, synchronized lighting, solo performers, and a host of pre- and post-concert attractions such as video-game demonstrations and competitions.

As for the Irish Tenors, Salerno called their agent last year and discovered that there was what could only be called a window of opportunity. This was an open date that would bring the group to the Springfield area for the first time in years — and thus give the region a performance that would complement, but not in any way compete with, the many St. Patrick’s Day activities taking place in Holyoke later in the month.

The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on March 4, but festivities will begin much earlier, said Salerno, noting that there will be a traditional Irish dinner at the Marriott Hotel at 4:30. At 6:30, at Symphony Hall, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal will make a presentation on the 101st anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Other elements of the festival, as he called it, are coming together, said Salerno, adding that he expects this will be a special day and night for Springfield and the entire region — one of many in the months and years to come as the SSO continues to find ways to be both responsive and responsible.

—George O’Brien

Stan Rosenberg Helps Build a More Responsive Senate

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rosenbergfeature0117b
Features

Man of the People

Senate President Stan Rosenberg

Senate President Stan Rosenberg

Massachusetts Senate President Stan Rosenberg — one of the few legislators from Western Mass. who have held that position — began his career as an aide to then-Sen. John Olver, and has served as Olver’s successor for the past 26 years. During that time, he has worked on myriad issues important to his constituents, from education funding to energy policy; from labor matters to mass transit. The common threads, he said, are the importance of continually making investments in the state’s future, and his philosophy of government as a ‘helping profession.’

A leader in the Massachusetts State House with deep roots in Hampshire County. Passionate about issues ranging from wage equity to expanding rail service across the Commonwealth. Known for his lengthy career as a legislator, including election in ’15 as president of the Massachusetts Senate.

Meet Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States.

Or, alternately, current state Senate President Stan Rosenberg, considering how remarkably those careers intersect, a century apart.

“He was a Republican, but he was quite a progressive in some ways,” Rosenberg, a Democrat, said of someone he counts as a role model; in fact, when he gives State House tours, he always brings visitors to see Coolidge’s desk, which has a home in his suite of offices. “He was involved in the minimum wage, he was involved in rail — his goal was to get rail everywhere in Massachusetts. Then the automobile interrupted the progress they’d made, and the rail system started to diminish while highways expanded.

“Well, guess what?” he went on. “It’s 100 years later, and we’re still working on the same problems. We’re still talking about pay equity. We’re still talking about rail.”

For Rosenberg, 67, whose career as a state legislator stretches back to 1986, transportation issues are matters of access and opportunity for state residents, a concept he would return to several times during his recent talk with BusinessWest.

Sen. Stan Rosenberg arrived at the State House

Sen. Stan Rosenberg arrived at the State House as Sen. John Olver’s aide in 1980 and never left, succeeding Olver in 1991.

“These are 21st-century issues, whether we’re talking about transportation and connecting regions outside metro Boston, or talking about ensuring that everyone has access to higher education. Those are the kinds of issues where, if you don’t ensure availability statewide, then people’s economic opportunities get constrained.

“It isn’t just nice to have rail,” he went on, explaining that getting people back and forth to jobs means allowing them to work far from where they live, which helps fill up underused housing stock. Rosenberg was involved in efforts to secure $33 million to upgrade the Pan Am line from Connecticut to Vermont via Springfield and Northampton, as lawmakers continue to eye east-west rail service from Boston to the Pioneer Valley.

“The same with education,” he said. “If you don’t have access to quality education, you’re not going to line up with the jobs that are available. Even in the Pioneer Valley, we have vacant positions that don’t have people to fill them. The skills gap is a really big issue. The achievement gap is a big issue. We have 100,000 vacant jobs statewide, and 100,000 people looking, according to the unemployment numbers. We’ve got to match them up, and that means education, training, and retraining for opportunities.”

Two years ago, Rosenberg became the first senator hailing from Western Mass. elected president of that chamber since 1971, but he dismisses talk that his region’s issues are pushed to the side on Beacon Hill.

“There’s often a feeling about Western Mass. getting the short end of the stick, but all of the regions — north, south, and west — outside the metro Boston area have a similar feeling,” he said. “We’re not unique.”

One thing Western Mass. legislators have been adept at, he went on, is speaking with a unified voice to promote the region’s shared needs and hopefully impact policy.

“Our delegation in Western Mass. has been very nimble and adept at building coalitions to make sure, when there are opportunities, we have a seat at the table,” he said, citing a few examples, from the MGM casino opening in Springfield in 2018 — area legislators fought to ensure the region would win one of the projects — to ongoing life-sciences and research projects.

“The same thing with high-tech projects: the largest big-data center in the state is actually not in Boston; it’s in Holyoke,” he said of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center. “Having that center there is an enormous positive for the region.”

Rosenberg also touted the partnership between UMass Medical School and Baystate Health to bring a medical-school campus to Springfield later this year, forming a sort of medical-education and research triangle between Springfield, Worcester, and Amherst.

“We keep finding opportunities to develop things that are uniquely ours while also making sure we are not left out of the discussion when planning statewide initiatives, so the Pioneer Valley gets to be the beneficiary.”

Calvin Coolidge would undoubtedly be proud. But there’s far more to Rosenberg’s personal story and career.

Through the Ranks

Raised in foster care, Rosenberg graduated from Revere High School in 1967 before attending UMass Amherst, and embracing the region he would come to represent in Boston.

“I went to school part-time and worked full-time at UMass because of my financial situation in the late ’60s and early ’70s,” he told BusinessWest. “While attending UMass, he founded and headed the Arts Extension Service and then became director of Community Development and Human Service Programs in the Division of Continuing Education.

“As a result, I started to make a lot of connections with people and became politically engaged,” he explained. In 1980, then-state Sen. John Olver asked if he was interested in working in Boston as his aide. “I left my job on a Friday, and on Monday arrived at the State House for my first day of work.”

 

All across the country, we’re seeing declining state appropriations and higher education driving up student charges, driving up student debt. And when graduates get into the economy, they have no disposable income, so it’s harder to stay in state.”

 

Rosenberg went on to serve as executive director of the state Democratic party from 1983 to 1985, and as the district director for U.S. Rep. Chester Atkins from 1985 to 1986. He then sought and won a seat on the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1986, representing Amherst and Pelham. In 1991, he won a special election for the state Senate seat being vacated by Olver, a role he has maintained for 26 years, representing 25 communities, mainly in Hampshire and Franklin counties.

While in the Senate, he has served as chair of the Election Laws Committee, the Banking Committee, and the Senate Ways and Means Committee, followed by assistant majority leader from 1999 to 2002 and Senate president pro tempore from 2003 to 2013. He was appointed Senate majority leader in 2013 and Senate president at the start of 2015.

The issues he cared about early on aren’t much different than what he prioritizes now, and reflected the mindset of his district. His interest in higher education dovetailed with the fact that the state’s flagship university is located in Amherst. With many environmentally minded residents in his district, he worked on recycling and the greenhouse-gas issue, now commonly known as climate change. And with the closings of Northampton State Hospital and Belchertown State School, social services to help people in need became a main concern as well.

“You can’t live in the Pioneer Valley without thinking about economic development, but also social justice,” said Rosenberg, who has had a personal stake in some of those issues, notably the Bay State’s first-in-the-union legalization of gay marriage a decade ago, a law he and his husband, Bryon Hefner, availed themselves of last year. “In representing that constituency, you’ve got to be prepared to work in both of those areas.”

He recognizes that businesses have concerns about employment regulations that favor workers, such as minimum-wage laws, equal-pay rules, and family-leave advances, but believes that, given enough time to adapt, companies always do. As one example, provisions of the equal-pay law passed last summer, aiming to ensure women are paid equally with men for equivalent work, don’t take effect until the summer of 2018.

“If a business or agency has time to adapt, it is clearly understood in the public-policy realm that you’ll have a very modest impact when you raise the minimum wage, for example. It may be different for individual businesses, but for the economy as a whole, there’s a very minor impact — and it’s even better when there’s warning and you can plan for it.”

Ideally, he said, the public and private sector works together for mutual benefit, as seen in the 2006 health-insurance law that provided tax credits and tools through the Health Connector to help employers ensure their employees were covered in an affordable way. “Not that there won’t be some pain in that or some dislocation in some situations, but by working together, we can minimize that pain.”

Creating a culture where the workforce has access to affordable healthcare, family leave, and other work-life benefits is critical, Rosenberg said, to retaining top talent in the state. “We have a knowledge-driven economy, and we want people to settle here, to locate their businesses here. By doing these things, we are making a difference.”

He noted that Massachusetts was among the first states, more than a century ago, to establish a minimum-wage law. “We were one of the innovators, and now it’s national practice. We have the third-highest per-capita income in the country, and by most measures, the balance between the strength of the economy and quality of life here is extremely strong.”

Providing that quality of life takes public investment, he insists, and public education is a good example. As a co-chair on the Senate Task Force on Public Higher Education and the Public Higher Education Caucus, he advocated for higher state appropriations for colleges, while holding institutions accountable for how they spend the money.

“All across the country, we’re seeing declining state appropriations and higher education driving up student charges, driving up student debt,” he said. “And when graduates get into the economy, they have no disposable income, so it’s harder to stay in state. If they don’t have disposable income, if it’s all going to pay rent and student debt, they don’t have money to go out and buy things. That hurts small businesses in particular.”

Again, it’s that concept, one of the defining ones in today’s Democratic party, that public investment benefits everyone, but Rosenberg doesn’t simply want to issue legislation from on high (well, high on Beacon Hill, anyway); he wants to engage constituents on what matters to them.

“You have to have a robust and open process for people to engage with you,” he told BusinessWest, “so they have a seat at the table and a voice in discussions that are going to affect them.”

Out and About

Rosenberg noted that each of the state’s 40 senators chairs a committee or acts in some other leadership position, and in the past two years, they have been working to “transform the organization” according to best practices of shared responsibility, shared leadership, teamwork, and engagement with constituents to identify solutions to key issues.

“We’re less hierarchical in the Senate than we used to be,” he noted. “Members are much more engaged at every level, and we’re trying to expand transparency within the body and engagement with the public.”

One concrete strategy for doing the latter is a practice known as Commonwealth Conversations. That project divides the state into nine regions, each with their own specific needs and priorities. Groups of senators spend a day in each region talking to constituents about projects they want to see accomplished, but also the community values they hold.

“We hear similarities of concern, but also differences,” he said. “Boston isn’t the Pioneer Valley, and Pittsfield isn’t Springfield, for that matter.”

Sen. Stan Rosenberg says transportation, education, and labor matters aren’t just political issues

Sen. Stan Rosenberg says transportation, education, and labor matters aren’t just political issues; they’re access points to a better quality of life for Massachusetts residents.

The idea, he explained, is to develop statewide policy that can be adapted for regional differences, such as meeting skills gaps that differ throughout the Commonwealth.

“For example, we’ve been rebuilding the machining industry sector in Western Mass. Not that it’s not going on elsewhere, but it’s a big priority in our area,” he said, noting initiatives from the Middle Skills Manufacturing Initiative to train manufacturing workers in Franklin County to efforts to attract the Chinese rail-car manufacturing giant CRRC to Springfield. “The pieces all seem disparate, but they’re all connected.”

Even though a heavily Democratic Legislature and a Republican governor in Charlie Baker make for divided government in the technical sense, those officials maintain strong working relationships, Rosenberg said, noting that he meets with Baker, the House speaker, the Ways and Means chair, and the minority leaders every Monday afternoon — the location rotates between their offices — to talk about current issues before the Legislature.

“Even if we don’t have a specific agenda, we always talk about the common ground we have to build solutions to the problems of the day. Those meetings reach back to Bill Weld, Billy Bulger, and Charles Flaherty, and that tradition has been maintained whether we have a unified or divided government. It really makes a difference when you’re communicating.”

There are issues that rankle one side or the other, of course, and the divisions between Democrat-dominated Massachusetts and the national arena will only grow following the improbable rise of President Trump, who seems poised to lead with the same bluster and scattershot style that proved a winner on the campaign trail — only, with the ability to do actual damage to policies progressives value, beginning with the Affordable Care Act.

“We have to be mindful of a lot of change coming out of Washington,” Rosenberg said. “I’m worried about what’s happening on the health-insurance front. We had a universal plan that was working and got disrupted by the federal plan, but we adapted. The administration signed a $53 million, five-year plan for health transformation in Massachusetts. Now, the question is, will the administration honor that commitment, or will they make so many changes in the universal federal health program that it disrupts the state program again?”

Other shifting priorities in Washington could cause disruption in the Bay State as well. When it comes to climate change, for example, Massachusetts, as a coastal state, is trying to plan for the future, including possible coastline impacts, in a “balanced but aggressive way,” the Senate president said. “Whether or not they upturn federal policies might have an impact on state policies.”

Then there’s marijuana, which is legal for medical use in 28 states and for recreational enjoyment in eight; both apply in Massachusetts. Although using the drug continues to violate federal law, President Obama’s administration took a hands-off policy when the will of the states went their own way.

“If Mr. [Jeff] Sessions is appointed attorney general, will he stick to the policies of the Obama administration, where, if it’s heavily regulated and you follow those regulations, we’ll leave you alone?” Rosenberg asked. “Or will Mr. Sessions follow federal law and say, ‘I don’t care if your voters voted for it; you can’t do it anymore’? If they do come in and start enforcing it, that could be a pretty big deal.”

Helping Profession

It’s clear that legislative matters of all kinds, and the way they impact people’s lives, are a big deal to Stan Rosenberg.

When asked what gratifies him most, though, he returned again to the work he and his colleagues are doing to, as he called it, “transform the Senate as an institution.”

After all, he told BusinessWest, it’s very easy for malaise to set in within legislative bodies. “What we’re doing in the Senate has empowered our members, and that empowerment has excited them, and that excitement leads to an enormous amount of energy around trying to produce quality legislation that moves our communities forward.

“This is a helping profession,” he went on. “Every day, you get phone calls and meetings that challenge your thinking and keep you on the cutting edge of life. Every day you find opportunities to help one person, one business, one institution, one community.”

He likens those opportunities to winning a bit of money on a scratch ticket. “And every so often, it’s like winning the lottery when you pass a big piece of legislation that affects the future of the whole Commonwealth.”

Calvin Coolidge certainly made his mark — eventually, well beyond the borders of the Bay State. For now, Rosenberg is happy to keep making a difference for his constituents at home.

“Every day, you’re presented with opportunities to be helpful,” he said. “That keeps me going.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Development in Chicopee Soars to New Heights

By
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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Chicopee Mayor Richard Kos, left, and Michael Vedovelli

Chicopee Mayor Richard Kos, left, and Michael Vedovelli say the new, three-megawatt solar farm on James Street will benefit the city and reduce the cost of electricity at Westover Air Reserve Base.

Richard Kos says officials in Chicopee are doing all they can to foster good relationships with developers, government leaders, and local businesses, and their efforts have led to a strong surge in growth.

“In 2016 the building department issued $31 million in building permits, but we anticipate that, by the end of the first half of 2017, we will more than double that amount,” the mayor said.

Indeed, the list of projects in the planning stages or underway is not only lengthy but diverse in nature, ranging from new hotels to new and improved housing, a solar farm, business expansions, infrastructure improvements, and progress at the Uniroyal and Facemate properties. There’s also a new Mercedes-Benz dealership under construction on Burnett Road.

 

Chicopee has a can-do attitude, is business-friendly, and has officials who come up with optimal solutions to problems. All of the department heads have given us input to make the building process go smoothly.”

 

Peter Wirth is co-owner of that $12 million, 37,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility, expected to open in late summer or early fall. He and his partner took their time searching for a location in the metro Springfield area before choosing a site next to the entrance of Interstate 291 and exit 6 on the Mass Pike, and said city officials have done everything possible to help them meet their timetables.

“Chicopee has a can-do attitude, is business-friendly, and has officials who come up with optimal solutions to problems,” Wirth said. “All of the department heads have given us input to make the building process go smoothly.”

Other developments off exit 6 include construction of a $20 million Tru by Hilton Hotel by the owners of a Days Inn who demolished the outdated hotel on 450 Memorial Dr. to make way for the new structure.

“The project will include a Starbucks, a Wendy’s restaurant, an Irving gas station, and a sit-down restaurant that will be named later,” Kos said as he talked about reasons that make Chicopee a desirable place to live and operate a business.

“We’re the third-largest city west of 495 and are known as the ‘crossroads of New England’ because Interstate 91 and two exits of the Mass Pike intersect here,” the mayor noted, adding that the city’s financial stability and the traffic that runs through it add to its appeal.

But he attributes the rapid acceleration in growth to concerted efforts that began in 2014 after he was elected mayor for the second time.

“In a time when people are losing faith in government, Chicopee has seen unprecedented cooperation between its leaders, locally and on the state level,” Kos said. “We are working together to get things done and are excited about the industries that have chosen to invest here.”

For this issue, BusinessWest outlines some of the major projects that took place in Chicopee last year as well as those scheduled to begin in 2017.

Cooperative Efforts

A three-megawatt solar farm under construction on a 26-acre site off of Outer Drive and Goodwin Street is an example of how combined efforts have led to growth.

Last summer, the city was finally able to raze 100 units of military housing units on the site, which had sat unused for two decades and become problematic. Although Chicopee acquired the property from the Navy in 2011 after five years of negotiations, restrictions and their condition had prevented the city from renovating the structures or reusing the land for other purposes

“The housing was an eyesore, in a state of disrepair that had become a hazard to the neighborhood due to vandalism, vagrants, and other problems,” Kos said.

In 2015, he proposed putting a solar farm on the site, and after the City Council and neighbors endorsed the idea, Chicopee was awarded a $1 million MassDevelopment grant to remediate the property that was matched with funds from city coffers.

The money came from the state’s $5.9 million bond bill grant program to support the Clean Energy Assessment & Strategic Plan for Massachusetts Military Installations, and the housing was finally torn down.

In December, a lease agreement was signed with Chicopee Solar LLC, a subsidiary of ConEdison Development, to build a solar farm on 21 of the 26 acres.

“We gave the company permission to begin working at the site while the final details were being worked out,” Kos said, explaining that ConEdison had to have all mechanical components installed and ready for operation by Jan. 8 to meet a deadline set by the Mass. Department of Energy that would allow it to receive solar renewable-energy credits.

“They worked under a very tight timeline and brought in electricians from all over New England, but there was complete cooperation between the company, the city, and the state, and the installation was finished on time,” said Michael Vedovelli, the city’s director of Community and Economic Development.

 

Increasing a city’s market rate residential population is one of the real secrets of urban success.”

 

Kos added that the city’s investment will be recouped in 10 years through tax revenue and income from the lease agreement and the government will also benefit because Westover Air Reserve Base will receive a 5% discount each year on electricity that will amount to $100,000 in annual savings.

He noted that the remaining five acres on the property are available for industrial use and located adjacent to Air Park North and the former Avery Dennison building that is being used by Yankee Candle.

The project has been praised by residents of the Crossing at Ridgewood Village, a condominium association that sits across from the solar farm.

“It’s a wonderful reuse of the property that is great for the region,” said Dottie Sikes, a resident and member of the board of trustees, who recalled living in the former military housing with her husband in 1970 when Westover was an active military base. “The Crossing has always been a great place to live, but it will be much nicer now thanks to the new solar farm.”

The city has also reached an agreement with Mass. Alternative Care Inc. to open a medical-marijuana cultivation facility and dispensary near the Springfield line.

The company plans to convert the former Chicopee Engineering Associates building into a storefront, and the City Council approved a zoning change for a 3,270-square-foot piece of land on East Main Street so the business can begin its operation.

It will be the first of its kind in Hampden County, and Kos said the owners will be ready to plant by April. “The facility will provide patients with necessary treatment options and bring jobs and numerous tax benefits to the city.”

Ongoing work has also taken place at the Uniroyal site, and last year two of the remaining buildings on the 27-acre property were razed.

“We’ll try to repurpose four of the remaining 10 structures,” Vedovelli said, adding that the city has been aggressive in pursuing funds to remediate the brownfields and received three $200,000 grants from the Environmental Protection Agency last year.

“It is a tribute to our grant writer and our team,” he said, noting that only 53 projects in the country received the grants.

Previously, the City Council had appropriated $185,000 to make roof repairs, cover a broken skylight, and board up broken windows in the administration building on the Facemate property at Oak and Grove streets. A full abatement of that 62,000-square-foot structure will be completed this spring, and a request for proposals will be issued later in the year.

Interest in the Facemate property continues to grow, and David Spada from Lawrence has plans to build a $22.9 million, 92-room assisted-living facility on Lot 4 of a 3.85-acre parcel that has frontage on West Main Street across from the Chicopee Falls Post Office, and will be situated off a new road which leads to the RiverMills Senior Center.

Residential Growth

Two years ago, Mount Holyoke Development purchased the Lyman Mills in Chicopee Center, and plans are now underway to convert the former textile-manufacturing plant into 110 market-rate apartments. The buildings were unoccupied for four years, and the new units will be loft-style work/live spaces designed to appeal to young entrepreneurs.

Kos said the project was made possible in part by a $2.6 million MassWorks grant the city received last year that will be used to upgrade water, sewer, and storm-water lines in the area. Tighe and Bond is designing the project, and the work will begin this summer.

“Increasing a city’s market-rate residential population is one of the real secrets of urban success,” the mayor said, noting that such development becomes a catalyst for further growth as residents put feet on the street and increase business at local establishments and restaurants.

Change is also occurring at the former Kendall House in Chicopee Center as a result of collaborative efforts.  Valley Opportunity Council acquired the building from HAPHousing Inc. last year, and has plans for a $7 million renovation that will convert the rooming house, which housed Quicky’s restaurant on its first floor, into 39 affordable studio apartments.

“We’re working to improve the affordable-housing stock within the city, and by collaborating with the state, VOC received a $3.1 million grant to help restore the Kendall House,” the mayor said, adding that the nonprofit will cover the remainder of the renovation costs.

He told BusinessWest the city is also working to increase home ownership through two incentive programs. The first is the First Time Home Buyers Assistance Program, which helped 22 eligible families last year by giving each up to $5,000 toward the purchase of a new home.

The second initiative is aimed at people willing to purchase three-family homes and live in them, which ensures the likelihood that they will be kept in good condition. New homeowners in the program are given $1,000 each year for up to 16 years as long as they reside in the properties.

“The majority of these homes are in Chicopee Falls, Chicopee Center, and Willimansett, and the program continues to grow and pay dividends,” the mayor said.

Improvements are also being made to the city’s parks; a $225,000 spray park with other amenities was completed at Wisniowski Memorial Park last year, and $225,000 will be invested to make enhancements to Sarah Jane Park this year.

In addition, legislators are working to grant approval to use the former Chicopee Falls Library building as a home for a third Head Start program.

Work on a new parking lot downtown has also been completed. It features 15 designated public spaces as well as parking for patrons of Munich Haus restaurant. The city has also applied to become designated as a Green Community, which would make it eligible for grants for improvements to city buildings.

Continuing Progress

Last summer, Pilgrim Interiors Inc. expanded, and several weeks ago U.S. Tsubaki Automotive LLC held its formal groundbreaking ceremony for a $11.5 million, 100,000-square-foot expansion.

“It will preserve 348 jobs and result in 35 new ones,” Vedovelli said, adding that the company decided to remain in Chicopee after considering a move to either Tennessee or Mexico.

New businesses continue to be attracted to the city, and last year PV Sullivan Supply Co. Inc. and Holden Humphrey Co. were welcomed.

Growth is expected to continue as seeds that were planted take root, and the outlook for this year is exceptionally bright.

“Chicopee is still the biggest small town in Massachusetts,” said Kos. “We’re like the old Cheers bar where everyone knows your name, and are making great progress because we work together in a way that benefits our community as well as its residents.”

 

Chicopee at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1848
Population: 55,603
Area: 23.9 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $17.31
Commercial Tax Rate: $32.49
Median Household Income: $47,276
median family Income: $65,443
Type of government: Mayor; City Council
Largest Employers: Westover Air Reserve Base; City of Chicopee; J. Polep Distribution Services; Turbo Care Inc.
* Latest information available

Dennis Duquette Rejoins MassMutual in Corporate Responsibility Role

By
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Features

Making a Solid Return

 

massmutualduqettefacessigncroppedDennis Duquette left MassMutual nearly 30 years ago for what would become a variety of roles at Fidelity Investments in Boston, most all of them in the realms of community relations and corporate responsibility. He says he’s passionate about such work — passionate enough to quickly put aside any thought of retirement last year and agree to lead the team handling those assignments at MassMutual.

When Dennis Duquette returned to his hometown of Springfield last May after a nearly 30-year stint with Fidelity Investments in Boston, he was, at age 57, retired. Sort of.

He was retired from Fidelity, at least, and determined to “recharge a bit,” as he put it. The plan was to take the summer off, rest, travel around the region, and reconnect with some people here, and he did all of the above, while also trying to determine just how well retirement was sitting with him.

As it turned out, it wasn’t sitting well at all.

“Toward the end of the summer, I started thinking, ‘I have to start doing something; I have to start thinking about going back to work,” he told BusinessWest. “I figured out that I was too young to retire … I wasn’t there yet.”

With that question answered, there was now another one facing him. It didn’t concern where he would return to the world of work (he was back in Springfield, and he was going to stay here), but in what capacity; his first thoughts tended toward project work and consulting.

Instead, something much different came into his field of vision.

To make a fairly long story short, there were a few conversations with some colleagues in the financial-services industry that eventually led Duquette to interview for and then accept the position of director of Corporate Responsibility at MassMutual and president of the recently established MassMutual Foundation, succeeding Nick Fyntrilakis, who held that post for several years.

And in every respect, this was a logical move and proverbial perfect match — for both Duquette and the company. That’s because he’s certainly not a stranger to Springfield, the company, or the many duties involved with corporate responsibility.

Indeed, he started his career in financial services at MassMutual’s State Street headquarters in 1981 as a compensation analyst, eventually moving on to community relations specialist and associate director of Group L&H (life and health) Marketing during a stay that lasted more than eight years. And at Fidelity, he would hold a number of titles related to marketing, community relations, and related work, including his last one, vice president of Corporate Sponsorships, a role we’ll hear more about later.

In an interview soon after arriving back on State Street just before Christmas — his order of business cards had been placed, but they had yet to arrive — Duquette told BusinessWest that the phrase (and title) ‘corporate responsibility’ is somewhat new, but the concept certainly isn’t.

MassMutual

Dennis Duquette says the paradigm regarding corporate social responsibility has changed, and MassMutual is on the cutting edge of current trends.

He said major corporations like MassMutual, which employs roughly 7,000 people in Springfield — and even much smaller companies, for that matter — have always had a responsibility to serve the ‘community’ they call home, however that term is defined. In MassMutual’s case, such work within the community dates back to its earliest years in the 1850s.

However, he went on, what has changed, in some respects, is the manner in which these responsibilities are met.

“The model 30 or 40 years ago was … you write a check, and you get your name in support of something; that paradigm has changed, and I think for the better,” he explained, adding quickly that MassMutual does still write some checks. But in most all cases, money is accompanied by programming and direct involvement with the cause or program in question, usually in collaboration with other groups and agencies.

And the initiatives undertaken are part of a broad strategy to improve quality of life within the community, build financial security for families, and create opportunities for people of all ages, but especially young people, he said.

There are myriad examples of this, he said, before citing a few to get his points across, including MassMutual’s involvement with Valley Venture Mentors and the project to create an innovation center in downtown Springfield; the MassMutual Foundation’s awarding of $15 million to UMass Amherst over 10 years to further strengthen its world-class data-science and cybersecurity research and education programs; and the foundation’s launch just last October of free digital financial-education curriculum — part of its FutureSmart program — for middle-school students nationwide.

There are many other examples, he went on, all of which reflect a broad strategy with stated goals and clear objectives for meeting them.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Duquette about his decision to unretire, but especially about his new role — in which he serves as the unofficial face of MassMutual within the community — and the many ways MassMutual’s corporate responsibility is manifesting itself, in Western Mass. and beyond.

At Home with the Idea

While Duquette left Springfield and MassMutual in 1989 for Fidelity and the Boston area, he didn’t exactly leave his hometown completely behind him.

He still had family and friends in this area, and stayed in touch as best he could. “I read MassLive a lot,” he said with a laugh, adding that various media outlets (including BusinessWest) and contact with acquaintances kept him abreast of everything from the 2011 tornado and its aftermath — he’s a Cathedral graduate and donated money to the rebuilding of that school, which was destroyed by the twister — to the difficult financial times that visited the city over the past few decades, to some of the many recent forms of progress, including the arrival of MGM.

Taking stock of the city and what’s happening within it — something he’s been doing all along, but especially since returning home eight months ago — he said there are many signs that the city is truly on the right track.

“I drive around Springfield, and I walk around Springfield, and I see potential,” he explained. “I know the city has fallen on tough times in the past and has worked to dig itself out. There was a natural disaster that blew through the town, literally, but I think the mayor has done an outstanding job of leading the city back, obviously with the help of a lot of people.

“When you consider this city’s history, its location, the resources that it has — material and intellectual — there is a lot of potential here,” he went on. “It’s really just a matter of having the right leadership and vision, and I believe the mayor, the City Council, and city officials are super diligent about that. And I think we have a governor and lieutenant governor now who are very focused on helping the gateway cities, and Springfield is one of them. Overall, I’m very hopeful.”

Dennis Duquette says involvement in entrepreneurship initiatives, such as the innovation center on Bridge Street now under construction, fit into MassMutual’s broad CSR strategy.

Dennis Duquette says involvement in entrepreneurship initiatives, such as the innovation center on Bridge Street now under construction, fit into MassMutual’s broad CSR strategy.

He acknowledged that Springfield, and Western Mass. as a whole, haven’t seen anything approaching the explosive growth that Boston and the areas surrounding it did over the past few decades, but told BusinessWest that efforts to compare and contrast the two regions are neither warranted nor particularly fruitful.

“I don’t think Springfield has to be like Boston to be a successful city,” he explained. “There are some great things that Springfield can do that are unique to Springfield that don’t necessarily have to replicate Boston.”

With that, he acknowledged that he will now have a much better view of what’s happening across Greater Springfield and, through the many aspects of his new role, will be taking a direct role in helping to see that the region’s potential is realized.

And, as noted, he brings a good deal of experience to that role.

Indeed, at Fidelity he led a number of initiatives involving corporate sponsorships, education, employee volunteerism, and employee giving.

As one example, he cited development of a digital financial-literacy game in cooperation with New York-based Dopamine Inc. for middle- and high-school students, an initiative launched in support of Fidelity’s broader financial-literacy programs, in partnership with FidelityCares, the firm’s community-relations apparatus.

Another example is The Alzheimer’s Project. That was the name attached to a HBO series on the crippling disease, for which Fidelity Investments took a key sponsorship role.

In many respects, Duquette explained, Fidelity’s broad corporate-responsibility strategy, if you will, mirrors MassMutual’s in that many initiatives focus on young people, education, financial literacy, and overall quality of life.

And these initiatives involve partnerships, not simply check writing, he went on, adding that this same philosophy reigns at MassMutual, which has a 165-year history of giving back to the community and status as Springfield’s largest corporate citizen.

“MassMutual is an important community partner in Greater Springfield, not only by virtue of its size, but also by virtue of its legacy,” he explained. “I don’t see that changing, but what will change, potentially, is the way we do our partnerships; we have a great opportunity to continue our partnerships and build new ones, and I’m very excited about that.”

Paying Dividends

As he noted earlier, Duquette, upon deciding to ‘unretire,’ approached a number of people to solicit possible leads on landing spots, again, with the thought that consulting or project work were the most likely contenders for what would come next.

One of those people was Jennifer Halloran, MassMutual’s head of Brand and Advertising — only Duquette needed to be told this was what it said on her business card. He had worked with her at Fidelity for years, but was unaware that she had come to MassMutual. It was Halloran who alerted him to an opening at the company at the top of its Corporate Responsibility team.

Duquette was somewhat surprised by this news — he had recently been a spectator for the groundbreaking, or “wall-smashing,” as he called it, for the innovation center on Bridge Street and heard Fyntrilakis speak on behalf of MassMutual, a partner in the project. But he was also quite intrigued, because such work had come to define his career in recent years.

“I got really excited about this role,” he explained. “And I got excited for a few reasons. For starters, this is something I’m passionate about. I think the role of corporations in this country and around the world is changing — the impact corporations can have on the communities in which they’re based, and society in general, is immense.

“Secondly, and I think more importantly, my view had always been that MassMutual was really exemplary in this space,” he went on. “I say that as someone who left MassMutual in 1989, never thinking or intending that I would be back here, but over the years, I was taking note of things that MassMutual was doing when it came to corporate responsibility.”

Elaborating, he would summon the words ‘bold’ and ‘innovative’ to describe some of those initiatives, adding that, as he watched them unfold while working for a competitor, he would nod his head in approval.

“For me, as someone who cares about this work, to come into an environment that really supports it and champions it — and that goes right to the top of the house — this was a no-brainer for me to pursue this opportunity,” he said, adding that, just a few weeks in, he’s “pumped.”

He’s spent those few weeks doing more of that connecting he described earlier — he’s met with the leadership team at the Community Foundation of Western Mass., for example — but also on the road. Indeed, he spent his second week on the job in Phoenix, where the corporation also has a huge presence, becoming acquainted with various initiatives taking place there and on a national level.

There will be much more of all that in the months and years to come, he said, adding that creation of the MassMutual Foundation in 2015 is an important development when it comes to the shape and scope of corporate-responsibility initiatives at the company.

“It gives us guardrails and parameters through which we can do our corporate giving,” he said of the foundation, “and it also gives us a platform from which we can launch ideas and partnerships — that I think are deeper and smarter — with some of our critical nonprofit partners.”

Elaborating, he said the foundation provides a vehicle with which the corporation can work with a host of partners — locally, in other communities where it has a presence, and in markets important to the business — to “amplify the things we care about.”

With that, he returned to the FutureSmart program as one solid example. To make it happen, MassMutual partners with education-technology leader EverFi, which is building a network of relationships with school districts around the country to introduce financial-literacy curriculum.

“We work with them as a partner to get us into some of the markets we’re interested in, and build those local programs,” he said, adding that the broad goal is to reach 2 million students by 2020.

There are many other examples, he went on, adding that, to slice through his multi-faceted job description, the primary goal is to create more of these partnerships and continue to develop new and fruitful ways to invest in the community — literally and figuratively.

The work with VVM and other economic-development-related groups to encourage entrepreneurship and fund startup companies certainly falls into that category, he said. The various initiatives are in some ways unique for a financial-services company, he noted, but overall, such efforts dovetail with the major goals of the company’s broad corporate-responsibility strategy.

“If you look at that strategy, it’s all about securing and enabling economic security for families,” he explained. “We help people secure their futures through financial means, so as a community partner, we’re about getting in and supporting initiatives, ideas, and programs that will help build and sustain economic viability for communities that we care about.”

Elaborating, he said that, by providing various types of support to startups and the groups that mentor them — everything from capital for startups to technical support in an investment that totals $5 million — MassMutual is investing not only in those ventures, but in Greater Springfield itself.

“I’ve had prior experience with an incubator in Boston with MassChallenge,” he said, referring to the entity that describes itself as ‘the most startup-friendly incubator on the planet.’ “And I was excited to see that there was a vibrant incubator/entrepreneur community that was bubbling up here in Springfield.

“When you think of this particular region, where we’re located, the access to higher education in the Pioneer Valley and the surrounding areas, it’s a logical place,” he went on. “And it’s also a great place for people to come, young people in particular, and kick the tires on some new ideas and try their wares.”

Investments in the Community

Talk of the partnership with VVM brings Duquette back to his comments about how corporate social responsibility, or CSR, as it’s called, now goes well beyond simply writing checks.

“My approach to CSR is this — if we’re going to be working together and providing financial support to a nonprofit, that’s great, but I also want to understand what that group’s objectives are as a nonprofit,” he explained. “And then say, ‘here are my objectives as a representative of MassMutual. Let’s talk about how we can work together to build something that goes beyond the money. Let’s build something that’s really meaningful.’”

Working toward such ends is something Duquette is passionate about, and something that certainly propelled him out of retirement.

You might say he’s at home with his latest, and perhaps last, career stop — in every sense of that phrase.

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

Amherst Charts Growth, Retains Small-town Feel

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Sarah LaCour

Sarah LaCour says the Business Improvement District and Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce have moved into a storefront to form the Amherst Visitor Information Center downtown.

When Jerry Guidera decided to join Barry Roberts, Dave Williams, and Kyle Wilson to create a new co-working space in Amherst, their objective was clear.

“We wanted to entice young entrepreneurs to stay in Amherst,” he said.

Roberts owned the historic First National Bank building in the heart of downtown on 11 Amity St. which the trio identified as an ideal spot, and after an extensive, four-month, $500,000 renovation that resulted in a state-of-the-art workspace with a kitchen, the doors opened late last fall.

It addition to areas with shared desks and tables, there are 10 individual offices, and seven were rented long before work on the structure was finished.

“What makes this unique is that it is a 1928 building with a gigabyte of wi-fi, which is 100 times faster than standard wi-fi service,” Guidera said.

People who want to use the co-working space become members on a month-to-month basis. They can opt for a flex space for $225 a month that allows them to sit anywhere, a dedicated desk for $425 a month, or an office space that starts at $600.

The trio of investors made it a point to involve local businesses in their venture: coffee from Amherst Coffee is brought to the site daily in large containers, the artwork on the walls comes from local artists, and the copy machines are leased from Amherst Copy. They also partnered with WorkBar, a co-working space in Boston with 15 locations, that members have access to when they are in different parts of the state.

The second-floor mezzanine area will also house a new venture when the Kayon Accelerator at AmherstWorks opens later this month.

It is run by Kayon Partners, a Boston- and New York City-based group that invests in seed- and early-growth-stage companies and provides them with services designed to help them progress rapidly into viable, venture-based businesses.

Benefits include accounting and corporate services, pitch practice, capital introductions, mentors who range from technologists to product specialists, sales executives, expert investors, customer-acquisition specialists, and more.

The accelerator will run two programs each year with entrepreneurs from UMass Amherst. Members of Kayon Partners include Steve Garrow, David Vogel, and Tim Mitrovich; Garrow is an Amherst College graduate who was a former entrepreneur in residence at the university.

“UMass has grown into an advanced graduate institution, and we hope the Kayon Accelerator will provide a landing spot for local entrepreneurs’ energy and enthusiasm,” Guidera said, noting that the next step will be to keep them in town when they finish the program.

Town Manager Paul Bockelman added that Amherst has become especially popular for tech companies because UMass generates many ideas that could be incubated.

“We are a magnet for the development of new businesses,” he said, adding that MassMutual opened a data lab in the fall of 2015 to attract the talent that is concentrated there.

For this first installment in the 2017 Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest looks at other new projects as well as measures Amherst is taking to fulfill the need for economic development while retaining the historical characteristics of the town that is home to more than 33,000 students when Hampshire College, UMass Amherst, and Amherst College are in session.

Growing Attractions

Last month, the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce and Amherst Business Improvement District (BID) moved into a shared space on 35 South Pleasant St. that they turned into a Visitor Information Center.

“It’s really exciting, and our goals include welcoming parents of college students; we reach out to them through UMass, but they often stay on Route 9 or come through Belchertown, and although they are within a quarter-mile of downtown, they don’t know we are here or what we have to offer,” said Sarah LaCour, executive director of the BID. “The new information center gives us a face on the street, and we hope to have it open evenings and weekends.”

Bockelman is equally enthusiastic about the new center. “We haven’t had a central location for visitors to learn about our cultural attractions and restaurants for more than a decade,” said the Hampshire College graduate, adding that, last year, Amherst was designated a cultural district by the state due to attractions that include the Emily Dickinson Museum, Jones Library, the Town Common, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, and the Yiddish Book Museum at Hampshire College. Other attractions include the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, galleries at UMass, and the Amherst Cinema Arts Center, which is one of the few theaters in the region to offer first-run independent films.

“Over the past few years, our downtown has changed from being a retail area for college students into a place focused on culture and restaurants,” noted Economic Development Director Geoff Kravitz, who grew up in Amherst, explaining that Amazon has a new center on the UMass campus and most students shop online.

Geoff Kravitz and Paul Bockelman

Geoff Kravitz and Paul Bockelman say the new AmherstWorks co-working space, which will also house Kayon Accelerator, will help attract and retain young professionals and entrepreneurs.

The town is also home to two buildings that have met the standards of the Living Building Challenge: the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, which offers a variety of programs and professional-development opportunities, and the R. W. Kern Center at Hampshire College, which serves as a living laboratory where students and the public study its systems and performance that are tied to measures for sustainability.

In addition, the town offers recreation in the form of 80 miles of hiking trails that include the K.C. Trail, the Robert Frost Trail, and the Norwottuck Rail Trail. Before he was named town manager last August, Bockelman said, he and his wife came to Amherst for a wedding, and arrived early with other guests to take advantage of the hiking.

“I can walk out my back door and get on a trail that goes throughout Western Mass. or walk 20 minutes and be at the cinema or dine at our many restaurants,” he told BusinessWest. “There aren’t many places in the world that have both types of offerings literally at your door.”

Kravitz noted that he has seen an increase in people who telecommute who have moved to the town due to these recreational and cultural offerings.

“Amherst has put a lot of effort into maintaining its hiking trails, and the number of people who live here or come just to use them is significant,” he said. “We still have the feel of a rural community due to the farmland and amount of open space that has been preserved, which many communities have lost to housing developments. But our town officials are very purposeful: they want to develop certain areas but create a balance and preserve the small-town feeling that exists here.”

Balanced Growth

Several new development projects throughout the town have been proposed or are underway.

Archipelago Investments LLC of Amherst is building a new, five-story structure at One East Pleasant St. that will have 7,500 square feet of commercial space on the first floor, and 135 apartments on the upper levels that will range from studios to one- and two-bedroom units.

The building that stood on the site and housed the former Amherst Carriage Shops has been demolished to make way for the new structure. But the mural that detailed the town’s history on the back of the Carriage Shops will be recreated, and Archipelago has contracted with artist David Fichter, who painted the original mural, to document and replicate it on the new structure.

“The new building is in our downtown and will allow for a lot more density,” Kravitz said, explaining that the project is in line with the town’s 2010 master plan that showed a need for additional housing and commercial space in the business district.

“We want new development to occur downtown, in the North Amherst Village Center, in South Amherst, and East Amherst so we can preserve our existing neighborhoods and open space,” he continued.

In addition to One East Pleasant St., the first office building to be permitted in 30 years will be built across the street at 236 Pleasant St.

“It will create 20,000 additional square feet of commercial space,” Kravitz said, explaining that two buildings were demolished and the land they were on was combined to make room for the project, which was delayed until recently as the Historical Commission had put it on hold for a year.

The new structure was designed by Kuhn Riddle Architects and is being built by developers Barry Roberts and J. Curtis Shumway on land where North Pleasant, East Pleasant, and Hallock streets merge, across from the southern tip of Kendrick Park.

A second mixed-use development called North Square in the Mill District has been proposed for the Mill District of North Amherst by W.D. Cowls Inc. and the Boston-based company Beacon Communities.

It will contain 22,000 square feet of commercial space that will be built to surround what will seem like a typical New England square and have 130 residential units on its upper floors, with 30 affordable units for people at 50% or below the median income in the area.

“Our housing studies have shown that there is a lack of affordable housing here, so it would certainly make a difference,” Kravitz said, adding that the plan is to build on a site that housed a former sawmill but hasn’t been used for a decade, and that structure will be demolished to make way for the new development.

He told BusinessWest that the town purposefully located all of its permitting boards on the second floor of Town Hall to make it easier for developers. He also explained that his position is fairly new; he was hired about a year ago as a full-time employee.

Amherst’s restaurant culture is also growing, and at least seven new eateries have opened over the past year, offering a wide variety of cuisine. They include Fratelli’s Restaurant, which opened last month; Balance Amherst, which offers food that can be consumed on site as well as delivery of up to a week’s worth of meals; Himalaya Friends Corner, which serves cuisine from Nepal, India, and Bhutan; Taste of Persia; Malek Shawarma Mediterranean Café; along with two new restaurants, Lili’s and Ichiban, that recently signed leases but hadn’t opened when BusinessWest went to press.

Bockelman said there are numerous other well-known places to eat and drink, such as Cushman’s Market in North Amherst, which is tucked alongside railroad tracks; the Moan and Dove in South Amherst, an iconic bar that was voted one of the best beer bars in the country; Mission Cantina, also in South Amherst. which serves Mexican food; and the Hangar Pub & Grill on University Drive, which was named one of the Best College Bars by BuzzFeed last October.

This summer, six new bike-share stations will be built and paid for by a federal grant from the Department of Transportation that was given to Amherst, Northampton, Springfield, Holyoke, and South Hadley. The stations will be located beside bus stops, and the first hour of use will be free.

Measured Progress

Officials are happy with the progress that is taking place. “Demand for development can create tension within a community when people want to preserve its historic nature, so we’ll be doing a balancing act as we move into the future. It’s a tension point to figure out where the line is, but the town works really hard to do that; our volunteer boards grapple with many difficult decisions,” Bockelman said.

So far, they have met with success: Amherst has continued to grow in a way that attracts developers and new businesses while maintaining its identity as a college town with a plethora of recreational and cultural opportunities.

 

Amherst at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1759
Population: 39,482 (2015)
Area: 27.8 square miles
County: Hampshire
Residential Tax Rate: $21.22
Commercial Tax Rate: $21.22
Median Household Income: $48,059
Median Family Income: $96,005
Type of Government: Select Board, Town Meeting
Largest Employers: UMass Amherst; Amherst College; Delivery Express; Hampshire College
* Latest information available

The Developments That Caught Our Attention in 2016

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yearinreviewfeature-1216b
Cover Story Features

The Year in Review

 

The region’s business community had no shortage of big developments

The region’s business community had no shortage of big developments for BusinessWest to write about throughout 2016.

As 2016 comes to a close, BusinessWest looks back at what has been a year of significant progress on major regional projects, of a growing economy that nonetheless posed challenges for employers and business owners, and of company mergers, leadership transitions at large employers, and even some untimely deaths. Here are some of the stories that had the Western Mass. business community talking.

January

At the start of the new year, the Employers Assoc. of the NorthEast (EANE) unveiled the regional findings from the 2016 National Business Trends Survey conducted by the Employer Associations of America. Results indicated that the majority of executives surveyed were optimistic for 2016, were confident about raising pay, emphasizing recruiting, increasing training budgets. However, regulatory compliance was a bigger concern in the Northeast than in other regions: 42% of the Northeast respondents saw regulatory compliance as a serious long-term challenge, whereas nationally, the average checks in at 34%. With state and national changes looming in the realms of sick leave, pay equality, overtime pay, and others, those results weren’t surprising.

The past year brought a striking number of notable deaths on the national stage, but locally, few matched the impact of Mike Balise and Paul Doherty. Balise, who actually passed away just before the calendar turned to 2016, was more than the co-owner of Balise Motor Sales; he was a dedicated philanthropist who showed the world how to squeeze every moment out of a life he knew would be cut short by stomach cancer. His fierce battle, and his life’s work, inspired his selection as one of BusinessWest’s Difference Makers for 2016. Meanwhile, Doherty, who grew his law firm, Doherty Wallace Pillsbury & Murphy, into one of the largest in the region and cultivated a culture of philanthropy there, was known not only as the man who rarely turned down an opportunity to contribute time and energy to a good cause, but who inspired others around him to do the same. In one month, the region lost two lights who both understood how to live well by doing good.

February

After many months of planning and communicating with Springfield residents and business people, the joint venture of White-Schiavone began demolishing the I-91 viaduct’s reinforced concrete bridge deck, marking the start of a $148 million deck-replacement project that will continue throughout 2017. The lane closures slowed traffic through the artery to a crawl, while a temporary exit helped southbound commuters navigate their way downtown.

Across the state, gambling revenue at Plainridge Park Casino increased by $1.3 million in January, snapping five straight months of revenue declines after a strong start in the spring of 2015. That began a streak of several months of increases at Plainridge. That was good news for casino watchers in Western Mass., who wondered if Plainridge’s first-year performance, which fell well short of projections, would be repeated at MGM Springfield when it opens in the fall of 2018.

The $950 million MGM Springfield project

The $950 million MGM Springfield project took a dramatic step forward in 2016, dramatically altering the South End skyline.

Meanwhile, the MGM Springfield plan was dealing with growing pains of its own. In February, the Springfield City Council approved a revised site plan that includes the elimination of a 25-story hotel tower, replacing it with a six-story, 250-room hotel on Main Street. In another change, MGM’s host-community agreement with Springfield allows MGM to move about 54 proposed market-rate apartments from the casino grounds to a location near the casino.

March

Taking the fight against the state’s opioid-abuse crisis to the next level, Gov. Charlie Baker signed landmark legislation into law to address the epidemic. “An Act Relative to Substance Use, Treatment, Education, and Prevention,” passed with unanimous votes in both legislative chambers, calls for prevention education for students and doctors and a seven-day limit on first-time opioid prescriptions, among other provisions. The state’s estimated rate of 17.4 opioid-overdose deaths per 100,000 residents in 2014 is the highest ever for unintentional opioid overdoses and represents a 228% increase from the rate of 5.3 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2000.

Real gross domestic product in Massachusetts grew at an annual rate of 2.3% in the first quarter of 2016, according to MassBenchmarks, the journal of the Massachusetts economy published by the UMass Donahue Institute in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In contrast, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, national real gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 0.5% during the same period. The pace of economic growth in Massachusetts picked up in the first three months of 2016 after slowing in the second half of 2015.

Also in March, BusinessWest honored its Difference Makers Class of 2016. In addition to Balise, the magazine honored Bay Path University President Carol Leary; Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe; Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties; and John Robison.

April

One of the region’s signature banks is no more, at least not in name, as Chicopee Savings Bank was acquired by Westfield Bank in a deal announced in April and made official later in the year. The merger creates the largest locally managed bank in Hampden County and the second-largest bank in terms of deposit market share in the county. The combined company will have total assets of $2.1 billion and 21 branch locations serving customers throughout Western Mass. and Northern Conn. In other merger news, Key Bank acquired First Niagara Bank in a deal that became official this fall.

Massachusetts marked the 10-year anniversary of universal access to healthcare, an achievement that predated the federal Accountable Care Act by several years. “Ten years ago, Massachusetts led the country by creating a landmark healthcare coverage law, and today we are pleased that 96.4% of the state’s population is insured,” Gov. Baker said. “Through our state-based marketplace, individuals and families have the ability to choose their best coverage options, and while there is still more work to be done to increase accessibility and transparency for consumers, we have taken many steps in the right direction.”

John Cook, vice president of Academic Affairs at Manchester Community College in New Hampshire, was selected by the Springfield Technical Community College board of trustees to succeed the retiring Ira Rubenzahl as STCC president.

May

Twelve area startups won a total of $252,000 at the annual Valley Venture Mentors (VVM) Accelerator Awards, led by Celia Grace, whose founder, Marcelia Muehlke, calls her company a fair-trade, ethical wedding-dress seller that gives back and empowers women around the world. Muehlke won $50,000 at the ceremony at the MassMutual Center. The other two top winners were  Homebody Holistics ($45,000), a maker of all-natural, hand-crafted, herbal cleaning solutions using no harsh chemicals or additives; and Scout Curated Wears ($32,000), a designer, curator, and producer of thoughtful women’s accessories.

Robinson Donovan, P.C. marked a year-long celebration of 150 years in business with a series of donations to local nonprofits, from Providence Ministries Service Network and Friends of the Homeless Inc. to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and Bay Path University, just to name a few. The firm’s founder, George Robinson, was a true public servant, said attorney Carla Newton. “That is why we are choosing to celebrate our 150th anniversary, and honor our founder, by supporting local nonprofits. Nonprofits are vital to the fabric of our communities, and we hope to raise awareness for their causes and support important initiatives that benefit us all, which continues the legacy of our founder and our firm.”

June

The University of Massachusetts announced that the system was responsible for $6.2 billion in economic activity in Massachusetts last year — a record high — and helped to support more than 43,000 jobs statewide. “UMass educates more students than any college or university in the Commonwealth and is one of the state’s three largest research universities, but it also has a profound impact on the Massachusetts economy based on the scope and reach of its operations,” President Marty Meehan said. “UMass is a vital economic engine for the Commonwealth, and its impact is felt in every community and by virtually every family across Massachusetts.”

72,000-square-foot addition to the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst

A $62 million, 72,000-square-foot addition to the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst was one of several major undertakings at area colleges and universities launched in 2016.

 

When the Springfield Falcons took flight to Arizona following the 2015-16 season, the city didn’t have to wait long for a new bird to swoop down and replace the Falcons on the ice at the MassMutual Center. The Springfield Thunderbirds, owned by a large group of area business leaders, were unveiled as the new AHL franchise taking the ice for the 2016-17 season.

After more than two years of strategic planning, in a deal valued at approximately $1.6 million, Paragus IT announced in June that its employee stock-ownership plan (ESOP), which distributes ownership of 40% of the company to its 40-plus employees, is officially a go. ESOPs are traditionally formed after the company has fully matured and when a major shareholder is looking to exit. For Paragus, however, it’s about fueling future growth by giving everyone a direct stake and a personal investment in the future of the company, said President and CEO Delcie Bean. “It made sense to give everybody some skin in the game. Now they aren’t just growing a company, they’re growing their company. Which means Paragus is here to stay, and we’re only getting bigger.”

BusinessWest also honored its 40 Under Forty Class of 2016 at a sold-out Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House, marking 10 years of shining a light on rising young stars in the region.

July

In a move that echoed similar laws around the U.S., Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law an anti-discrimination bill, passed by the state House and Senate, that gives transgender people the right to use public restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identities, regardless of their sex at birth. “No one should be discriminated against in Massachusetts because of their gender identity,” Baker said. “This compromise legislation extends additional protections to the Commonwealth’s transgender community, and includes language to address the public-safety concerns expressed by some by requiring the attorney general to issue regulations to protect against people abusing the law.”

In local news, Nancy Creed, vice president of Marketing and Communications for the Springfield Regional Chamber, was tapped to succeed Jeffrey Ciuffreda as president of that institution, becoming the first woman chief executive in the chamber’s more than 125-year history. She had played an integral role in the recent chamber restructuring and was responsible for its rebranding effort.

The Thunderbirds weren’t the only new sports team making news in Springfield this year, as the city welcomed the Sting, the first American Basketball Assoc. (ABA) team to call Springfield, the birthplace of basketball, its home when it commenced play in November. The Sting joined the ABA’s Northeast Division for the 2016-17 season, alongside teams in Boston, Providence, New York, Long Island, and New Jersey.

August

August brought more employment news when Gov. Baker signed a bipartisan pay-equity bill aimed at ensuring equal pay for comparable work for all Massachusetts workers and equal opportunities to earn competitive salaries in the workplace. The law, which will go into effect on July 1, 2018, will prevent pay discrimination for comparable work based on gender. The bill allows employees to freely discuss their salaries with co-workers and prohibits employers from requiring applicants to provide their salary history before receiving a formal job offer. “Pay equity is not only a women’s issue, it’s a family issue, and with this new law on the books, we are closer to closing the pay gap in our state,” Attorney General Maura Healey said.

The Valley Blue Sox scored a playoff berth in 2016, and fans responded to the team’s success, with attendance at McKenzie Stadium in Holyoke averaging 2,121 fans per game, enough to rank them 11th nationally out of 169 summer collegiate teams. This placed them second in New England overall to only the Worcester Bravehearts of the Futures League and first overall in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Furthermore, the Blue Sox ranked 154th overall on Ballpark Digest’s ‘mega list’ of minor-league teams and summer collegiate teams, with the team beating out 20 A-ball teams and three AA teams. The total attendance per game jumped almost 600 fans from 2015.

Not all the news was good in August. Baystate Health announced the elimination of 300 positions from among the system’s 12,500 employees, citing a budget gap of $75 million for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2016. “Many factors are causing this projected shortfall, most significantly the continuing shortfalls in the reimbursements we receive for providing Medicaid services,” said President and CEO Dr. Mark Keroack.

September

In September, BusinessWest detailed Springfield Technical Community College’s $50 million effort to convert its historic Building 19 into a campus center. The 700-foot Armory warehouse, which predates the Civil War, will become home to a wide array of offices and facilities now scattered across the campud, including the library, admissions, registration, financial aid, the bookstore, the welcome center, student government, the parking office, health services, student activities, a café, the IT help desk, meeting and convention space, and more.

building-19

$50 million initiative at STCC

Another landscape-altering project launched in 2016 was a $50 million initiative at STCC to convert Building 19 (seen above in the 1930s) into a new campus center.

 

Meanwhile, state and UMass Amherst officials broke ground on the $62 million Business Innovation Hub at the Isenberg School of Management. The ambitious project will add 70,000 square feet of classrooms, labs, and student spaces, including an expanded career center, advising spaces, and learning commons, as well as faculty offices to the school’s existing facilities. The project is scheduled for completion in September 2018, with occupancy in January 2019.

Speaking of the state’s university system, UMass continued a decade-long surge in enrollment, surpassing 74,000 students for the first time, with 74,678 students enrolled across the five campuses. Over the past decade, student enrollment at UMass has risen almost 27%, from 58,939 in the fall of 2006 to the current 74,678, making UMass one of the fastest-growing universities, public or private, in the nation. In the recently released U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges” rankings, the four UMass undergraduate campuses for the first time are all represented in the magazine’s top category.

October

The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) Business Confidence Index rose 0.3 points to 56.2 in October, 0.6 points higher than in October 2015. The increase was driven by a 2.6-point jump in the manufacturing index. In fact, the AIM Index, based on a survey of Massachusetts employers, has been rising consistently throughout 2016. AIM President and CEO Richard Lord noted that the economic recovery appears to be benefiting the entire Commonwealth, not just the metropolitan Boston area. “It’s great to see unemployment falling in areas outside the Boston-Cambridge technology belt, which has been enjoying explosive economic growth since the onset of the recovery,” he said. “One of the key tenets of AIM’s Blueprint for the Next Century economic plan for Massachusetts is that lawmakers must make public policy that allows economic opportunity to flourish in all areas of the Commonwealth, from Boston to the Berkshires.”

The $88.5 million rehabilitation of Union Station in Springfield into an intermodal transit hub continued to chug toward its expected completion in January 2017. The project has included the complete renovation of the terminal building and its central concourse, the renovation and reactivation of the Amtrak passenger tunnel linking the terminal building to train platforms and the adjacent downtown area, demolition of the former baggage-handling building and construction of a regional and intercity bus terminal and parking garage, and opening up of 64,000 square feet of leasable commercial space on the upper floors of the terminal building.

November

BusinessWest kicked off November with the sixth annual Western Mass. Business Expo at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield. Now a fall tradition for the region’s business community, the show featured more than 100 exhibitors, more than 2,000 attendees, dozens of educational seminars, special presentations, breakfast and lunch programs, and much more, including demonstrations of virtual-reality technology that proved to be extremely popular. “There are a great many challenges to doing business today, from harnessing the latest technology to recruiting, developing, and retaining young talent, to creating an environment where several generations can work, and thrive, together,” said BusinessWest Associate Publisher Kate Campiti. Once again, she added, the Expo helped businesses identify and cope with these challenges.

Meanwhile, the state’s total unemployment rate dropped to 2.9% in November, marking the fifth consecutive month the rate went down, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development reported. The last time the state’s unemployment rate was that low was January 2001. “We are very pleased to see the unemployment rate consistently go down month after month,” said Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Ronald Walker II. “Not only is the unemployment rate declining, but we have continued job growth in key sectors that drive the Massachusetts economy.”

December

Christina Royal, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs at Inver Hills Community College in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., was approved as the next president of Holyoke Community College (HCC), succeeding William Messner, who retired in August after serving for 12 years. Meanwhile, HCC announced the details of an upcoming two-year, $43.5 million renovation project that will transform the look, feel, and organization of the campus. The HCC Campus Center is scheduled to close Feb. 3, 2017, and construction will begin soon after. The key features of the project include squaring off the building’s sloping façade and giving the entire building a new exterior shell that will make it both weathertight and energy-efficient. About 9,000 square feet of space will be added to the current 58,727.

The MBTA announced it will place a second order for new Red Line cars with CRRC, the company already contracted to build new train cars at a facility it is building in Springfield. MBTA officials say it’s cheaper to pay $300,000 for each new car than to rehab aging trains. CRRC, the Chinese-owned world leader in rail-car manufacturing, won a contract in 2014 to build 152 Orange Line cars and 132 Red Line cars to replace aging trains. Under the new proposal, CRRC will start building an additional 120 Red Line cars in 2022 after completing the initial order of Red Line and Orange Line cars. The proposal includes an option to purchase 14 more cars after that.

Stockbridge Evolves While Retaining Its Character

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Chris Marsden and Stephen Shatz

Chris Marsden and Stephen Shatz say the new solar farm on the town’s capped landfill will generate revenue as well as green energy.

 

The idea of change in Stockbridge might seem antithetical to its nature, because the town’s economy is centered on tourism driven by its quintessential New England charm.

Indeed, thousands of people flock to Stockbridge each year to frequent its quaint downtown shops or visit iconic attractions that include Tanglewood, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.

But change has taken place in the town in recent years. Some of it has been unplanned, while other measures have been carefully crafted to retain its ambience, while keeping up with the times.

“Between 1996 and 2010, our population decreased by almost 25%, and the median age went from 39 to 55, which we now think is over age 60,” said Select Board member Stephen Shatz. “Unfortunately, it’s a fact of life in Berkshire County, and even though we don’t have all of the tools we need to respond, we are trying.”

To that end, the town has taken a proactive stance to find ways to keep pace with technology and continue to provide police, ambulance, and fire services to its 1,800 year-round residents as well as its second homeowners and the 7,000 visitors who add to the population every week during the summer.

The cost for those services is high, but Stockbridge has taken a piece of seemingly useless property — its capped landfill — and put it to use in ways that will generate new income as well as green energy.

The first project is a cell-phone tower that Verizon is erecting on the southern end of the landfill. It should be completed next spring and will make a significant difference because 50% of the town has no cell service and downtown tourists are often surprised when told they have to walk uphill to use their phones.

Shatz said some businesses, including the Red Lion Inn, have put in boosters to help with the problem, but the lack of service also presents a public-safety issue as police officers and first responders need to communicate via cell phones when a problem or emergency occurs.

Shatz has been working on the issue for three years, and says town officials were pleased to have Verizon win the bid to build the cell tower.

He added that Verizon spent almost $400,000 to rebuild a 1,500-foot road to provide access to the southern end of the landfill where the new tower is under construction. Underground circuits were also installed; excavation began recently, and plans are in place to complete construction this winter and have the tower operational by April, although inclement winter weather could affect the schedule.

“Verizon has been a wonderful partner in this venture,” Shatz said, adding that Stockbridge will receive $24,000 in rent annually for the next 20 years for the land, plus half of any co-location income received from other cellphone carriers who use the tower.

The access road, which was completed in early October, made a second project possible on the capped landfill, which is also under construction.

Ameresco is building a 900,000-kilowatt solar facility and when it’s complete, the town will receive rent from the company for 20 years as well as net-metering credits.

Shatz noted that crews have been working weekends to ensure the solar facility is mechanically connected to the National Grid’s power grid by Jan. 8, which is the deadline for federal and state tax incentives.

Stockbridge Facilities Manager Chris Marsden has visited the site daily since work began in August and says the project has been complicated by regulations associated with a capped landfill.

“But the Department of Environmental Protection has been very helpful in making the positive reuse of this land possible,” he said. “They have offered us advice and information about how to proceed so we don’t damage the cap and maintain standards that have to be upheld.”

He described the reuse of the landfill as an unusual venture.

“The property couldn’t have been used for recreation or development, and was costing the town money to maintain. But we have turned it into a valuable piece of land that will generate revenue from the leases and net-metering credits, which is icing on the cake,” Marsden told BusinessWest.

Shatz added that every square foot of the landfill has been put to use.

“It’s also important to have Stockbridge become part of the effort to produce renewable energy; we’re a green community and will be the first town in the Berkshires to finish a solar project,” he said, noting that the town’s Green Committee, led by Laura Dubester, received a $140,000 state grant last year to insulate public buildings and continuously work to find funding for green projects.

New Pathways

Stockbridge has six bridges in need of major repairs, and a plan is being formulated to address the problem. Several are on Route 183, a well-traveled corridor that connects Great Barrington and Lenox, continues into Stockbridge, and runs past the main gate to Tanglewood before continuing on toward the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health.

“Mass DOT has downgraded one of the bridges every year for the past five years and has restricted access to heavy vehicles on it,” Shatz said, explaining that the town needs six bridges because the Housatonic River runs through it, as do a number of streams.

“We’ve underfunded infrastructure in the past and are paying the price for not having banked money for it. It’s an important issue because, when a bridge fails here, it’s more than an inconvenience, it’s a loss of revenue for our cultural institutions,” he continued. “They provide employment and the tourist dollars that float the Stockbridge boat. Tanglewood alone has a $50 million economic impact on the region, which is very significant.”

A special town meeting will be held next month to authorize spending $2.6 million to repair the bridges, which would be funded through a bond.

“It will cost $1 million in engineering expenses to reconstruct three of the bridges, but we hope to do that next year,” Shatz said, adding that the town will apply for a state grant to make needed repairs to the largest bridge after the engineering report is complete, and further work will be planned for the future.

Raising revenue and cutting costs are two items that rank high on the town’s priority list, and a joint meeting recently took place with the towns of Lee and Lenox to discuss the viability of sharing a town administrator.

In late July, Jorja Ann Marsden retired from her position of town administrator after 31 years of public service. Her position was filled temporarily several months ago when Danielle Fillio was promoted from administrative assistant to interim town administrator, but the future of that position is a matter of speculation.

“There has been a fair amount of disagreement over the idea of sharing a town manager; it’s a contentious issue because some people fear the loss of Stockbridge’s identity,” Shatz said, explaining that a public meeting will be held Jan. 9 to discuss the issue. Discussion could determine whether it is on the agenda at the annual town meeting in May.

He noted that the combined population of the three towns is 12,000, and sharing a town administrator would allow them to hire a full-time finance director and a planner/grant administrator, which none of the communities can afford on their own.

Several years ago, forward-thinking town officials decided the town needed to come up with a plan for the future. To that end, a Visionary Project Committee was formed and two planning consultants were hired to help develop a set of recommendations that could be implemented over the next 20 years and possibly lead to the creation of a new master plan.

The committee issued a report in May titled “Planning a Way Forward” and presented it to the all-volunteer Planning Board.

“It’s important as Stockbridge’s last master plan was completed in 1996, and the time has come to evaluate changes that have taken place or need to be made,” Shatz said.

The report includes input from several public meetings where a wide variety of topics were discussed. Common themes included the need to improve traffic flow and parking downtown as well as to increase transportation options.

The importance of luring new businesses as well as attracting and retaining young people and families were other key elements mentioned in the report.

Planning Board Secretary Jennifer Carmichael said a public meeting was held after the report was made public. In addition, several business owners and residents scheduled meetings with the board to discuss matters that concern them.

“We’re also still getting input from town officials,” Carmichael said, noting that, when the process is complete, the Planning Board will decide how to proceed with the recommendations in the report.

But positive change continues in town. A $4 million renovation to Stockbridge Library, Museum and Archives was completed last spring, and people from nearby towns have been taking advantage of new programs and activities, along with state-of-the-art improvements that include a new multi-purpose room in the main part of the building that holds 35 people.

“The library is absolutely exquisite, and its offerings include a cooking club, book club, speaker series, and expansion of the children’s programs,” Shatz said, explaining that the library houses historic artifacts, dates back to the darkest days of the Civil War, and was started by a group of public-spirited men who believed it was central to the life of the town.

Into the Future

Although Stockbridge is a great place to live and visit, its leader say, the town lacks employment opportunities needed to attract and retain young people.

“We don’t have jobs, so we have find a way to manage our resources better,” Shatz said.

Officials are doing their best to make that happen, and hope revenue from Verizon’s cell-phone tower and the Ameresco solar farm, combined with infrastructure improvements, will help to resolve their challenges without disturbing the character that has made Stockbridge a destination people return to time and time again.

 

Stockbridge at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1739
Population: 1,800
Area: 23.7 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $9.59
Commercial Tax Rate: $9.59
Median Household Income: $60,732
MEDIAN FAMILY Income: $65,469
Type of government: Town Administrator; Board of Selectmen; Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Tanglewood; Norman Rockwell Museum; Red Lion Inn
* Latest information available

Why Solar Arrays Are the Hot Trend in Energy Production

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solarfeature1216a
Features

Here Comes the Sun

solar array

Solar power is enjoying a heyday in Massachusetts right now, as home and business owners, buoyed by state incentives, seek greener energy options, and — most visibly — as cities and towns scramble to strike deals with energy companies on large-scale photovoltaic arrays, usually on otherwise undevelopable parcels, such as landfills. The projects don’t create many jobs, but they do bring tax benefits for communities, profits for the developers, and satisfaction for anyone who values a move away from fossil fuels.

Before work began to convert 219 Russellville Road in Westfield into a solar farm, the property was home to more than 60,000 cubic yards of concrete and road material, piled high.

“This property was a construction yard for many years, taking on construction materials from roads that were ripped up,” said Joe Mitchell, the city’s advancement officer and director of economic development. “The yard would pulverize the materials and use them on different jobs. As time went on, this property blighted, with piles of construction debris.”

Additionally, topsoil was removed from the site over the years, creating wetlands. In other words, the property, owned by J.W. Cowls Construction, had become undevelopable.

Enter Con Edison, which built a 10-acre solar array on the site, which opened in the fall. Before doing so, it paid to remove those piles of debris, mitigated the affected wetlands by creating other wetlands nearby, and worked with the Conservation Commission and the state Department of Environmental Protection to clean up petroleum that was discovered on site.

“Once they cleaned up the environmental issues, they were able to put this undevelopable property back on the tax rolls, creating green energy for everyone to use,” Mitchell said.

From left, Joe Mitchell with Westfield Mayor Brian Sullivan and Community Outreach Coordinator Amber Dahaney

From left, Joe Mitchell with Westfield Mayor Brian Sullivan and Community Outreach Coordinator Amber Dahaney at the ribbon cutting for Westfield’s latest solar project.

At the end of 20 years, Con Edison will remove the panels, and the property owner will be able to do what he wishes with the site — whether that’s another solar project or a completely different use, but certainly something more amenable to the neighbors than a dumping ground for giant piles of asphalt.

The city of Holyoke also recently dedicated a solar project, this one a 22-acre array — set to go live later this month — at Mt. Tom along the Connecticut River beside a decommissioned coal-generation facility.

The owner,  ENGIE North America — formerly known as GDF SUEZ Energy North America — shut down the coal plant two years ago after years of sporadic operation; burning coal to produce energy had become too expensive. The 5.76 megawatts of energy generated at the solar farm — enough power to supply 1,000 homes — will be sold to Holyoke Gas & Electric (HGE) at or below market rates.

Meanwhile, under a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) agreement, the city will receive $28,000 for the solar panels, as well as normal tax revenue on the property. The reason is that solar panels have a high initial valuation but depreciate quickly, so locking in an annual payment of $5,000 per megawatt ensures a steady flow of revenue.

“We had to find a way to offset the cost of decommissioning the coal plant, and then find a way to make a solar project economically viable,” said HGE Manager Jim Lavelle, explaining that the utility forged a power purchase agreement (PPA) with ENGIE to ensure that residential customers benefit through lower energy rates.

Jim Lavelle

Jim Lavelle says the Mt. Tom solar project offsets the revenue losses from the decommissioned coal plant while creating more carbon-free energy in a city already known for its hydroelectric power.

But another benefit is, quite simply, lowering the city’s carbon footprint. With its dam on the Connecticut River and system of canals downtown already providing two-thirds of its energy, about 90% of the city’s power is now carbon-free. That was one of the reasons the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center chose Holyoke, and green energy continues to be a draw for other forward-looking businesses, Lavelle said.

“It has a bit of an economic-development advantage to it,” he told BusinessWest, adding that solar projects are natural fits for properties that aren’t otherwise easily developable, due to wetlands, soil contamination, or some other reason. “It’s revenue the city would not otherwise get. The city’s not getting rich off this, but it’s found money, and certainly helps the revenue side of the ledger that’s always struggling.”

For this issue, BusinessWest explores the benefits that communities glean from solar projects — which helps explain why they continue popping up all over the region.

Positive Outcomes

Like Holyoke, Westfield struck a PILOT agreement with Con Edison on the panels themselves — $10,000 for the first 10 years and $26,000 for the next 10 — while taxing the real estate normally.

“The city still taxes the dirt the same, but with the solar panels on the project, instead of taxing it as personal property, there’s an agreement to fix the price,” Mitchell said. “That’s beneficial to the solar company; they know what they’re on the hook for, and the same goes for the city.”

All parties gave something to make the deal work, he added. “Westfield took a little reduction in the first 10 years of the PILOT, the property owner’s rent was a little less, and Con Edison invested, coordinating with DEP to do all the engineering and pulverizing the materials and spreading it throughout the site. It was an investment on all three players’ part to make this work. Everyone contributed something in order to have a very positive outcome.”

The new array comes on the heels of the Twiss Street solar project built two years ago by Citizen Energy Corp. on a capped landfill that previously generated zero revenue for the city. Now, Westfield taxes Citizen for the property, has a PILOT agreement for the panels, and no longer has to pay to maintain the landfill.

Other communities across Western Mass. have recognized the benefits of solar as well, including, but certainly not limited to the following:

• Greenfield forged an agreement with SunEdison in 2012 on a solar array atop a capped landfill near Route 2;

• The same year, Easthampton opened an array atop yet another landfill on Oliver Street, installed by Borrego Solar Systems Inc.;

• Northampton selected Ameresco Inc. last year to develop a solar array on its former Glendale Road landfill;

• Deerfield struck a deal this year with Lake Street Development Partners on a solar project on River Road;

• Chicopee negotiated with Southern Sky Renewable Energy to create an array this year atop its capped Burnett Road landfill; and

• Wilbraham opened an array near its former landfill earlier this year, developed by Altus Power America.

Springfield spearheaded the current rush of solar arrays with its project atop a former landfill on Cottage Street, developed several years ago by Eversource.

“Not only is it a great source of green power, which communities are attracted to, but for us, it was great from a real-estate-tax point of view,” said Kevin Kennedy, the city’s chief economic officer, noting the financial benefit of placing an unusable parcel on the tax rolls.

Array of Options

Large-scale municipal projects aren’t the only way the state is encouraging people to go green. The Solarize Mass program, maintained by the state Department of Energy Resources (DOER), encourages towns to install solar on a residence-by-residence basis, using one installer chosen by the community.

“The theory is that the cost of installation goes down the more people sign up — essentially the Agway model,” said Rick Sullivan, president of the Western Mass. Economic Development Council and former state secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs. “The more people buy in, the cheaper it is. If you can get more people to join, your costs go down. So you try to get my neighbors to join as well. It’s been pretty successful around here.”

During Sullivan’s tenure as secretary, his department rewrote the state incentives regarding solar projects to discourage them on agricultural lands and open space, and increase the incentives for smaller businesses, residences, and anything on municipal buildings, landfills, and contaminated sites. “We tried to drive the installations to go into a certain place and not others. It doesn’t preclude agricultural installations, but the incentives aren’t as great.”

The department also began to encourage a program called community solar, by which someone without the ability to install solar power in their own home may purchase a share in another installation. Whatever the case, he said, homeowners who have tapped into solar power see financial benefits once they’re past the initial expense.

“If you own your own power, if you are able to net meter into the grid, you actually, at some points of the year, may be selling power into the grid,” he told BusinessWest. “Therefore, at minimum, you’re reducing your power costs, and you might even be ahead of the game a little bit.”

Meanwhile, larger-scale projects continue apace, from arrays built by large companies like MassMutual and Big Y to the developments on municipal landfills and other difficult sites.

The contracts between developers and municipalies are all different, Sullivan said, but communities must answer some basic questions: do they have the ability to buy power at a reduced rate? Does the community take on some kind of PILOT agreement? Does the community end up owning the facility after some period of time, typically 20 years?

“These are the three buckets: reduced costs, taxes, and what happens to the facility in terms if long-term ownership,” he said. “That’s all a negotiation.”

What these projects don’t do is create many long-term jobs outside of sales and, perhaps, maintenance. But the environmental benefits are very clear, Sullivan said, and so are the tax benefits.

Before this year, we had six megawatts of solar over three major projects,” HGE’s Lavelle said. “This year alone, we’ve added 10 additional megawatts, the Mt. Tom site being the largest of the projects. At the end of the year, we’ll have 16 megawatts installed.”

The Paper City is far from alone in that endeavor, as the race to build solar arrays across Western Mass., well, heats up.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Recreational Offerings Spur Progress in Southwick

By
Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight: Southwick

Karl Stinehart and Russell Fox

Karl Stinehart and Russell Fox say the new Rite Aid pharmacy on College Highway is one of many businesses that have made major investments in Southwick.

Sixteen years ago, Freda Brown inherited 120 acres of forestland in Southwick that her parents had purchased generations before.

“It’s a beautiful area that borders my backyard, and I wanted to preserve the open space and find something to do with it that was sustainable and that my children could inherit,” she told BusinessWest. “The last thing I wanted was to see it turned into a development.”

She came up with a viable option several years ago when she met Christopher Barden and Drew Gardner at an event in Southwick and they suggested turning it into a disc golf course, which, as the name suggests, is a facility in some ways similar to a golf track, where players throw flying discs at a series of laid-out targets.

They had developed other courses in the past, and today the three have become partners, with New England Disc Golf Center under construction and set to open on Brown’s land next spring with 18 holes that include tees for beginners and experts.

“It’s something affordable that the whole family can enjoy together,” Brown said, adding that plans are in place to add a nine-hole children’s course. “Southwick is a small, friendly town and a great place to live, and a disc golf course will enhance the recreational opportunities here.”

Russell Fox, chair of the town’s Board of Selectmen, says the disc-golf facility is just one of many ways in which the community has put recreation to use as an economic-development engine. Other examples include everything from four actual golf courses to the hugely popular Congamond Lakes, a boating haven for decades.

Overall, Southwick is resilient, and its property values have remained stable or increased during time periods when other towns saw a decline or were stagnant due to the economy, said Fox, who attributes this to the town’s desirable location; single tax rate; balance between commercial, residential, and open space; an excellent school system; and that wide range of recreational offerings that continues to grow.

“Disc golf has taken off, is fairly inexpensive, and offers a new way for young people to participate in a sport,” he said, adding that, in addition to the golf courses, the town is proud of its 6.5-mile rail trail, which gets more traffic every year as Westfield extends its adjoining rail trail.

Fox told BusinessWest that people travel along the trail from the center of Westfield to sites in Connecticut, and Southwick has some great restaurants accessible from parts of the trail.

“We’re working to improve the sidewalks that connect to it because they provide an entryway into our downtown as well as into smaller commercial areas,” he noted.

Still another major recreational attraction is motocross racing at the Wick, a world-class track built behind the American Legion. Last summer, the national Lucas Oil Pro. Motocross Championship returned there after a two-year absence and signed a new, three year contract.

“Having the nationals here again is a huge economic benefit not only for Southwick, but for the region,” Fox said, explaining that, although it’s a one-day event, it takes months to set up, which benefits local gas stations, eateries, hotels, and motels.

“The race attracts a wide range of fans and different categories of racers from all over the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Japan,” added Karl Stinehart, Southwick’s chief administrative officer.

Major improvements were made to the track and facility before the national race, and the promoter not only worked with the American Motocross Assoc. to meet its requirements, but created a strong social-media following and gained new affiliates. The event was held in July and broadcast live on NBC, and other races have been and will continue to be held there throughout the year.

In addition, Whalley Park has opened on 66 acres of land donated to the town by John Whalley III and Kathy Whalley, in honor of their son John Whalley IV. The new park increased the number of playing fields in Southwick, which is important as they didn’t have enough to accommodate demand.

“We’ve been approached by different organizations that want to rent our athletic fields, and we plan to begin letting outside groups use the facilities, which will help pay for the operating costs, expose people to our community, and add to our entertainment value,” Fox said.

The project is entering phase 2, and a $225,000 contract has been awarded to JL Construction Corp. in Agawam that will be paid for with Community Preservation Act (CPA) money and add lighting to two more fields.

“The townspeople voted to continue the CPA program, which allows us to continue investing in recreational and open-space pursuits,” Stinehart said.

For this edition, BusinessWest looks at the growth taking place in Southwick and other factors that continue to attract and stimulate economic development.

Major Investments

Rite Aid recently staged a grand opening for its new, $2.2 million, 11,000-square-foot building with a drive-thru on College Highway.

“They moved from the center of town and worked with the Mobil station next door to connect their driveways,” Fox said. “Good planning helped the traffic flow and makes it more convenient for customers of both businesses.”

The space that was occupied by Rite Aid filled quickly: it was leased to Dollar Tree, which opened a few weeks ago after a major renovation.

“Businesses have a strong desire to move here; we’re a growing community and get a lot of traffic from Northern Connecticut and the hilltowns via Route 57, as well as from Westfield,” Fox said, adding that the town’s industrial park has done very well.

One building that sat vacant for about a year will soon be occupied by Hudson Holding LLC, which manufactures filters and enclosures for the commercial aerospace market. Stinehart said the company outgrew its space in Connecticut and chose to relocate in Southwick, joining a number of businesses that have moved to the town from out of state as well as the local area.

“Nitor Corporation also expanded and received a special permit to sell guns and ammunition at its location on 5 Whalley Way,” Stinehart noted.

Infrastructure improvements are also underway. The Congamond Road sewer project is being extended to the Gillette Business District, which contains Dunkin’ Donuts, Ocean State Job Lot, and a new Pride station, and the improvements will allow them to grow help attract new ventures.

Residential growth is also occurring in town. High-end homes continue to be built around the Ranch Golf Course, and infrastructure work is underway for a 26-home development called Noble Steed.

“Our excellent school system is one of the reasons people want to live in Southwick,” Fox said, noting that a $69 million project was completed last fall that includes additions and upgrades to Woodland Elementary School, Powder Mill Middle School, and Southwick Regional School, which are all on one campus on Feeding Hills Road.

“The town has positioned itself to keep pace with the modern-day educational needs of youth in Southwick, Granville, and Tolland, which are part of the school district,” Stinehart added.

Town officials are also looking into net-metering credit arrangements with solar facilities to save money. They have an agreement with Nexamp solar farm in Hadley, which went online in October and is expected to result in a 15% savings, but hope to increase that amount.

“We’ve hired a consultant to find additional opportunities for net-metering credits,” Fox said, explaining that the work is being paid for by a $20,000 grant awarded jointly to the town and regional school district by the Mass. Department of Energy Resources.

Ongoing efforts to preserve open space are also gaining ground, as the town hopes to acquire a 144-acre parcel for sale on North Pond at Congamond Lakes.

The Mass. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife awarded Southwick money to help purchase it, and the Franklin Land Trust has embarked on a fund-raising effort to make up the difference in price.

Fox said the parcel is abutted by two different areas owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the state of Connecticut.

“If we’re able to purchase this parcel, the amount of preserved land here will total 800 acres that will be available for hunting, fishing, and hiking, as well as natural habitats which both states are trying to establish,” he told BusinessWest.

Stinehart added that the area is stocked for bird hunting, and the Congamond Lakes are stocked with fish and rated among the top freshwater fishing sites in the state.

Desirable Location

Stinehart said the town’s location bodes well for further growth, and there is space for new businesses along the front of several parking lots in the Gillette area that would offer great visibility.

In addition, sand and gravel operations in the Hudson Road area, which is zoned industrial, will be forced to close within a few years as they will have removed the maximum amounts allowed, so that land will become available for reuse in the future.

“We feel encouraged by what is happening here. There are many things in our community that help us remain a desirable place to live, work, raise a family, own a business, and enjoy recreational activities,” he said.

With a location 20 minutes from Bradley International Airport, in close proximity to the Mass Pike, and a short drive to Springfield and Hartford, the town is likely to continue its forward progress as officials and department heads who have worked for the town for decades continue to help strike a balance between family farms, open space, small businesses, and its thriving industrial park.

 

Southwick at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1775
Population: 9,563
Area: 31.7 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $17.10
Commercial Tax Rate: $17.10
Median Household Income: $73,555
Family Household Income: $83,314
Type of Government: Open Meeting; Board of Selectmen
Largest Employers: Big Y World Class Markets; Whalley Computer Associates; Southwick Regional School District
*Latest information available

Hartford Focuses on Bringing Life to Downtown

By
Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

 

Mayor Luke Bronin and Jamie Bratt

Mayor Luke Bronin and Jamie Bratt stand in front of the 95-year-old Hartford Times building on Prospect Street that will become the center of University of Connecticut’s new downtown campus.

Jamie Bratt says that when many people think of Hartford, they envision the city as it was decades ago; a bustling metropolis where a lot of people worked and lived.

A sharp decline began in the ’80s, but over the past decade there has been a gradual upswing, and a flood of investments that began several years ago are aimed at restoring it to its former vibrancy.

“It’s a very exciting time for the city,” the director of Economic Development told BusinessWest. “One of the things that makes Hartford attractive is its size. It has an extremely robust arts and cultural scene, great restaurants, and access to the movers and shakers in state government, but it’s a small city that’s easy to get to.”

Mayor Luke Bronin, who took office in January, agrees and says economic development is focused on three main areas downtown: increasing the number of residential living units; adding new transportation options; and growing the number of medical and educational facilities.

The city is making major inroads on all three fronts, but the first is critical to growth, and there has been a concerted partnership between the City of Hartford and the state to increase the number of downtown residences.

“We’ve added 650 units over the past five years and the projects hold a lot of promise,” Bronin said, noting that many of the new apartments are in converted office buildings, the majority have been completed over the past 18 months, and the Capital Regional Development Authority (CRDA) established by Gov. Dannell Malloy to stimulate economic development and new investment in and around Hartford has served as an economic engine by providing gap financing and coordinating a significant number of public-private partnerships.

And although surveys indicated that downtown housing would be difficult to rent out, that prediction has been proven to be inaccurate. “Studies showed we would be lucky if five units a month were leased,” Bratt said. “But developers have been beating performance expectations and have been leasing 10 to 20 units a month.”

She added that the majority of renters come from outside of the city and are Millennials; the average age of people leasing new units is 40, although empty nesters also comprise a fair share of that population.

“Millennials don’t want to have a lot of property or a large house. They like to live in cities and a large number don’t have cars or a driver’s license,” Bratt contined.

Increasing the number of people who live downtown will balance the weekday versus weekend equation, because in recent years there has been a decided difference, as the population on weekends is reduced by 100,000 people.

“We’ve focused on establishing a balanced equilibrium and so far we have been very successful,” Bratt told BusinessWest. “The jobs are here and if residential living follows, retail growth will increase in response to it.”

The CRDA has also been working to expedite what Bronin referred to as a “long and stagnant development effort” on Front Street, which is finally coming into its own as a restaurant and entertainment district.

“It was a wasteland before, but now there’s a collection of retail shops and restaurants across from the Hartford Convention Center. They all involve new construction and have become a strong draw for residents,” Bronin said, explaining that the Front Street neighborhood includes the Marriott Hotel and the Connecticut Science Center, which attract large numbers of visitors as well as business travelers.

There is also a new 121-unit apartment building that was built as part of the second phase of the Front Street District development project that features 15,000 square feet of street-level retail space with five stories of studio and one and two-bedroom apartments priced at market rates.

For this edition, BusinessWest takes an inside look at major changes taking place in downtown Hartford that are expected to promote vibrancy and make the city an attractive place to live, work and play.

Laying the Groundwork

The University of Connecticut (UConn) left the city in 1970 and moved to West Hartford, but it is returning to its former home and creating a large campus downtown.

“It will really add energy and feet on the street,” Bronin said, adding that the university is part of the push to attract more educational facilities to the city because they have been shown to increase growth, diversity, and job options.

Indeed, UConn and city and state leaders have said the 220,000- square-foot downtown campus will transform the area into a thriving neighborhood with 2,300 students and 250 faculty members, especially since food service will be limited, which will make downtown eateries inviting.

The center of the UConn Greater Hartford Campus will be situated in the old Hartford Times building, which is undergoing a $115 million renovation. Its façade is being maintained, but the interior is being entirely renovated, and a three-story atrium and classroom building will be added to the back of the building. The new campus is expected to open sometime in 2017.

Other institutions of higher learning add to the mix. Bronin noted that Trinity College is a long-standing Hartford institution, the University of St. Joseph has its School of Pharmacy in a state-of-the art building downtown, and Capital Community College redeveloped the former G. Fox building 10 years ago.

“It was a huge risk for them, but they were early pioneers in downtown development,” he noted.

News is also taking place on the medical front: Hartford Hospital held a ribbon cutting earlier this month for its new $150 million Bone and Joint Institute downtown. Surgery is expected to begin next month and will help the hospital compete with leaders in bone and joint surgery in New York and Boston.

The new facility will create jobs and draw visitors and other medical professionals to Harford as is expected that the hospital will collaborate with other medical facilities. “Hartford Hospital is a growing major employer and has become a center for many medical subspecialties,” Bronin told BusinessWest. “We’ve worked closely with them on their new building and another one that is under construction on the southern edge of their downtown campus that will house a training center for robotic surgery, which is a program that brings in healthcare professionals from all over the country.”

The third critical pillar of economic development is transportation, and the planned increase in commuter rail service will make a difference, especially to people who choose to live or work downtown. Twenty trains a day are expected to start running in 2018 that will travel between Springfield and New Haven, Conn.

“They will be a major driver of economic growth and the combination of new housing, medical, and educational facilities will really support revitalization of a vibrant city center,” Bronin said, adding that the rail service will extend to New York, and the hope is that Massachusetts will complete the link between Worcester and Springfield.

Additional access to the city may come via the I-84 viaduct that runs over the city. Bronin said the roadway is reaching the end of its useful life and the Connecticut Department of Transportation is planning work that would lower sections and reconnect it to parts of the city.

Hartford also just adopted a Complete Streets policy, and earlier this month was feted as a Bicycle Friendly Community by The League: Bicycle Friendly America.

In addition, 10 streetscape projects are in various stages of development and two are finishing up downtown, that include widening the promenade that borders Bushnell Park.

Varied Ventures

Economic development is also taking place north of the downtown area. Chester Bowles Park public housing complex, which was built after World War II in the city’s Blue Hills neighborhood, is being demolished to make way for a new mixed-use development called Willow Creek. Hundreds of old buildings have been taken down and 62 mixed-income rentals and 29 town houses are being built as the first phase of the project, which will cost about $40 million.

The park is part of a larger, 130-acre complex that includes Westbrook Village, which contains 360 units of public housing on 65 acres that were also built after WWII. The plan is to demolish outdated structures and replace them with a mixed-use development that will include housing, retail, and commercial space.

Bronin said the project is especially significant because Westbrook Village fronts Albany Avenue, which is a main city corridor.

The CRDA has $20 million set aside for neighborhood development in the North End Promise Zone,” he told BusinessWest, explaining that the federal designation gives the area priority in terms of funding because it has been deemed “high need.”

Entrepreneurship in Harford is also poised to grow, thanks to two projects.

Avon residents Bryan Patton and his wife Devra Sisitsky have raised $1.3 million to build the state’s largest Maker Space at the Colt Armory Complex. They hope to attract 400 members and plan to outfit the space with CNC machines, lathes, a sand-blasting booth, a water-jet cutting machine, a metal-fabrication area, design software and monitors, 3D printers and other equipment that could be used by hobbyists and professionals for a monthly fee.

Another space for start-ups known as Innovate Hartford recently opened at 20 Church St. with the goal of bringing in 100 high-tech companies a year to a 27,500-square-foot space in Stilts Building.

Bronin said the former Colt Armory was one of the first factories in the nation and a tremendous amount of repurposing has been done there.

“The city has partnered with the state and private investors to revitalize the residential neighborhood and attract new commercial tenants,” he noted, adding that the National Park Service adopted a large portion of the complex and turned two buildings into a museum that will become part of a national park.

The Capewell Horse Shoe Nail Company building, which is a 10-minute walk from downtown, fell into disrepair about 30 years ago but has also been redeveloped.

“The Corporation for Independent Living purchased it, turned it into apartments and began leasing them a few weeks ago,”Bratt noted, explaining that the building is one of about 15 properties that have been under construction, with the majority being renovated for residential use.

“They include diverse options; some are affordable housing and others are market-rate,” she said. “Hartford is a wonderful choice for anyone interested in an urban lifestyle.”

Ongoing Progress

Officials say attracting Millennials to the city, bolstering transportation options, creating new maker space, and adding new medical and educational facilities will make a real difference in downtown Hartford’s vitality.

“Revitalization all comes down to feet on the street, and that is increasing,” Bratt said. “Progress is a patchwork quilt of individual projects slowly knit together over time and each one of these projects is a patch that will help make the city more beautiful, walkable, and connected.”

 

Hartford at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1784
Population: 125,432 (2014)
Area: 17.95 square miles
County: Hartford
Residential Tax Rate: $74.29 (at 30% of fair market value)
Commercial Tax Rate: $74.29 (at 70% of fair market value)
Median Household Income: $72,275 (2015)
Family Household Income: $91,759 (2015)
Type of Government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: State of Connecticut, Hartford; United Technologies Corp.; Yale New Haven Health System
* Latest information available

Some Common Mistakes that Can Come to a Head for Brewers

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Features

Some Stout Challenges

By Tom Dowling, CPA, CFE, MST

You did it! You finally opened your brewery and can brew beer all day, every day! All of that paperwork you did to open your brewery is a thing of the past. No more worries about organizational documents, bank agreements, lease agreements or federal, state, and local licensing.

If only these sentiments were accurate. Reporting and licensing requirements never truly go away. Further, add in the nuances of small business ownership, staff management, and (if you’re a young business) cash-flow issues, and managing your brewery can be an extremely complicated endeavor lined with many hidden pitfalls. My hope, however, is to provide some information to make one of those areas, at least, a bit more manageable.

As you likely already know, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has a number of requirements that you must meet on a daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Often these requirements can be cumbersome and sometimes (worst-case scenario) left forgotten. Recently however, the TTB issued a report that detailed the most common brewery compliance and tax issues that have been encountered. What follows is a breakdown of those issues, the most common mistakes made and some ideas for addressing them at your brewery and with your staff.

• Daily Records of Operations. Brewers must complete and maintain daily records and reports that capture information about brewery operations. This list of items required to be recorded is quite lengthy and includes items such as materials received and used in the production of beer, amount of beer produced, packaging of beer, beer consumed at the brewery, and beer that is destroyed (oh no!) or lost due to theft or breakage.

The most common mistakes found on these reports include the failure to report the amount of beer returned to the brewery, beer destroyed, beer removed for lab samples, and the maintenance of supporting documents for losses and shortages. Now you may be asking yourself, what’s the worst that could happen if  I fail to record this information? Well, if brewers fail or refuse to keep proper records or do not allow TTB officers to inspect these records, the brewer may be fined up to $1,000 and/or could potentially be imprisoned for up to one year for each offense.

• Inventory counts. Brewers must take a physical inventory of beer at least once per month. This inventory must be recorded and available for inspection when requested. Inventory records must include the date the inventory was taken, quantity of beer on hand, losses and shortages, and most importantly, the signature — under penalties of perjury — of the person taking the inventory. The most common errors found include lack of signature, failure to take inventory each month, inadequate documentation of losses and shortages and the inventory records not agreeing to the Brewer’s Report of Operations (BROP).

• BROP. Brewers are required to submit BROPs by the 15th day after the end of the reporting period. The BROPs are filed either monthly or quarterly, the frequency is dependent upon the quantity of barrels produced by the brewer each year. The BROPs are extremely important because they support the brewer’s excise tax returns. Guess what supports the BROPs? You got it, the daily records and inventory records (time to re-read items 1 and 2).

• General record-keeping mistakes. Most other record-keeping falls into the ‘general’ category. This category includes items that support your daily record keeping, inventory counts, and BROPs. The most common mistakes made with the general record keeping include failure to maintain supporting documentation, summary records, book inventory records, and inaccurate explanations for beer shortages or inventory sheets that do not reflect operations accurately.

• Record Retention. You may not have any problem with the first four items, but this next one may surprise you. Brewers are required to maintain TTB required records for a period of “not less than three years” and in addition to that, these records  must be maintained at the brewery and can only be stored off brewery premises upon approval by the TTB.  So instead of finding space for one more pallet of cans, you may want to consider ensuring you have the space for some filing cabinets — because you’re going to need them.

Now you are probably asking yourself, with all this record keeping, when will I find time to actually brew the beer?  Let’s face it, this stuff doesn’t sound like fun, and is most likely put off to the very last minute, creating a higher probability of errors. As a brewery, you should first educate and train all staff on these requirements, implement a system of review to ensure a second set of eyes are present to catch common mistakes, and schedule and assign these reporting duties to staff.

These simple steps may help you avoid penalties and TTB compliance findings.

Tom Dowling, CPA, CFE, MST is a manager with the Holyoke based public accounting firm, Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.; (413) 322-3494; [email protected].

Scenes from WMBExpo 2016

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Events Features WMBExpo

MassMutual Center, Springfield, Thursday, November 3

WMBExpo2016LOGO
More than 2,000 people ventured to the MassMutual Center in Springfield on Nov. 3 for the 6th Annual Western Mass. Business Expo. The day-long show featured a wide variety of informative and entertaining programming, on subjects ranging from drones to virtual reality; motivating Millennials to robotics; entrepreneurship to search-engine optimization. The Expo kicked off with a breakfast staged by the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce, and ended with the popular Expo Social. In between were seminars, more than 100 exhibitors, a pitch contest, lunch hosted by the Professional Women’s Chamber, an ice cream social, and much, much more. In the gallery below, BusinessWest offers a pictorial review of the show, capturing many of the sights of an unforgettable event.

Photography by Dani Fine Photography

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MSBDC’s Samalid Hogan Wants to Cement Relationships

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Features

A Builder and a ‘Connector’

Samalid Hogan

Samalid Hogan

Samalid Hogan takes the reins at the Mass. Small Business Development Center at a time when entrepreneurial energy is high in the region, fueled by the growth of programs aiming to help fledgling ventures succeed. It’s an energy that excites and inspires her in this latest challenge in an intriguing, wide-ranging career.

Whenever someone suggests that Samalid Hogan has big shoes to fill — and that’s a common occurrence, to say the least — she’s ready with a witty response.

“I remind them I have size-11 feet … they’re my father’s feet,” said Hogan, noting that she’s made reference to this statistic countless times since she was named successor to Dianne Fuller Doherty at the Mass. Small Business Development Center Network’s (MSBDC) Western Mass. office a few months ago.

And she acknowledges that she needs those large feet.

Indeed, Doherty, who was once the subject of a chapter in a New York Times series of articles on individuals who worked well past traditional retirement age, was at the helm of the MSBDC for more than 30 years (so long, in fact, that BusinessWest founder John Gormally sought out her help when launched the publication in early 1984 — and more than a few times thereafter). She was, in some respects, synonymous with the agency.

But Hogan feels she’s more than ready to take on the challenge of succeeding Doherty and carrying out the agency’s multi-faceted mission, based on her diverse résumé, one that includes her own entrepreneurial undertakings. It comes complete with a number of public-sector stops working with small businesses to help them launch, grow, and succeed.

“In many ways, I’m just doing what I’ve always done throughout my career,” said Hogan of her new role at the MSBDC, an agency that, in a nutshell, provides free, confidential (two important qualities, to be sure), one-on-one business-advisory services to prospective and existing small-business owners.

That word ‘small’ has a textbook definition of sorts at MSBDC and other area agencies — 100 employees and under. And while the center has, indeed, assisted companies at the far end of that spectrum, most, over the years, have been truly small, and often sole proprietorships.

 

I love action plans and work to set goals and determine the outcomes that are desired, and then working backward from there. And I like helping people get organized and have a very clear direction of where they’re going.”

 

Hogan said she became more than a little interested in the directorship of the MSBDC when it was advertised, and then endured a lengthy hiring process, not simply because of the work being done at the center, although that was certainly a big part of it.

Another large part involves timing. Indeed, there is a considerable amount of entrepreneurial activity, or energy, in the region, fueled by the creation and growth of agencies and academic programs with various missions but the collective goals of inspiring entrepreneurship and helping fledgling ventures succeed.

This movement, or this collection of agencies and degree programs, now has a name that is fast becoming part of the local lexicon: entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Hogan said the MSBDC is a proud member of that ecosystem, and is fully invested in efforts to broaden and strengthen this collaborative through partnerships, referrals, and a deep spirit of cooperation.

“At the end of the day, we can all do a better job of referring clients to each other, for the benefit of the client,” she said of the many entrepreneurship-focused agencies in the area. “It comes down to what the client needs and identifying which agencies can best provide those services, and working together.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Hogan about this latest career stop, her outlook for the MSBDC and the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the art and science of advising and mentoring small-business owners.

Sole Searching

Hogan met with BusinessWest to discuss all of the above in the conference room at the Chicopee Chamber of Commerce, located in the heart of that city’s downtown.

She was there, as she is every month for a full day, for what she called “outreach,” to meet with clients (small-business owners) one-on-one to discuss, essentially, where they’re at, where they want to get, what it will likely take to get there, and which individuals and agencies might be able to provide some assistance with mapping out the journey.

“We want to be able to go where the clients are and give them that flexiblility so we can serve them better,” she noted, adding that there are similar ‘outreach offices’ in Greenfield, Northampton, and Amherst.

She was wrapping up with one business owner when BusinessWest arrived, and had another that would be waiting in the lobby in less than an hour. So she didn’t waste any time getting to the meat of the discussion, which is the ecosystem, where the MSBDC fits into it all, and how the collective agencies can work together to ultimately provide more and better services.

And she began by drawing a distinction between her approach to this work and the one taken by Doherty.

“She was an investor in small business, and she owned a very successful marketing business,” Hogan said of her predecessor. “My qualifications are slightly different, and I’m more of a entrepreneurship student — I study everything that has to do with small business.

“I do have experience as an entrepreneur,” she went on, noting the co-working space she created. “And I do the advising of small businesses. But what I really like to do is build bridges between all the recent and non-recent entrepreneurial programs and support services.”

And, as noted earlier, Hogan believes she brings a solid background in work with small businesses — as well as with a host of area economic-development-related agencies — to the center and its mission.

She summed up the job descriptions that went with the titles on her various business cards by saying she has been both a “builder” and a “connector,” and usually both at the same time.

The photograph that accompanied her writeup as one of BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty winners in 2013, when she was employed as senior project manager for the city of Springfield, shows her with a hard hat, shovel, and a few bricks.

These are the physical, or literal, symbols of construction, she explained, adding that much of the building she’s part of has been figurative in nature, as in building relationships, partnerships, coalitions, and momentum for a city, neighborhood, agency, or office holder’s platform.

Indeed, Hogan, an economics major at Bay Path University, was recruited by a major financial-services firm. But her skill set, strong personality, and considerable confidence caught the attention of state Rep. Cheryl Coakley-Rivera, who successfully recruited Hogan to become her chief of staff.

Samalid Hogan describes herself as a ‘builder, ‘connector,’ and ‘project manager,’ and will be doing a lot of that kind of work for the MSBDC.

Samalid Hogan describes herself as a ‘builder, ‘connector,’ and ‘project manager,’ and will be doing a lot of that kind of work for the MSBDC.

In that role, she became the ‘connector’ she mentioned earlier, connecting constituents to agencies and resources and, in the process, helping them manage their problem or issue (work in very ways similar to that carried out by the MSBDC.)

From Coakley’s office, Hogan would move to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, where she would handle similar duties, but on a region-wide basis. In the course of doing so, she would become familiar with — and partner with — many more agencies and institutions involved in the many aspects of economic development.

From there, she segued to a project manager’s position in Springfield, a role that involved more of that connecting she was becoming proficient at, but also a good deal of literal, bricks-and-mortar building.

Hogan became involved in a host of initiatives, including the South End revitalization project, Court Square redevelopment efforts, brownfield-restoration efforts, redevelopment of the former Gemini site, and many others. She also worked directly with small-business owners, through a façade program and a small-business loan program.

In 2015, she took her collective experience to a different city and different challenge, specifically Holyoke’s Innovation District, where she worked with a list of officials, agencies, business owners, and prospective entrepreneurs to generate energy and commerce in the heart of the Paper City.

When she saw that the MSBDC was advertising for a new director (it had gone several months without one after Doherty officially stepped down in 2015), she quickly embraced the position as the most logical next step in a career in many ways defined by work with and on behalf of small enterprises.

Getting a Foot in the Door

“I’ve been working with small businesses for a long time in economic development,” said Hogan as she explained her interest in the MSBDC. “I like being able to help people and guide them — I’m a project manager.

“I love action plans and work to set goals and determine the outcomes that are desired, and then working backward from there,” she went on. “And I like helping people get organized and have a very clear direction of where they’re going.”

Acting as project manager is how she characterizes her role at the MSBDC, using that term in reference to the cases of individual clients.

And the cases, or projects, vary with each person or business that finds the agency.

As noted earlier, the center, funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the state Office of Business Development, and hosted by UMass Amherst and its Isenberg School of Management, assists what are, technically speaking, small businesses, but some operations that most would consider large, with 100 or more employees.

It also assists companies with a few dozen or more workers that are looking to get to the proverbial next stage, usually through some type of financing — one of many realms where the center can make some effective connections.

But much of the work, including the outreach Hogan was conducting when she met with BusinessWest, would be with what are considered very small ventures and prospective businesses that exist maybe on a napkin or in someone’s imagination.

To explain what she does, and what the center does, she summoned a hypothetical situation, only the situation — and the commentary — is, all too often, very real.

“I’ll ask someone to tell me about their business,” she started. “They’ll say, ‘I just got started, I have a few sales, but I don’t really know where to go with this. I need to hire some people, and to expand, I need to do this and that.’

“I’ll then say, ‘OK, who’s your accountant? Who’s your lawyer? Who do you work with on insurance?’” she went on. “They’ll say, ‘I don’t have an accountant, I don’t have a lawyer … and do I really need insurance?’ And then I’ll go through the basics with them.”

Advice often begins with the basics, she continued, but it rarely ends there, and often involves the next steps after hiring those professionals listed above — work to identify markets, develop strategies for reaching those markets, secure financing, promote the product or service, and much more.

“People who come here might be frustrated or confused and not really sure about what they want to do,” she told BusinessWest. “By asking them questions, I can help them self-discover the path they want to take.”

Then there are those bridge-building efforts, she said, adding that, while the MSBDC provides an array of important services, it is just one player in the region’s ever-broadening efforts to inspire, educate, and mentor entrepreneurs.

Others within the ecosystem include SCORE, which focuses on industry-specific business guidance; the Small Business Administration and Common Capital, which connect business owners with capital; Valley Venture Mentors, which mentors entrepreneurs and helps them hone their pitches and identify markets; and many others.

Linking clients with these partner agencies is an important part of the MSBDC’s mission, said Hogan, adding that one agency simply can’t do it all alone, and partnerships are vital — for specific business owners, but also the region as a whole.

“Oftentimes, I will walk people over to SCORE,” she said, noting that both agencies have offices in the Scibelli Enterprise Center in Springfield, as does New England Business Associates. “We need to help clients access all the agencies that can help them grow their businesses.”

A Shoe-in

Hogan said she hasn’t had to summon that size-11-feet remark lately, as commentary about the big shoes she has to fill has subsided somewhat.

Indeed, she has settled into a role that is different than others she has had over the years in some respects, but at its foundation is fundamentally the same. It’s all about building bridges, being a connector, and managing projects.

She’s always been good at that, and now that she’s putting those talents to use in ways that will help businesses get … well, if you’ll pardon the expression, a leg up.

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

New East Longmeadow Leadership Fuels Optimism

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Denise Menard and Robyn Macdonald

Denise Menard and Robyn Macdonald say the gas station and convenience store under construction at 227 Shaker Road will give people in the southern portion of town access to needed services.

East Longmeadow has grown and flourished in recent years thanks to its excellent schools, pastoral landscape, and thriving Industrial Garden District, where manicured lawns and flower gardens belie the scope of commercial and manufacturing companies that do business there.

However, last year, the town’s bucolic character was upset by repeated controversy that was ignited and fueled by reports of corruption. “The town went through a year of turmoil, and some businesses were hesitant to move here due to the negative publicity,” said Robyn Macdonald, the town’s Planning, Zoning Board, and Conservation director.

She added that these issues were essentially put to rest in April when residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new charter that replaced the town meeting and three-member Board of Selectmen with a town manager and Town Council that features seven elected members.

Its first official meeting was staged July 1, and a few weeks later, former East Windsor, Conn. First Selectman Denise Menard was hired as interim town manager.

“The charter expanded the town’s leadership, and work has already been done to preserve the good things that exist here, while promoting healthy living and balanced growth,” Macdonald said.

To that end, plans are in place to establish East Longmeadow’s first human resources department. In addition, several new positions have been added that include a director of finance; a director of Planning and Community Development; and a full-time health director. Aimee Petrosky was recently hired to fill that role and is working with the newly appointed three-member Board of Health.

She told BusinessWest that the town held its first flu clinic last month, which was highly successful and will be repeated next year. In the meantime, the board plans to seek funding to vaccinate uninsured residents, and the next event will include the shingles vaccine.

Other changes include a new sharps-disposal program that offers disposal units to residents at an affordable price because they can be cost-prohibitive; new regulations that make it illegal to smoke any type of tobacco, including e-cigarettes and vapor cigarettes, within 50 feet of a public building; a fine policy for restaurateurs who fail to comply with health regulations; and new rules that require companies that serve or produce food to install traps to prevent grease from entering sewers and affecting business operations or private residences.

“The Health Department also recently purchased an electronic inspection system that will post the outcomes of health inspections online,” Petrosky said, noting that food-safety training sessions were held for the School Department, the Council on Aging, and at churches that requested it to insure that the most vulnerable populations are protected.

Menard applauds these changes because they add to the town’s offerings, and notes that, when a permanent town manager is named, it will be important for the person to promote intelligent economic development and take a proactive stance in attracting new businesses.

“There is room for growth in the underutilized areas of our industrial and commercial sections of town,” she said.

Macdonald agrees, and says there are a few dormant parcels they hope to fill in the future, including the long-vacant Package Machinery site. “East Longmeadow has always welcomed new businesses, but we try to maintain a good balance between residential and business growth,” she noted.

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest looks at projects on the drawing board as well as developments underway that will help East Longmeadow retain its small-town character while offering new venues that will boost the tax base and provide services for people who live and work in the town.

Major Projects

Officials are happy that several sites in town that have been vacant for more than a decade are being redeveloped.

For example, L.E. Belcher broke ground three months ago on a 6,500-square-foot convenience store with five gas pumps, 10 pumping stations, three outdoor tables, and 28 parking spaces on a lot at 227 Shaker Road that was empty for many years.

The company has secured a license to sell wine and beer, and worked closely with the Planning Board to ensure the new business is a good fit for the town. Ownership has installed flashing pedestrian safety lights to facilitate safety on the Chestnut Street side of the Redstone Rail Trail that runs behind the property, and contributed to a mitigation fund that will assist the Department of Public Works with roadway and traffic improvements in the Shaker Road and Chestnut Street corridor.

“It’s a busy intersection, and their gift of $25,000 to the DPW was a great gesture from a new business,” Menard said.

Macdonald concurred. “L.E. Belcher is a community-minded company, and the facility they are building will provide the industrial area with a service that doesn’t exist in that part of town. There is nothing like it from there until Route I-90 in Enfield, and it is expected to bring in people from Connecticut, while reducing congestion at the rotary,” she said, adding that the new convenience store and gas station are expected to open in mid- or late January.

A new restaurant called Green/Wich is also under construction at 16 Maple St. on the rotary. The eatery’s plans were recently approved, and the owner has also secured a beer and wine license.

“It’s a great addition to our center, and we’re happy to have a building that sat empty for many years put to use by a business that will help people attain a healthy lifestyle. It will offer high-end wraps and salads with indoor seating,” Menard said.

Macdonald told BusinessWest that Green/Wich had to do a major renovation of the building that included asbestos abatement, and has worked closely with the town to ensure the restaurant meets all safety requirements when it opens in about a month.

Several businesses in the town are experiencing rapid growth, including Go Graphix, which relocated from a shopping plaza on North Main Street to a 5,000-square-foot space on Benton Drive in the industrial park several years ago.

“The organization takes a concept through design, production, and installation. Their focus is on individual brands and messaging, and they incorporate big-picture objectives while paying close attention to the smallest details,” Macdonald said. “They have done so well, they are planning a 2,584-square-foot addition to their existing building. “

That project is still in the planning stages, but in September the Planning Board approved construction of an 18,000-square-foot medical office building on 250 North Main St.

The new, two-story structure will be constructed by Associated Builders for Baystate Dental Group and will have 90 parking spaces. The dental office will occupy the first floor, and the second floor will be rented as medical or office space.

Two other significant projects were also recently proposed. The first is an expansion: Excel Dryer wants to put an addition onto its existing building at 357 Chestnut St. that will include 1,300 square feet of warehouse space and 3,700 square feet of office space.

“This is a family-owned and -operated company that revolutionized the industry and set a new standard for performance, reliability, and customer satisfaction,” Macdonald said. “They have continued to grow, and the addition will enhance their ability to move forward in the future.”

The second project is much more complex, as it involves the towns of East Longmeadow and Longmeadow.

Macdonald said the planning boards in both towns have been working with Michael Crowley of Michael Crowley Associates and Middle Franklin Development, Robert Levesque of R. Levesque Associates Inc., David Dunlop of David Dunlop Associates, and Fuss & O’Neill to create a medical complex that will add to East Longmeadow Skilled Nursing Center at 305 Maple St., cross town lines, and provide benefits to both communities.

Crowley presented plans for the project in June. It includes four structures on a 20-acre site: a 50,000-square-foot medical office building in Longmeadow that would be occupied by Baystate Health; a two-story, 25,000-square-foot conventional office building in East Longmeadow; and an assisted-living facility and an expansion of the existing skilled-nursing facility that would be run by Berkshire Health in the town.

“The complex will feature state-of-the-art technology and have every safety system installed possible, including fire alarms, an emergency generator, and rooftop units with individual room controls,” Macdonald said, explaining that the two towns have commissioned a traffic study to mitigate any problems that could result from the project because it will affect some of their busiest intersections, namely Benton Drive and Chestnut Street in East Longmeadow, the Converse Street area in Longmeadow, and that town’s intersection at Dwight Road, Williams Street, and Maple Street.

Work in Progress

The Department of Public Works has an ongoing project that involves installing new sidewalks in East Longmeadow’s center and around the schools to make pedestrian travel safe and help make the town more desirable.

Historically, that hasn’t been a problem.

“Businesses are thriving in East Longmeadow and want to stay here,” Macdonald said, explaining that, although the town doesn’t have its own utility companies, manufacturers in the Industrial Garden District including Sullivan Paper Co., Tiger Press, and the recently sold Lenox Newell Rubbermaid have installed solar panels on their roofs, and panels have also been approved for the Reminder building in the commercial district.

“We still have plenty of room for new companies, and the opportunities here are great. The town welcomes large and small businesses, and our Industrial Garden District is a beautiful area which is easy to get to from I-91,” she noted.

Indeed, the negative publicity has come to an end, the town is moving forward, and the future looks bright for residents and businesses alike.

East Longmeadow at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1894
Population: 15,720 (2010)
Area: 13.0 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $21.12
Commercial Tax Rate: $21.12
Median Household Income: $78,835
Median Family Income: $99,707
Type of Government: Town Council; Town Manager
Largest Employers: Cartamundi; Redstone Rehab and Nursing Center; Lenox Newell Rubbermaid
* Latest information available

New Owner at Thomas & Thomas Resuscitates an Iconic Brand

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Supporting Cast

Neville Orsmond

Neville Orsmond

Neville Orsmond wasn’t thinking about buying the company when he walked into the Thomas & Thomas plant more than three years ago. But by the time he walked back out the door, he was, well, hooked — on the notion of preserving one of the fly-fishing industry’s most famous names, and also preserving what all those who partake in this pastime call a ‘lifestyle.’

When Prince Charles and Lady Diana tied the knot at that quaint ceremony in London back in 1981, President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, chose as a present for the couple a set of matching bamboo fly rods made by a tiny company in Greenfield called Thomas & Thomas.

As proof — not that anyone doubts him when he tells the story — Neville Orsmond points to a framed thank-you letter of sorts hanging on a wall just inside the main entrance to the company’s plant. Printed on official Buckingham Palace stationery, it reads, in part, “it would be difficult to find finer rods, and they are precisely what are needed for the conditions on Scottish Rivers.”

By that time, of course, the royals were just a few of the global celebrities casting their lot, figuratively but also quite literally, with that famous brand, considered the Rolls-Royce of what is now estimated to be a $10 billion industry. And they would be joined by many others over the ensuing decades.

The list includes Jack Lemmon, Eric Clapton, Ted Williams (a famous baseball player but perhaps an even more famous angler), Dale Earnhardt, Joe Montana (casting became the quarterback’s method of rehabbing an injured shoulder), Joan Lunden, James Seals (of Seals and Crofts fame), business mogul Nelson Peltz, and countless others.

But despite such an illustrious client list, Thomas & Thomas, launched in 1969 by brothers-in-law Thomas Dorsey and Thomas Maxwell, was, by 2013, nearly (if you’ll pardon the expression) dead in the water.

It was still producing fly rods, including the bamboo models that are perhaps its signature, and other products, but fewer of them. And the high standards of quality that had defined the company had fallen in most areas, including perhaps the most important — customer service.

Thomas & Thomas has been considered the Rolls-Royce of the industry

Since it was launched nearly 50 years ago, Thomas & Thomas has been considered the Rolls-Royce of the industry, with a premium on hand-craftsmanship.

Indeed, a cast of successor, mostly absentee owners — Maxwell left the company in the ’80s, and Dorsey sold it in the late ’90s — had failed to make needed investments in everything from branding to manufacturing equipment. And the results were crippling.

This was not exactly what Orsmond, a native of South Africa and serious fly-fishing enthusiast who had relocated to the U.S., was expecting to find when he ventured to the Greenfield plant in late 2013 to personally place an order for several rods. But he quickly became aware of what was happening with this company — or not, as the case may be.

“I heard the company was for sale, and it was in very bad shape,” he said with discernable understatement in his voice. “It was definitely going to go under, and it wasn’t going to be resurrected.”

But seven months and two lawyers later, he found himself the proud but certainly challenged new owner of the venture.

 

I’m just here to steer the company in the right way. At the end of the day, it’s all the great people we have working for us that make us successful. They get to make these rods every day, and it’s my job to go show them off to everyone and get people excited to buy them.”

 

He assumed the title of CEO and its responsibilities, he told BusinessWest, because he wanted to quench some entrepreneurial thirst, but, more importantly, he didn’t want to see the iconic brand vanish from the landscape.

“I didn’t want to let that happen,” he said, adding that, while there is still considerable work to do, the ship has been righted, and the brand has been re-energized, as evidenced by the current seven-month waiting time for a bamboo rod.

When asked how the turnaround came about, he stated simply, “by listening to the right people about what they need in a rod and how we can meet those needs.”

Elaborating, Orsmond said that, soon after taking the helm, he came to understand that his assignment had two main thrusts — “internal and external,” as he put it.

The former involved infusing capital, generating enthusiasm, setting ambitious goals, and creating an environment in which they could be reached. The latter centered around aggressive branding, and, in the simplist of terms, letting the world know that the Thomas & Thomas brand is alive, well, and bound for some serious growth.

And when Orsmond says ‘the world,’ he means it. He’s been traveling to virtually every corner of it over the past few years, promoting his products and the sport of fly fishing, while also making time for what he called a lifelong passion.

And as he talked about those travels and the fishing he’s done during them, he dove for his phone and quickly flipped to pictures of a giant trevally (this one four feet long) he caught earlier this month in Dubai.

The enthusiasm with which he did so spoke volumes about the sport itself, but also why Orsmond is now signing the paychecks at Thomas & Thomas, why there is that wait time for an order, and why optimism abounds at the company.

For this issue, BusinessWest explains how this optimism came to be, and why the future of this brand looks exceedingly bright.

Stream of Consciousness

When talking about where they fish — or, especially, where they landed that huge brook trout — anglers are famous for using purposefully, if not hopelessly, vague language.

The reason is obvious; they don’t want to let the world, or even a few people, know the location of their favorite — and most fruitful — spots.

Orsmond adopts a somewhat similar tack when talking about his company’s products and how they are made.

Indeed, when asked about what goes into manufacturing the rods and what separates them from competitors’ offerings, he talked of “materials” — bamboo, fiberglass, and carbon fiber are the main ingredients — and “techniques,” and was rather stingy with details.

“We have a bunch of secret methods for making these rods, and techniques,” he explained — sort of. “It’s all in the design … and how the rod bends.”

He was far more willing to discuss the philosophy behind the company’s production methods, and the difficulty competitors have with replicating the results, even if they have a Thomas & Thomas rod in their hands as a guide.

“Good luck to anyone trying to reverse-engineer this,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, while there is, indeed, some engineering involved here, rod making and creating the requisite blend of beauty, strength, and balance is as much art and instinct as it is science.

Troy Jacques plies his craft in the bamboo room

Troy Jacques plies his craft in the bamboo room. He’s been making rods there for more than 20 years.

To best explain what he meant by that, he rose from his chair, walked to the back of his office, picked up a metal tube, and very carefully extracted what might best be described as his pride and joy — or at least one of them, anyway.

What slowly emerged was a seven-foot-long, ‘four-weight,’ one-piece bamboo rod made by Thomas Dorsey more than 30 years ago. Now considered an antique that would easily fetch well north of $10,000 if he were to sell it (don’t get any ideas; that is not going to happen), it represents perhaps the essence, and the epitome, of fine rod making, he explained.

“This is a really unbelievable fly rod,” he said while admiring it — again. “It’s very, very difficult to make a one-piece — there just aren’t many people in the world who can do it; everything is hand-made.”

While that rod is indeed rare, the same focus on quality, and the same attention to detail that spawned it, goes into everything that is shipped out the door and to addresses on every continent, Orsmond explained.

While dozens, if not hundreds, of companies make fly rods, he noted, Thomas & Thomas stands out for its handcrafted quality and one-at-a-time approach to production, something he compared to the legendary London-based gun maker Holland & Holland.

And it’s been this way since Thomas Dorsey and Thomas Maxwell, frustrated that they couldn’t find what they wanted in a fly rod on the market, decided to make their own.

They started in Maryland, but soon moved the operation to Franklin County — somewhat out of necessity. The story goes that a rod-making outfit in the Greenfield area went out of business, and the two Thomases bought the equipment. They found the prospect of bringing the machinery home too expensive and logistically difficult, so, instead, they moved their families and their enterprise north.

In little more than a decade, the company had made such a name for itself that the Reagans, or at least the person they charged with finding a wedding gift for the royals, made a call to Greenfield. (Reagan was so enamored of the Thomas & Thomas rods that he also gave one to Australian Prime Minister Malcom Fraser when was he was visiting the White House; legend has it, says Orsmond, that he was having so much fun casting with it on the South Lawn that he was late for an important meeting.)

But by 2008, a combination of factors, especially the Great Recession and its impact on discretionary spending (and a $1,000 fly rod would certainly fit that description) and largely absentee ownership put the company in dangerous whitewater.

Fast-forwarding through what he called the dark times for the company — he wasn’t there for them, and he didn’t care to dwell on them — Orsmond said Thomas & Thomas didn’t exactly lose its way. Rather, it simply lacked the resources and leadership needed to continue doing business as it had historically.

Orsmond, who was living in New York at the time, working for a company that provided automated parking-garage systems, and “fly fishing every weekend,” wasn’t thinking about orchestrating a return to the glory days when he walked into the company’s plant that day more than three years ago. But he waded in with purpose (another industry term), and has never looked back.

Current Events

Returning to those internal and external components of his broad assignment to rejuvenate the company, Orsmond said his job has been to simply pilot the boat, if you will, keep it on course, and let the talented rod makers, some of whom have been plying their trade there for nearly 30 years, do what they do.

“I’m just here to steer the company in the right way,” he explained. “At the end of the day, it’s all the great people we have working for us that make us successful. They get to make these rods every day, and it’s my job to go show them off to everyone and get people excited to buy them.”

Elaborating, though, he said there really has been nothing simple about the resuscitation process, and it is very much still ongoing.

“The external side of this took a lot longer because people needed to believe in this brand again,” he explained. “They needed to understand what we were doing and see what was happening.”

The internal part of the assignment was somewhat easier but still challenging, he went on, because employees needed more than words — they’d heard plenty of those over the years — to regain a sense of confidence and optimism in the brand moving forward.

“They had been let down by all the previous owners going back 10 years,” he noted. “It took a lot of capital investment and a lot of time; there hadn’t been an owner here in a decade to make decisions, speak to our customers, and fully understand who were are.”

Neville Orsmond, seen here with the giant trevally

Neville Orsmond, seen here with the giant trevally he hooked in Dubai, says confidence in the Thomas & Thomas name has been restored.

Much of this hard work has been accomplished, he went on, adding that the task ahead lies mainly in aggressive branding efforts aimed at introducing both the sport and the Thomas & Thomas name to people of all ages, but especially younger audiences, and continuing that process he described earlier of listening to the right people.

This would be customers, many of whom are serious about their fly fishing, and also a core of advisers who rank among the most famous fly-fishing enthusiasts in the world. People like Jako Lucas, from South Africa, an international fly-fishing guide who takes clients to locations ranging from Norway to Mongolia. And Canadian Rebekka Redd, an international fly fisher, TV host, photographer, and author.

“My theory about all this centers on listening to the fly fisherman in the stream,” said Orsmond. “The guy who’s using our rods, the one who’s so proud to hold one and fish with it. We have to listen to him and give him the best product we can every day.”

Looking down the road, or downstream, as the case may be, Orsmond said the company will never be among the giant players in this industry like Orvis, Sage, Winston, and others. But it can grow its share of the market, and he’s intent on doing so.

The company currently manufactures about 3,500 rods per year, and he predicts it can get to perhaps 15,000 in four or five years — and without sacrificing anything of its trademark quality.

“I think we can get a lot bigger; the thing is, though, you don’t want to grow things that quickly. You want to do it slowly but surely,” he said, borrowing the basic philosophy behind the company’s manufacturing techniques he mentioned earlier. “If we grow things out of proportion, we’ll find ourselves with a different set of problems.

“We want to take small steps, and the right steps, to get there,” he went on. “And the steps we’ve taken already show we’re going in the right direction. It’s all from the feedback we’re getting — one e-mail at a time, one fly rod at a time. It’s about making the right decisions and believing in our core values.”

Getting Hooked

Orsmond’s spacious office on the second floor of the non-descript building on Barton Road tells a good deal of the Thomas & Thomas story all by itself. Well, the wall art does, actually.

There are no mounted trophies here, and serious practitioners of fly fishing know why. “We don’t kill fish — we catch and release,” said Orsmond, using ‘we’ to mean himself and most all other enthusiasts.

There are, however, pictures of fish that have been caught and then released, including one of another giant trevally, this one landed by Orsmond in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. There are also some prized flies mounted within a frame, as well as a picture of Thomas Dorsey.

And then, there are two powerful pictures, on facing walls, which are simply portraits, if you will, of hands doing close work, presumably involved with making fly rods.

Collectively, this art speaks to what the company does, how it does it, and the lifestyle it is trying to preserve for future generations.

That’s a word Orsmond chose carefully and would use more than a few times in the course of this interview.

“This is not a sport, it’s a lifestyle,” he said of fly fishing before using one of many versions of a phrase used to drive home the point that one doesn’t actually have to catch any fish to enjoy this activity. “The beauty of it is why it’s such a perfect lifestyle; you’re always in a beautiful place fishing — there’s never an ugly place.

“Those who fly fish are responsible — they take care of the Earth,” he went on. “They like to spend their time outside; that’s who they are.”

He could have said more, but he decided to let Thomas Dorsey do some talking — at least through a promotional video the company uses (Thomas is mostly retired and was not available for this article).

And talk he did, about fly fishing — “I’ve always looked at it as an excuse to be in a beautiful place” — and about the art of making rods from bamboo. “It’s nothing really special until it’s made into something,” he said of that wood imported from China. “Any bamboo-rod maker does what he does out of passion.”

A strong desire to continue use of the present tense for such comments is the overriding reason why Orsmond said he bought the company. And he believes he and his team are no longer (to borrow yet another industry term) swimming upstream.

As evidence of this, he concluded his tour of the plant in what’s called the ‘bamboo room,’ and for obvious reasons.

There, Troy Jacques, who has been fashioning rods for more than 20 years, had work to keep him busy until well into next year.

He stopped just long enough to explain the long, slow, difficult process of gluing six slender slices of bamboo together to form the pieces for a bamboo rod.

Each rod takes roughly 60 hours to make, he noted, adding that he’s working on several at a time. There are some of what would be called standard production models, but most rods that go out the door are personalized in some way.

“A lot of customers like to add a little flair to the rod they’re buying,” he explained, such as the 10 he’s working on for one company that will bear the firm’s seal and customized components.

It is this craftsmanship and attention to detail that has set the company apart over the decades, said Orsmond, and these are still the defining qualities.

“We like to say that ours is the ‘rod you’ll eventually own’ — that’s our slogan,” he told BusinessWest. “By the time you’ve bought everyone else’s rod, you’ll say, ‘I really want a Thomas & Thomas.’”

This was true 47 years ago, and thanks to his efforts and those of a large supporting cast, in every sense of that phrase, it is true again.

The goal is to make ‘eventually’ come soon.

exocetrod

The Finish Line

Orsmond says, as one might expect, that one-piece bamboo rod he proudly displayed doesn’t exactly travel well. In fact, that’s how he came to possess it; the previous owner was frustrated with its lack of portability.

Therefore, he limits its use to local ponds and steams — anything he can drive to. Which means there’s not much of a limitation.

“We have all these great trout steams around us — the Deerfield River, the Swift River, and many more,” he explained. “So I can put it in the back of the car and go fish; I don’t have to go far at all.”

Such comments explain why Orsmond classifies his efforts as not merely those to preserve and grow a brand. Rather, they’re about preserving and maybe even enhancing that lifestyle he and others believe is endangered.

“We support the people who have the same beliefs that we do,” he explained, referring to organizations like Trout Unlimited and Jackson Hole One Fly, groups working for the benefit of fish and their habitats. “We don’t have much left … our grandchildren may not be able to fly fish for trout if we keep going the way we’re going.”

Such efforts constitute difficult work, especially given current trends and environmental concerns, but it’s certainly easier when there is passion involved.

That’s the word that has best defined Thomas & Thomas from the beginning, and Orsmond isn’t about to let that disappear from the landscape either.

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

Crumpin-Fox Owners Undertake Ambitious Investments

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Course of Action

Tim Van Epps

Tim Van Epps, seen here with the famous wooden fox positioned near the clubhouse, says the Sandri companies are “all in on golf.”

Tim Van Epps calls it the “race to the bottom.”

That was he was colorful way of describing the sum of what’s happening in the golfing industry, at least the public-access side of the equation. And maybe the private side, too.

Elaborating, he said that, in the face of a host of factors that have negatively impacted the golf business — everything from lingering effects from the recession to declining interest among younger generations to oversaturation of this region with courses — owners and operators have responded with gimmicks, special rates, and an inclination to cut corners, defer maintenance, and, in the process, jeopardize quality until fiscal conditions improve.

“It’s a tough industry now,” said Van Epps, president and CEO for the Sandri Companies, which has a number of business divisions, including golf. “During the boom days, the late ’90s and early 2000s, if you opened a course, people would come. It’s not like that now. You saw thousands of courses open across the country, flooding the market with opportunities for people to play. And then, the market crashed, and now you’re seeing more courses close in a year than new ones open. And most courses are just trying to get by.”

But Sandri is taking a much different approach to these challenging times. Indeed, rather than hunker down and join others in that race to the bottom, Sandri is going to make significant investments in its Crumpin-Fox layout in Bernardston, and instead commence a race to the top.

That would be the top of the list of golf courses in this region, he said, noting that there are, in fact, several such compilations, and the one he’s most interested in is Golf Digest’s list of the best courses in Massachusetts that anyone can play. (Private clubs are, by their very nature, courses that only members can play.)

To that end, the semi-private club is commencing what will likely be north of $5 million in improvements, everything from dramatic, yet strategic, thinning and clearing of the trees that line most fairways, to paving of the cart paths; from a new pavilion at the 19th hole (a.k.a.) Zeke’s Bar & Grill, to renovation of the bunkers; from a huge facelift for the practice area, to some aggressive pricing programs.

The immediate goal of all this work is to make the course more accessible, playable, and enjoyable, said John (Boo) Jackson, director of Golf for Sandri, who said all these initiatives come together in something the company is calling a ‘grow-the-game campaign.’

“We’re trying to get some younger faces out here,” he said, zeroing in one of the biggest challenges facing course owners today, “and infuse this place with energy, enthusiasm, and a just a welcoming attitude and approach.”

As just one example, he cited a Franklin County resident’s rate, which, as that name suggests, provides discounted greens fees ($45) to area residents, many of whom are mistakenly of the belief that this is either not a public-access course, or it is public, but way too expensive.

John (Boo) Jackson

John (Boo) Jackson says a ‘grow-the-game’ campaign at Crumpin-Fox is aimed at generating enthusiasm and maximizing the “experience.”

Meanwhile, children of those residents who are 12 and under can play for free, he went on, adding that growing the game is difficult given the current conditions, but doable if an operation can blend imagination with solid customer service and that welcoming attitude he described.

Overall, the aim is to grow all aspects of the business, meaning golf, outings, weddings, and more, including indoor golf (simulators) and even snowshoeing and cross-country skiing, said Van Epps, adding that steps taken recently under the grow-the-game umbrella triggered a solid second half to the 2016 season and solid optimism for next season and well beyond.

“We’re all in on golf,” he explained. “We’ve seen an incredible lift in the second half in rounds — and in the excitement that our golfers are experiencing. We’re getting a lot of first-timers, and overall, there’s been an energy surge here.”

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an indepth look at what’s happening at Crumpin-Fox, and, more importantly, why these investments are being made, and how this course of action can wind up changing the landscape in many ways.

Round Numbers

If you were paying attention — make that really paying attention — to golf equipment maker TaylorMade’s commercials aired during July’s PGA Championship and featuring Jason Day, you would have noticed that Crumpin-Fox was sharing the stage with the world’s number-one player.

Actually, several courses did, in an almost-subliminal way. The commercial is about planning and executing the many shots golf requires players to hit, and as he’s thinking about some of them — a high fade or a low cut, for example — Day, the defending PGA champion at the time, is picturing golf holes that require such execution. In addition to holes at Whistling Straits (where Day won the PGA in 2015), Chambers Bay (site of the 2015 U.S. Open), and others, the sixth, seventh, and eighth holes at Crumpin-Fox, the most famous and photogenic stretch on the course, makes an ever-so-brief, one-second cameo.

“The folks at TaylorMade were up here recently getting some drone footage of the course,” Van Epps explained. “They were round-tabling it, looking over footage of all these courses for the commercial, and the brass at TaylorMade came across Crumpin-Fox and said, ‘holy moly, this one of the most beautiful courses we’ve ever seen.’ And that’s how we wound up in the commercial.

“And people noticed,” he went on. “Even though it’s just a second or so, people who’ve played here could recognize those holes.”

The goal moving forward is to make Crumpin-Fox, well, front of mind, not for PGA professionals, necessarily, but for players who might already have played it, and those who have perhaps thought about it, but have yet to program ‘Parmenter Road, Bernardston, Mass.’ into their car’s GPS.

Scott Gilmore

Scott Gilmore says an aggressive tree-clearing and trimming project will make Crumpin-Fox more playable — and enjoyable.

‘The Crump,’ as it’s sometimes called, or ‘the Fox’ (another alias), has always been a popular destination since the original nine-hole track, designed by Roger Rulewich, was expanded to 18 holes in 1977, and business has been steady even in the difficult times of recent years, said Jackson.

But the goal of any business, even those in the golf industry at this challenging time, is to grow, said Sandri, adding that, unlike those competing (if that’s the word for it) in the race to the bottom, he wants to travel in the other direction. And storming to the top of the ‘best courses you can play’ list is merely one of the goals, albeit one with great significance when it comes to reaching the broader goal — to get more people to make that scenic drive down Parmenter Road, an assignment that has a number of components. They include:

• Making the course more playable, as noted earlier, by undertaking some much-needed maintenance and tree work;

• Upgrading facilities to improve play and the overall customer experience. Replacing dirt cart paths with paved routes definitely falls into this category, as do improvements to bunkers and tee boxes;

• Those special rates for young people. Special as in free to those under 12, an ambitious initiative designed to inspire younger generations to take up the game and become acquainted with, and probably enamored with, the Fox; and

• Greatly enlarging and improving the 19th hole and banquet areas, as well as the practice area — two of many steps being taken to generate more and longer stays at Crumpin-Fox.

Drive to the Top

Work on all this is already underway, and will greatly accelerate in the weeks to come, said Van Epps, adding that the course will close at the end of the month — just a few weeks ahead of the normal schedule — so crews can get to work.

A big focus early will be on tree trimming and clearing, said Course Superintendent Scott Gilmore, who is not a forester, or a golf-course designer, but can talk expertly on why taking trees down is not a bad thing — for the course, those who play it (that should be obvious), wildlife, or society in general.

“After 40 years, the trees are getting big, and they’re causing some problems,” he explained, noting that more than 5,000 or so will be taken down, and others will be cut back. “We need to push them back and give people the holes back.”

Indeed, much of the tree work has been long overdue, said Van Epps, noting that encroachment has impacted everything from shot selection to convenience.

“There are two fountains on the sixth hole that are now 12 feet into the woods,” he explained. “When we first opened, you could walk right up to those and get a drink of water; now, the deer are enjoying them.”

To get these points across, Gilmore pointed to the last 200 or so yards of the rugged par-4 18th hole, or that portion that can be seen off the back deck of Zeke’s.

There, trees are encroaching on the fairways, blocking great views of players coming down the final fairway (the Crump has hosted a number of tournaments over the years and has more, including a sectional qualifier for the U.S. Open, on the books for the coming years), and unnecessarily and even unfairly getting in the way of golf shots.

And the 18th is typical, he went on, adding that there are many holes where trees are too dense, too tight to the fairways, and overgrown to the point where they make shots more difficult than they should be given the original designs.

But the dense vegetation brings other problems as well, said Jackson, noting that, in the heavy underbrush and tightness of the fairways, one could easily lose a sleeve of balls (or two, or three, or four) playing 18 holes, which is expensive. Thus, players search hard for a ball before digging into the bag for another one, slowing the pace of play.

Eliminating and thinning trees brings many benefits, said Jackson, and they add up making the course more playable and enjoyable, which in turn leads to repeat business and positive testimonials.

But while golf is the main focus of the Sandri investments, the broader assignment is to make this more of a year-round destination, said Van Epps, and a growth business, like the many energy-related divisions of the corporation.

To that end, Crumpin-Fox is adding indoor golf simulators, and also laying track for a snowshoeing operation, one that will capitalize on an activity rapidly growing in popularity, especially among Baby Boomers searching for enjoyable, calorie-burning, outdoor activities.

“We have trails going in all throughout the course, and that presents options for a visit to Crumpin-Fox,” he explained. “If a couple comes up, and the husband likes to snowshoe and the wife likes to golf, he can rent some shoes, and she can play on the simulator.”

Longer-term plans call for building a lodge on the edge of the property, he went on, adding that the goal is to make Crumpin-Fox a true destination, and not just for those who wear hats that say ‘Titleist.’

Pinning Their Hopes

Looking over the golf landscape, Jackson theorized that many in the industry have used the economy as an excuse for falling play and declining revenues.

With more introspection, he surmised, they would see that fair to poor customer service, coupled with what he calls an unwelcoming attitude, has contributed to, and perhaps been the main culprit in, the current challenging times.

The Crump takes a different attitude in all respects, he said, adding that this is one of the many ways in which the club is setting itself apart.

While most of the rest of the industry is in a race to the bottom, the Sandri operation is driving for the top. It’s an aggressive, expensive course of action, but one that all those involved believe will pay dividends down the road — or down the fairway, as the case may be.

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

Public, Private Investments Boost Great Barrington

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Jennifer Tabakin

Jennifer Tabakin says Great Barrington wants to partner with a developer interested in a historic reuse of a former school in Housatonic Village.

Two years ago Christopher Rembold described investment in Great Barrington as a “rising wave.”

That surge has continued to gain force, and today Rembold says the wave has arrived, as major projects downtown come to fruition that were spurred in part by a $5.2 million renovation of Main Street that was finished this summer and includes new drainage, sidewalks, traffic signals, and landscaping.

“Recently permitted and planned private investment has totaled close to $70 million over the past year, and we’re seeing the type of growth we wanted to encourage,” said the town planner. “Many places talk about forming public-private investment partnerships, but it has actually happened here; there is a lot of activity going on and a lot of opportunity.”

He noted that the town’s goal has been to build a foundation for economic growth centered in its downtown area.

Now that the Main Street project is complete, Bridge Street will become the next focus, and a $2 million renovation will begin next spring, funded by a MassWorks grant that will replace crumbling sidewalks, improve poor drainage, and address deterioration not conducive to business.

In addition, the town and the Mass. Department of Transportation have partnered and will spend $2 million on the Bridge Street Bridge; plans are also progressing on a $9 million to $10 million upgrade of the sewer-treatment plant to accommodate investment and meet new environmental standards.

The work hasn’t been completed yet, but developers have already sprung into action, and a number of major projects on Bridge Street have been permitted (more about those later) that will preserve historic structures, retain the town’s charm, and add not only market rate and affordable housing, but new retail and office space.

Town officials attribute the willingness to invest in Great Barrington to a number of factors: its excellent schools, award-winning Fairview Hospital, two colleges, unique shops and eateries, abundant recreational opportunities, beautiful open space, and generations of families and business owners who have made it their home and care deeply about the community.

Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin told BusinessWest that all the private investments being made are by developers who live in Berkshire County and recognize the value of Great Barrington as the hub of South County.

“We’re a small town with a lot of amenities that you would only expect to find in a metropolitan area; we have an excellent school district and a significant number of theaters, yoga studios, and restaurants downtown,” Tabakin noted. “We also have historic architecture, unique local businesses, and a very active Chamber of Commerce that encompasses 13 communities. Many people come here to work, shop, eat, and enjoy our cultural activities. The number of people who work here every day is greater than the number of residents in town.”

Although growth has surged and is expected to be ongoing, officials note it has been carefully crafted and is in complete alignment with the town’s master plan, created several years ago to preserve Great Barrington’s small-town feel and charm while supporting investments centered around its downtown.

“One of the priorities of the master plan was to cluster new residential and commercial space in the center of town, which allows us to preserve open space in the surrounding rural and scenic areas,” said Tabakin. “We’re seeing that implemented, which is very exciting.”

Reuse of Historic Sites

Bridge Street will see new life in the coming years due to a number of new projects.

For example, Chrystal and Vijay Mahida plan a $25 million historic renovation of the former Searles School at 79 Bridge St. that will transform the four-story property into an 88-room, four-star hotel called the Berkshire, and create 30 new full-time jobs when it opens in 2018.

“We have a limited amount of hotel and conference space, and the new hotel will fill the gap while preserving the historic façade of the school, which is downtown and two minutes from our Town Hall and theaters,” Rembold said, adding that the couple lives in Great Barrington and own the Fairfield Marriott Hotel in town.

“It’s an excellent project because it will bring additional businesses into town, support existing and future businesses, and have a real fiscal impact due to the hotel and meal taxes it will generate,” he continued.

 

Many places talk about forming public-private investment partnerships, but it has actually happened here; there is a lot of activity going on and a lot of opportunity.”

 

Another major project at 100 Bridge St. will be built on a brownfields site that the Community Development Corp. has been working to clean up for two decades.

Nearly 50 units of affordable housing have been permitted on the eight-acre site, and there are plans to build a public park on two acres in a future phase of the project.

“Not only is there a real need for affordable housing here, there is support for it,” Rembold noted. “Some towns take a negative view, but Great Barrington has made affordable housing fit. We hope families will move into the new downtown units and be able to walk to work and the grocery store.”

Benchmark Development, based in Lenox, also has plans for a new project that will include the Great Barrington Co-Op Market at 42 Bridge St.

“The Co-Op has been busting at the seams for several years,” Rembold said, noting that the owners want to stay in town and will be the anchor tenant in the new, three-story building that Benchmark plans to erect. Their permit application is expected to be submitted this month.

“The project will allow us to retain jobs and create new ones,” he continued, adding that the co-op will be on the ground floor, retail shops will occupy the street floor (the land slopes), and 22 one- and two-bedroom apartment units will be built on the upper floor. A second phase of the project, which is not expected to kick off for about two years, could add 36 additional apartments, which would increase residential living spaces within walking distance of downtown.

“It’s a story of public investment in infrastructure that created a positive environment, which encouraged private investment,” Tabakin said.

Another major historic renovation recently permitted at 47 Railroad St. involves a $4 million renovation of the existing downtown building.

47 Railroad LLC plans to convert the former restaurant and bar on the first floor into three units of retail space, and build an addition in the back that will house two stores.

The second floor will become home to seven market-rate apartments, and the third floor will have five apartment units and a rooftop garden that will be accessible from the hallway.

Ancillary Growth

Housatonic is a small village within Great Barrington that is home to about 1,000 residents as well as the Monument Mills Complex that offers breathtaking views of the Housatonic River, Monument Mountain, and Flag Rock.

“The village is a historic gem, and all of the mills are partially occupied by businesses that are leaders in their field, such as Country Curtains,” Tabakin said.

But there is still space available, and the town is seeking a developer to partner with on an historic adaptive reuse of a three-story, 20,000-square-foot former elementary school with an adjacent parking lot in a way that will benefit the local economy.

“We hope it will become an anchor building that will spur further development in the mills,” Tabakin said, noting that businesses ranging from a dance studio to artists’ studios recently moved into the complex.

The town will continue to facilitate investment and has upgraded roads and passed new zoning that preserves the historic area while accommodating new, mixed-use development. In addition, Great Barrington recently received close to $2 million in grants to preserve the stock of affordable housing in the village and make more infrastructure improvements, and the state will begin rehabilitating the Park Street Bridge in coming weeks.

“We’re trying to set the stage for growth in Housatonic like we did in our downtown so it can blossom, and we are already seeing it happen on a smaller scale,” Rembold told BusinessWest.

To that end, a mill owner on the north side of the village is working to secure historic tax credits for a mixed-use development in the structure’s 250,000 square feet, and a historic church and old train station have become world-class recording studios.

“Housatonic is a very small, quiet area with historic charm and interesting architecture,” Tabakin said. “People have lived there for generations and care about the community.”

Historic Charm

Great Barrington officials are pleased that the growth that is occurring in their town aligns with what the community wants.

“People come to the Berkshires because of its beautiful scenery, so preserving it is important. But we also want to preserve history, which includes our buildings and downtown; they are reasons why people want to visit and live here,” Rembold said.

Tabakin concurred. “All of the ongoing projects are preserving and enhancing what is unique about Great Barrington. There was a lot of pent-up desire while people were waiting for Main Street to be finished, and building owners have been making improvements since it was finished.”

The Bridge Street public and private projects promise to generate another wave of enthusiasm, and as residents move into new housing, dine in new eateries, and shop in new retail stores, the tide can only continue to rise.

Great Barrington at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1761
Population: 7,014
Area: 45.2 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $14.60
Commercial Tax Rate: $14.60
Median Household Income: $45,149
Family Household Income: $75,238
Type of government: Open town meeting
Largest Employers: Fairview Dialysis Center; Fairview Hospital; Kutsher’s Sports Academy; Prairie Whale
Latest information available

Business Owner Wants to Help Others Grasp Virtual Reality

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Coming into Focus

BioFlight VR panel

BioFlight VR panel

Ed Zemba has quite a few memories from the huge trade show called VRLA, the world’s largest virtual and augmented reality expo, staged last spring, as the names suggests, in the City of Angels.

Most involve the technology itself and the large volumes of excitement generated about its seemingly limitless potential within the world of business. But he also can’t forget some of the comments directed his way when people found out his company, Robert Charles Photography, was based 3,000 miles to the east.

“One guy said, ‘hey, you’re two years early,’ or something to that effect,” said Zemba, who explained that this commentator was noting that the East Coast usually lags well behind the West Coast when it comes to technological breakthroughs of this kind, and was adding some pointed sarcasm and exaggeration (maybe) to the equation.

Zemba was somewhat taken aback by this, and said that such comments were repeated enough that he actually developed and refined a comeback of sorts.

“I said, ‘we do OK back east — wasn’t most of this technology developed at MIT?’” he recalled, adding that those who heard the line were mostly unimpressed and had a comeback of their own.

“One guy said, ‘yeah, OK, but what do the guys at MIT do when they develop the technology? They come out here to Silicon Valley, that’s what they do.’ They were tough,” he recalled, adding that this back and forth, coupled with the tremendously powerful displays of what VR and AR can do — and in some cases, are already doing — inspired him.

Ed Zemba says he created Link to VR to help business owners

Ed Zemba says he created Link to VR to help business owners understand this emerging technology and take full advantage of it.

To be more specific, the experiences inspired him to do what he could to make sure that, when it came to virtual reality and augmented reality, businesses in the 413 area code and beyond were not late (or much later) to the party when it comes to these technologies, as they are with so many other forms of innovation.

To that end, he partnered with several other business owners in the region to create a venture called Linked to VR, a name that pretty much says it all. Indeed, the company was created to help companies understand the vast potential of this technology — for everything from helping patients understand a medical procedure by transporting themselves (virtually, of course) into an organ or joint so they can see what’s wrong and what the doctor will do to fix it, to dramatically reducing the costs of training programs by curtailing or eliminating the need to travel — and then create a plan to put it to use.

“The earlier we can collectively get our heads around this, the better off we’re going to be,” he explained, using ‘we’ to mean business owners, but also educators, parents, and other constituencies. “We want to help people transition to the next platform and incorporate this technology into their business model.”

And this brings us to the Western Mass. Business Expo coming up Thursday (see the full guide to the show in the special section inside this issue). Indeed, Zemba, a huge supporter of the show going back to the ’90s, wanted this year’s edition of the event to become a vehicle for introducing VR and AR and putting its full potential on display.

And he has energetically worked with BusinessWest, producer of the Expo, to create a wide range of programming that will not simply allow attendees to be wowed by what they see when they put the goggles on (although that is a big part of it), but to enable them to fully understand how it can be applied to their business, and also how to get the ball rolling.

“I can remember that the business show was always a time to learn about new technology and new ways of doing business,” he explained. “That’s why this is the perfect forum for putting this technology on display and helping business owners get both hands around it.”

Learning — and doing — opportunities will come in several flavors, from so-called experience rooms, where Expo attendees can try out the Oculus Touch and see where this technology can take them (figuratively, but also from a business perspective), to an educational seminar called “Enterprise Virtual Reality: From Concept to Reality.”

Zemba, like others who have come to know and appreciate VR and AR, refers to this as “disruptive technology.”

That’s a technical term, and a business term, one that has come to define technology that displaces an existing technology and shakes up an industry — or several of them. Recent examples include the PC, cell phones, and e-mail. Others, from past decades, include the telephone, television, and jet travel.

Zemba knows a little about disruptive technology, because he’s seen it, from a business perspective, up close.

Indeed, digital photography certainly fits that description, he explained, adding that, when the technology exploded onto the scene in the ’90s, some could see what it was going to do, reacted, and took full advantage of it. Others, including established corporations, like Polaroid, were late to react or didn’t react at all, and paid a very steep price for their hesitation and arrogance.

“I saw some companies increase their sales exponentially, and I saw other companies go out of business,” he explained. “And what determined which direction you took was how you embraced the technology and how you prepared for it.”

The same will likely be true in many respects when it comes to virtual reality, he said, adding that it has vast potential to impact virtually every form of business, and especially healthcare and education.

“When I first saw this technology in use, I thought it was science fiction; I said, ‘we cannot be on that level yet,’” he recalled. “But it’s not science fiction. It’s real, and in many respects, it’s here.”

But not all people in business know that, or understand what it means, he went on, adding that three area businesses — Robert Charles, Del Padre Digital, and Tiger Web Designs, all in East Longmeadow — have come together to, as the name connotes, link businesses to VR.

“Most businesses have no real idea that this technology exists, or how to use it,” he noted, adding that this new venture was created specifically to do something about that.

And by link, Zemba means educating them about the technology and its practical applications, but also linking them (there’s that word again) with resources and potential partners. Like California-based BioflightVR, one of the leading-edge companies bringing VR to light — and to the boardroom.

Zemba told BusinessWest that the Western Mass. Business Expo, presented again by Comcast, represents an opportunity for Link to VR to bring its efforts to a new level and a new stage.

And they will make the most of that opportunity.

Indeed, in addition to the two ‘experience rooms’ at the MassMutual Center, Zemba and his partners have arranged for Rik Shorten, chief creative officer for BioflightVR, to deliver an educational seminar on the topic.

While Shorten, an Emmy winner for his work on CSI and a special-effects veteran who has been involved with a number of shows, will talk about the technology, he will put heavy emphasis on how businesses can harness it.

Going further, and as the title of his talk suggests, he will delve into how companies can conceptualize ways in which VR and AR can solve problems for them, and then how they can develop a pilot program for eventually putting the technology to use.

As they say in the entertainment business, these programs to take place at the Expo are certainly ‘must-see.’

For more information, peruse the guide in this issue and visit www.wmbexpo.com.

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

Expo to Offer Insight into Some New Business Language

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From VR to IT to UAV

wmassbusinesslogo2016

Rik Shorten has an Emmy for Best Visual Effects sitting on his mantel.

It’s certainly a great conversation starter, he told BusinessWest, and, obviously, a serious point of pride. Mostly, though, he considers it a symbol, or mark, of excellence and accomplishment.

“Am I good at what I do? Yeah … I’m good at what I do — that’s what it means to me,” he said of the award he earned in 2010, before joking, “it’s better to have one than to not have one, let me put it that way.”

Shorten and the team he worked beside earned this hardware through their work on the hugely popular TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. To be more specific, they created visually intense, computer-generated content for the program that enabled the viewer to get a unique, up-close look at some of the myriad ways someone can die.

“What happens when a bullet enters the body and macerates a liver? What does that look like to someone? How do you create a compelling visual to tell a medical narrative?” he asked while summarizing how his team answered those questions and, in so doing, created what he called “content with context.”

This is the same general theme that lies at the core of a new business venture he and several partners launched roughly 18 months ago. It’s called BioflightVR, and as that name suggests, it’s a venture created to help businesses and institutions make full and effective use of the emerging, and in many ways transformative, technologies known as virtual reality and augmented reality.

At present, much of the work and products being readied for the market are focused on the healthcare industry. They include everything from platforms that enable doctors-in-training to perform complex surgical procedures in a safe environment that replicates the operating room in every way, to another platform that allows a patient to get an inside look at his or her damaged shoulder, heart, knee, or kidney, and also at what the physician plans to do to repair it.

But the applications for VR and AR certainly extend to other industries, said Shorten during a phone call to his offices in California, adding that his talk at the Western Mass. Business Expo on Nov. 3 at the MassMutual Center is designed (like this article) to inform but also whet the appetite.

“I want to talk about the pain points in your business that this technology could potentially alleviate,” he said of the seminar, titled “Enterprise Virtual Reality: From Concept to Deployment.” “I want to get them warmed up to the idea of the technology, getting them thinking about it, and, if they have the desire, what are the first steps in putting a pilot project together.”

This seminar is only one part of an intense focus on VR at this year’s Expo. Indeed, visitors will get a unique and unforgettable opportunity to experience this technology hands-on (or goggles-on, to be more precise) at two demonstration rooms at the MassMutual Center.

These demonstrations will be led by Link to VR, a local company created with the purpose of helping companies learn about and benefit from the latest VR and related technologies (www.linktovr.com).

Those curious about Shorten’s talk need to be at the Show Floor Theater at the Expo at 12:45 p.m. Actually, they should probably arrive sooner to make sure they get a good seat.

And, in reality, they may want to get there soon after 9 and plan to spend the whole day there, because in addition to VR and AR, programming on the Show Floor Theater will introduce them to an array of different acronyms, words, and phrases that are shaping a new lexicon in business today.

These include ‘the cloud,’ ‘big data,’ PCI (personal credit-card information, specifically as it pertains to your computer system’s ability to keep it secure), and much, much more.

And the theater is only one of many quadrants on the show floor that will warrant the attention of those visiting the Expo. Indeed, the floor is massive, and there will be exhibiting businesses and programming in every corner and every row.

BusinessWest will break it all down in a comprehensive guide to the show that will appear in the Oct. 31 issue of the magazine. For now, here are some of the many highlights:

• Insight on Innovation: Let’s begin, well, at the beginning. That would be the Springfield Regional Chamber’s November breakfast, which has served as the traditional kick-off for the Expo. The keynote speaker will be Laura Masulis, currently serving as MassDevelopment’s transformative development fellow for the City of Homes. She’ll explain everything that goes into that role, what has been referred to by some as ‘Assignment: Springfield,’ and talk in-depth about the concept of innovation districts and ongoing efforts to develop one in the city.

• Exhibiting Businesses: After breakfast, around 9 a.m. or so, the ceremonial ribbon will be cut on the show floor. Attendees can then begin to visit exhibiting companies representing every sector of the local economy, including healthcare, education, financial services, technology, professional services, tourism, and more.

• A Survivor’s Story: The Boston Marathon bombing left Adrianne Haslet Davis scarred in many ways — she lost her left leg below the knee, for example. But it didn’t rob of her of her will, determination, and perseverance. And she would need all three. Indeed, she quickly rose to meet her daily challenges head-on with a unique perspective. Being a full-time professional ballroom dancer at the peak of her career, she had to learn an entirely new meaning of the word ‘patience.’ Haslet Davis will tell this story as the keynote speaker at the Expo lunch, to be staged by the Professional Women’s Chamber.

• Educational Seminars: From the outset, one of the missions driving Expo planners has been to ensure that visitors leave the MassMutual Center better informed, and therefore better able to grow their companies, than they were before they entered. And this year is no exception. Seminars will focus on three realms — Sales & Marketing, Business & Tech Trends, and the Multi-generational Workplace — and will cover a wide array of topics.

These include UAVs (yes, another acronym, this one short for unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones) and how to use them safely and legally, SEO (search-engine optimization), using video to market your company, developing and retaining talent, motivating Millennials, handling multiple generations in the workplace, big data, the cloud, and much more.

• The Workforce of Tomorrow: That’s the name given to a large space, or hub, on the show floor dedicated to the all-important issues of workforce development, closing the skills gap, and introducing young people to career opportunities, especially in the manufacturing and STEM fields. This hub will feature a number of the agencies dedicated to workforce development, seminars focused on workforce issues and challenges, presentations from area vocational and technical schools, and …

• Robots: Back by popular demand, robotics teams will be at the Expo to demonstrate their creations and help explain how robotics programs are inspiring interest in STEM careers. In a ‘battlefield’ within the Workforce of Tomorrow hub, teams will recreate the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition called FIRST STRONGHOLD. In this Game of Thrones-like contest, teams of robots are on a quest to breach their opponents’ fortifications, weaken their tower with boulders, and capture the opposing tower.

• A Focus on Entrepreneurship: In addition to all of the above, the Expo will put a special emphasis on the many efforts locally to inspire entrepreneurship and mentor startup companies.

To this end, the Expo will feature a program called “Where Are They Now?” It should be called “Where Are They Now, and How Did They Get Here?” but that would be too long a title. It would be an accurate title, though, because the program, led by BusinessWest Editor George O’Brien and Valley Venture Mentors co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer Paul Silva will feature a panel of VVM accelerator program participants. They will be asked about their efforts to grow their companies and take them to the next level, and the myriad challenges they’ve faced along the way.

Also, the Expo will feature more of the region’s startups in a pitch contest to be produced by SPARK Holyoke. Always a crowd favorite, the pitch competition gives teams a chance to hone their message and compete for prizes.

• Time to Socialize: The Expo will not be all acronyms, VR, fun, and games. There will be also be time to socialize. For starters, there will be an ice-cream social sponsored by MGM Springfield. And the day of activities will climax with the popular Expo Social, one of the best networking events of the year.

The Western Mass. Business Expo will again be presented by Comcast Business. Other sponsors include Express Employment Professionals, Health New England, the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, Johnson & Hill Staffing Services, MGM Springfield, Wild Apple Design, the Western Mass. Economic Development Council, Savage Arms, the Better Business Bureau, the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, and Smith & Wesson. The event’s media partners are WMAS, WHMP, and Rock 102/Laser 99.3. Additional sponsorship opportunities are available.

Exhibitor spaces are also available; booth prices start at $725. For more information on sponsorships or booth purchase, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100. For more Expo details as they emerge, visit www.wmbexpo.com.

Diverse Growth Enhances Easthampton’s Vitality

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Community Spotlight

Michael Sundell and Mayor Karen Cadieux

Michael Sundell and Mayor Karen Cadieux say the new Mill 180 Park is a unique venue that provides people with a place to relax, have fun, and enjoy nature free of charge.

It’s a park like no other.

To begin with, it’s inside an old mill building and filled with a seemingly endless array of large, leafy edible plants that are used to prepare foods in the open restaurant that sits in the park’s center. The plants are grown hydroponically, or without soil, and are nourished with lights and a special mineral solution.

There are spaces inside the park’s 14,000 square feet to suit every mood: private and communal seating areas, a mushroom house designed to be an enclosed area for meetings and other gatherings, an amphitheater built for lounging and conversation, and the multi-level Hamptonaeum, which park owner Michael Sundel says is a modern version of space set aside centuries ago by towns and cities to promote learning.

The park, which opened Sept. 7, has already put down roots in the community, and on a recent day families were enjoying the golf putting area, ring toss, bocce, and two cornhole games in a space where Sundel hopes to start cornhole leagues this winter.

To make things even better, the park is open seven days a week, there is no admission charge, and everything — except the food in the restaurant — is free.

Indeed, Mill 180 Park in Easthampton is a new concept and pilot that Sundel created to give children and adults a place to do things they would normally enjoy in an urban yard on a year-round basis.

“I wanted to give people the sense that they are in nature in a place that is educational, fun, and relaxing,” he told BusinessWest, adding that his background is in software and he hopes he can sell the idea and expand the park in the future.

It’s a quiet place filled with relaxing sounds, created through a process known as weatherbending; the sounds change constantly according to elements such as the local weather, the time of day and time of year, and the cycles of seeding, growing, maturing, and harvesting in the hydroponic gardens.

Visitors have been treated to live music on Friday nights, birthday parties have been held there, and so has a Democratic Committee meeting, among other meetings. And the park has applied for one of the eight new all-alcohol liquor licenses Easthampton has granted to stimulate business downtown and in the Mill District.

Mayor Karen Cadieux loves the park, has attended events in it, and sees it as an exciting addition to a multitude of projects that have been taking place in Easthampton.

“We are just buzzing with economic growth and have had eight ribbon-cuttings in the last month alone,” she said, noting that the grand-opening events took place at diverse businesses ranging from Mill 180 Park to a new club where people can play table tennis, an interior-design studio, an art studio, a laser and cosmetic-surgery center, and a manufacturing facility.

Some of the businesses are new ventures, others chose to move to the city, and still others changed their location within Easthampton because they needed room to expand.

But they all speak to the vitality of a city that has transformed its mills, created a thriving arts district, and become a destination, thanks to public and private investments and partnerships thoughtfully forged between the city and its business community.

For this edition, BusinessWest continues its Community Spotlight series with a look at what is happening in Easthampton and the factors that have led to what Cadieux calls “a whirlwind of economic activity.”

Reinventing Space

Developer Mike Michon, who is responsible for the revitalization of Mill 180, purchased it after deciding in 2008 to move his family to Western Mass.

They were living on the South Shore, and he looked at sites in Springfield and Holyoke before finding Mill 180, which he purchased largely due to its location.

“I did a demographic study before I moved here, met people in City Hall, and thought it was a nice place to do business. Everyone in town has been very supportive,” he said.

The mill was in really bad shape when he bought it, but the fact that it faces Mt. Tom and has a pond, bike path, and park behind it appealed to him.

“I thought it would be a great place for mixed-use development,” Michon said, adding that it took a year to put the deal together, but he found the city “very developer-friendly” as he obtained the permits needed to move forward.

Today, in addition to the new indoor park, Mill 180 is home to the Conway School of Landscape Architecture, a number of software and advertising companies, a machine shop, and an insurance company, all of which occupy the first two floors.

The mill’s third floor contains 24 high-end, market-rate apartments with beautiful views. The final units were completed in June, and although rents are as high as $2,400 per month, they were all pre-rented before they were finished.

Phase 3 of the six-mile section of the Manhan Rail Trail that runs through Easthampton behind the mills was recently completed and is expected to bring foot and vehicular traffic to tenants, include new breweries with outdoor patios facing the bike path, and all types of businesses.

Phase 3 included a new, 1.4 million-square-foot, lighted parking lot that runs behind all of the mill buildings; walkways that provide access from the bike path to the parking lot; and a retaining wall that separates the parking area from the rail trail.

Michon said the changes and new parking lot are a wonderful example of a very successful public-private venture that was funded by three major MassWorks grants.

Cadieux noted that the Pleasant Street Mills Project started with work by the city so the fire department could access the back of the building.

But it quickly morphed into a larger project: the mills were rezoned for mixed use, and the city worked closely with the Pleasant Street owners.

Michon played an important role, as he recognized in 2010 that more parking was needed, and after talking with legislators, he and another mill owner spent a significant amount of money upgrading their spaces.

The magnitude of the project also led Eversource (formerly WMECO) to upgrade the electric lines going into the buildings.

“It’s something they had not planned to do for 10 years, but they were inspired by the project and the fact that the mill owners invested money to do renovations at the same time,” Cadieux said.

Today, thanks to three substantial MassWorks grants, three of the revitalized, 19th-century brick mill buildings have been connected, there is a main public entryway behind them, and the expanded parking lot that ties the back of the mills to the Manhan Rail Trail, Lower Mill Pond, and CCC Park, on the other side of the rail trail behind the mills, was finally finished several weeks ago.

“It’s incredible to get grants for three years from the state, but it’s because of our success story,” Cadieux said. “It’s an example of state dollars put to use at their best.”

Diverse Growth

The majority of change taking place in Easthampton is occurring in the Mill District and the Cottage Street Cultural District, which was one of the first cultural districts approved by the state.

Cadieux said three grand openings were staged over the past month in the Keystone Mill Building at 122 Pleasant St., where ongoing renovations have been made to suit tenants.

Design House 413 Kitchen Showroom recently held a grand opening in the building, and so did New England Felting Supply and KW Home, which both moved from the former Majestic Theater building on Cottage Street because they needed room to expand.

Cadieux said the space they had occupied was filled immediately by Off the Map Tattoo, another Easthampton business which had outgrown its space, but wanted to stay in the city and was able to consolidate its operations under one roof in its new location at 82½ Cottage St.

“We were really excited that Off the Map found the space they needed because we didn’t want to lose the business,” Cadieux said, noting that, in addition to offering tattoos and tattoo removal, the business hosts guest artists, offers a wide array of special events and educational seminars, and has other locations in Colorado and Italy.

Another unusual new business — Zing! Table Tennis Club — also opened in the past few weeks in a 3,800-square-foot space at 122 Pleasant St.

Cadieux told BusinessWest that the ribbon cuttings are expected to continue, because an entirely new business is waiting to open in the Keystone Mill Building.

Easthampton officials approved a 27,000-square-foot medical-marijuana cultivation and dispensary/retail store in March that will be operated by Hampden County Care Facility Inc. and is expected to create 50 new jobs. At this point, the company is waiting for state approval to open.

However, the mills are not the only area where growth is occurring. A ribbon cutting was held several weeks ago at the Button Building on 123 Union St. when Dr. William Truswell, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon, moved his Aesthetic Laser & Cosmetic Surgery Center from Northampton to Easthampton.

“The Button Building was purchased several years ago by Five Star Building Corp., has been completely renovated, and is almost filled to capacity,” Cadieux said.

In addition, on Sept. 23, two artists opened Spot 22 in the Cottage Street Cultural District. Amy Johnquest, who makes custom-painted banners under the BannerQueen moniker, is sharing the space with photo dealer Stacy Waldman, who collects and sells vintage snapshots, photographs, and ephemera under the name House of Mirth, and the business is expected to bring a new element to the thriving area.

“We’re very lucky to be able to maintain our economic diversity,” Cadieux said.

She attributes the accelerated growth that has taken place in the city over the past few years to the single tax rate, the vibrancy of the community, and the unusually strong partnerships that exist between the city and its businesses.

But they have been carefully forged, and the mayor is doing all she can to facilitate growth.

For example, whenever a business is interested in moving to Easthampton she sets up a meeting with city officials, that include the fire and police chiefs, the city planner, a health agent, and representatives from the Building Commission and Department of Public Works, who sit down with the business owner and let them know what they need to do before they go in front of the regulatory board.

“It has worked out very well; businesses are attracted to a thriving community, and that’s what we are,” Cadieux said.

The city also updated its website several months ago, making it more user friendly as well as comprehensive, and published a Small Business Permitting Guide in June.

And in June, the mayor staged a so-called ‘Listening Session’ for the entire business community, and their concerns were taken into consideration in a review undertaken by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to determine if ordinances need to be changed to keep the city competitive with surrounding communities.

“I wanted to find out if we are over-regulated, under-regulated, and if we are really competitive,” Cadieux said, adding the report was just completed.

Moving Forward

Dramatic changes that have occurred in Easthampton in recent years include the revitalization of the mill area and the fact that the city has become a place known for the arts, thanks to Cottage Street’s designation by the Mass Cultural Council as a Cultural District.

“That area is thriving and filled with artists, restaurants, and businesses. We’ve been working on the downtown area for many years and it’s an amazing build out,” Cadieux said, noting the addition of three breweries and the $945,000 Nashawannuk Pond Promenade Park which was finished last year and boasts a boardwalk, three handicapped boat ramps, and an area for fishing, have made Easthampton a destination location.

“It’s all a continuum of how we have been rebuilding the community; there is so much going on here that it is difficult to focus on any one thing,” Cadieux said.

Which makes Mill 180 Park even more important, because it provides residents with an unusual place to relax, have fun and enjoy the beauty of nature — albeit, inside.

Easthampton at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1809
Population: 16,036
Area: 13.6 square miles
County: Hampshire
Residential Tax Rate: $15.59
Commercial Tax Rate: $15.59
Median Household Income: $57,134
Family Household Income: $78,281
Type of government: Mayor, City Council
Largest employers: Berry Plastics; Williston Northampton School; National Non Wovens; October Co.

* Latest information available

‘Sully’ Flight Survivors Embrace a Story That Lives On

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sully feature
Features

Plane Speaking

Jorge Morgado

Jorge Morgado says the saga of Flight 1549 has lived on well past the proverbial moment, through books, reunions, and, most recently, the movie Sully.

 

Jorge Morgado acknowledged that the words ‘based on a true story’ give film writers, directors, and producers a large degree of latitude when they’re telling a story.

Still, he went to one of the area’s first showings of Sully with the almost singular goal of seeing if Hollywood, and specifically Clint Eastwood, would get it right, meaning an accurate portrayal of the events of Jan. 15, 2009 and thereafter.

And he was pleased to report that — even though, for starters, his golf group of six that was such a significant part of the so-called ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ was reduced in size by half for this movie (and he wasn’t part of it) — they did.

At least when it comes to the part about the ditching of the plane and the subsequent rescue of all aboard.

“I thought they did a great job of telling the story without exaggerating,” said Morgado, vice president of Baystate Rug & Flooring in East Longmeadow and Chicopee. “I went to see if they would add ‘Hollywood’ to it, and for the most part, they didn’t.”

Jim Stefanik, who is one of the three written into the script, agreed, while noting, as one might expect, that it is quite the experience to see an actor, in this case, Max Adler (Glee, Love and Honor), play you in a movie and see his name next to yours as the credits roll.

“It’s definitely weird, and that’s been one of the more interesting things about this whole experience,” he said, adding quickly that Adler looks nothing like him and is almost a foot taller, but he doesn’t mind Hollywood taking those liberties.

“I’m five foot, five, and he’s about 6’4,” Stefanik, the former golf pro turned Chicopee firefighter, explained with a laugh, adding that it’s certainly difficult to describe the sensation of watching a movie depicting a scene from your life, and he has struggled with that assignment.

The simple exercise of trying to articulate these experiences explains how Sully has in some ways put the six golfers, all from Western Mass., back in the spotlight, even though some have kept a very low profile for years now and have every intention of keeping it that way.

And it also helps explain how a story like this lives on long after the proverbial ‘moment’ — in this case, it was literally only 10 or 12 minutes — is over. Indeed, there have been books, reunions, consistent contact on social media among the passengers, a gathering when the now-famous Airbus A320 was moved into a museum in North Carolina a few years ago, and other happenings to keep the story in plain view.

But in most respects, keeping this saga front and center hasn’t been a burden, emotionally or otherwise, because it is in many ways different from other newscast-leading events in recent years, many of them also turned into movies (Deepwater Horizon is now in theaters, for example, and there are two films on the Boston Marathon bombing now in production).

Indeed, this is a feel-good saga in about every way imaginable, one where no one can be described with the word ‘victim’ — except maybe in reference to an unyielding media blitzkrieg, as we’ll see later. There were no fatalities, only one serious injury (to a flight attendant), no real blame to be laid, and hardly a hint of controversy, although, according to many accounts, Eastwood felt the necessity to create some.

And when we all survived … from then to now, I think I realize just how good I have it. I think I appreciate it more than I would if I wasn’t on that plane that day.”

Specifically, in the film, National Transportation Safety Board officials make the case that the pilots could have flown the plane back to LaGuardia Airport instead of ditching in the Hudson River, but Morgado says he’s heard rumors that the NTSB is not at all happy with this depiction of events.

No, the story of Flight 1549 has a happy ending in seemingly all ways, and that’s why Morgado, Stefanik, and Dave Carlos didn’t mind going over all this ground one more time nearly eight years after they were unwittingly thrust into the spotlight.

“When people ask me, I say this whole experience was a blessing in disguise,” said Carlos, chair of the Math Department at Springfield’s Central High, soon to open his own business on the side, a pizza shop. “I have an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old, and the 6-year-old wasn’t born when this happened. When Sully said ‘brace for impact,’ what I thought about was not being able to see my daughter and what she looked like, and not being able to see my son again or my family again.

“And when we all survived … from then to now, I think I realize just how good I have it,” he went on. “I think I appreciate it more than I would if I wasn’t on that plane that day.”

For this issue, the three talked about that fateful day in January — again — but mostly about what’s happened since, and how events of this nature can change someone’s life in ways that couldn’t be imagined.

Last-ditch Efforts

“It was like sneakers in a clothes dryer.”

That’s how Morgado chose to describe the sound of a flock of geese getting in the way of the engines on both sides of the Airbus he and his golfing buddies were scattered throughout. Only no one actually knew that this is what it was.

All that would soon become apparent is that something was clearly wrong, he recalled, adding that the cabin, which he was near the front of (window seat, row 5 in coach) was soon filling with smoke.

“The cabin started shaking and it smelled like burnt bird —   you could tell something was wrong,” he said, adding that, like all those around him, he spent the next few minutes trying to simply absorb what was happening around him.

Backing up a little — kind of like a movie flashing back several hours — Morgado said he and the rest of his golf party were not supposed to be on this flight. Instead, they had chosen to fly on Spirit Airlines for their regular winter-season trip to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. But that Thursday morning came up white, and the light show was enough to ground smaller planes, but not larger airliners.

So Morgado and his companions — Stefanik,  Carlos, Rick Delisle, Rob Kolodjay, and Jeff Kolodjay— would secure the last six tickets for US Airways Flight 1549, a number that, like most everything else about this story, no one will ever forget.

Returning to that moment when Morgado heard the sneakers in the dryer, he said that noise, which occurred only a few minutes after the plane lifted off LaGuardia’s runway, was followed by general silence. There was nothing, he said, until the man the world would soon come to call by his nickname said those words have become so famous — “This is the captain; brace for impact.”

By the time those words came, though, passengers could see that the plane was out over the Hudson and ever closer to the water, said Carlos, adding that stewardesses began saying the phrase that would come to dominate the movie trailer: “heads down … brace yourselves.” And as much as the words themselves, it was what he thought they meant that has stayed with him all these years.

“They kept chanting it over and over again,” he recalled, that it was an agonizing, terror-filled three minutes before the plane actually hit the water. “I kept thinking, ‘is this the last thing I’m going to hear? This is awful.’”

Eventually, although very quickly, it seems — “you were just in survival mode,” said Morgado — passengers made their way out of the aircraft, with most of them winding up on the wings, as captured in those iconic photographs, one of which now graces the wall of his office at the Chicopee location. What those pictures don’t effectively convey is how quickly the plane began to settle into the icy Hudson.

“When I stepped onto the wing, the water was only ankle-deep, but by the time the boats came, I was waist-deep in water — the plane was sinking pretty quickly,” said Morgado, adding that, while he was having a hard time comprehending and coping with all that was going on around him, he still had the presence of mind to keep his cell phone dry.

Because he did, he got his first real taste of how immediate, intense, and sometimes infuriating the media assault on Flight 1549 and everyone involved with it that day would be.

“I called my wife to tell her I was in a plane crash; she didn’t even know I was on that plane,” he explained. “I said, ‘I’m OK; I’ll call you when I get on dry land.’ I then hung up, and she turned on the TV to see what was going on.

“She later called and said that, just after I hung up, the home phone started ringing off the hook — it was all these New York and Boston media people calling,” he went on. “She remembers talking to Diane Sawyer’s producer, who said, ‘let me know where your husband is; we know he’s asthmatic, and we’ll get him treatment.’ They knew my medical history, and I was still standing on the wing of that plane. That was how quick they were able to get my information and get to my house. They were all out to get a story.”

Overall, Carlos, who joked that he wasn’t written out of the script, he just wasn’t written into it, said the movie made the rescue appear easier and less traumatic than it actually was.

“In the movie, the rescue seemed very nonchalant; they made it look easy to just climb on those boats and get out of there, that everything was just standing still,” he noted. “In real life, we were floating down the Hudson; the plane was moving, the boats were moving, the hulls of the boats were 15 to 20 feet above the water, not the five feet like they depict in the movie.”

Wing and a Prayer

Fast-forwarding a little, Morgado and the others said what happened on the Hudson was certainly just the first chapter in this story. Others involve what happened after they returned to dry land and, later, their families, their businesses, and other facets of their lives.

Highlights, and there are many, include:

• Morgado being told that media members had snuck into his office in pursuit of … whatever, and wound up taking photos of pictures of his children and printing them (that’s a lowlight, actually);

• Getting to go on that Myrtle Beach trip eventually, with the Golf Channel in tow to record the occasion, and with new equipment and bags courtesy of Titleist, which wanted its name omnipresent during this outing, and succeeding with that goal (Morgado remembers the dozens of courses at Myrtle vying hard for the privilege of hosting them);

• Taking part in the book Miracle on the Hudson, featuring passengers telling their stories (Morgado leads off a chapter titled “Night in New York” talking about his phone call to his wife while out on the wing); and

• Relaying the story untold times to family members, friends, business customers, fellow Rotarians, and, yes, the media, a broad constituency (we’ll include TV talk-show hosts) that induced a wide range of emotions from those we spoke with — everything from fascination to incredulity.

Indeed, beyond his aforementioned experience on the wing, Morgado related another episode involving the fifth estate in the book Miracle on the Hudson.

As he relates the story, the six golfers were due to appear on the Today show the morning after the crash and rescue. They were to meet the show’s producer in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza hotel, and were told specifically by him not to leave the lobby, because competing networks, positioned outside with their own vans, would essentially hijack the story.

“It was insane,” said Stefanik of the media coverage, in terms of its depth and voracity. “They kept trying to find out everything they could about you; they were calling my mother-in-law, my mother, all in pursuit of a story. They can find out anything about you that they want.”

The movie Sully has brought the media back, but not with anything approaching the ferocity witnessed in the weeks and months after the crash. Overall, the film has simply brought some new questions to be answered — everything from ‘how accurate was it?’ (perhaps the most common query) to ‘how did Tom Hanks do in the title role?’

“He was incredible as Sully,” said Morgado while answering the latter. “He captured him perfectly.”

And while that same adjective probably can’t be used for the sum of the film and its attention to accuracy, said those we spoke with, it does an adequate job of capturing the heart of the story — the courage and skill of the pilots.

Roll the Credits

Spoiler alert: Morgado said Sully starts off in an intriguing way — by showing what might have happened if Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles hadn’t pulled off the miracle on the Hudson (let’s leave it at that).

The powerful footage has to leave audience members, not to mention survivors like Morgado, Stefanik, and Carlos, more cognizant of how lucky everyone was that day.

Carlos enjoyed and appreciated the movie, but didn’t really need it to appreciate his good fortune and remember never to take anything for granted.

“The incident helped open my eyes to things, and it’s enabled me to enjoy what I have more than I used to,” he told BusinessWest.

This is a sentiment that — like the story of Flight 1549 itself — lives on well past the moments that made history.

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

Nominations Sought for Difference Makers Class of 2017

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Features

Building on a Legacy

BizDiffMakrsLOGO2011

It was a moment — actually, several moments — that no one in attendance would soon, if ever, forget.

David and Marisa Balise had moved to the microphone at the Log Cabin Banquet & Meeting House to offer reflections on how their father, Mike, who had succumbed to stomach cancer just a few months earlier, had lived a life dedicated to family, the New England Patriots, and philanthropy.

“It was a special moment for everyone,” said BusinessWest Associate Publisher Kate Campiti. “Several people had already talked about Mike’s contributions to the community and the myriad ways he gave back, but no one did it in a more powerful, more thought-provoking way than his own children.”

There were a number of powerful moments at the Difference Makers celebration staged last March, such as the introduction of retiring Hampden County Sheriff Michael Ashe, which was punctuated by a rousing standing ovation from those in attendance, including many members of the area’s law-enforcement community. And then, there was the tribute to Bay Path University President Carol Leary, marked by the passage “no one has been a more effective, more impactful, and more important leader for their organization.”

There have been countless other memories like these since BusinessWest inaugurated its Difference Makers recognition program eight years ago. And now, it’s time to begin the process of making some more.

Indeed, nominations (HERE) are now being sought for the class of 2017, members of which will be feted at the Log Cabin late next March.

Nominations, which must be submitted to BusinessWest by Nov. 16, should, in very simple terms, explain why the individual or group in question is a Difference Maker within the community called Western Mass.

And as the list that follows reveals, there are many ways to fit that description. Last year’s class of honorees, which also includes Big Brothers Big Sisters and John Robison, president of Robison Service and advocate for individuals on the autism spectrum, provides ample evidence of this. But over the years, those honored include other college presidents, leaders of a host of nonprofits, and business leaders known as much for what they do within the community as for their respective companies.

“We chose that name ‘Difference Makers’ for a reason,” said Campiti.  “It speaks to what these groups and individuals do, of course, but it doesn’t put any limitations on how those words can be interpreted.

“As we’ve seen over the years, there are countless ways to make a difference,” she went on. “The common denominator is that these individuals and and groups make this region a better place to live, work, and conduct business.”

Submissions will be reviewed by the team at BusinessWest, with the class of 2017 to be introduced in late January.

Details on the March Difference Makers celebration will be presented in upcoming issues of the magazine.

For the record, go HERE for a list of previous honorees.

 

Western Mass. Business Expo Will Focus on the Future

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Features

Moving Forward

wmassbusinesslogo2016

Workforce development and entrepreneurship.

Many issues, developments, trends, and concerns have come to the forefront — and dominated the headlines in BusinessWest — in recent years, but none more than these two.

Virtually every business sector and individual company in the region is faced with the considerable challenges of closing the skills gap, replacing the retiring Baby Boomers, and coping with multiple generations in the same office or manufacturing floor.

Meanwhile, the region is seeing a surge in entrepreneurial energy that is helping startups get off the runway, climb to a cruising altitude, or pick up needed speed on their way to a desired destination.

Thus, the floor of the Western Mass. Business Expo on Nov. 3 will, among other things, put these intriguing developments into sharp focus.

Of course, there will be plenty of other things to occupy the time and imagination of Expo-goers, from breakfast and lunch programs to educational programming on sales and marketing, tech trends, Big Data, and other topics; more than 100 exhibitors; and the day-capping Expo social, one of the best networking events of the year.

“This will be a day packed with activity from start to finish,” said Kate Campiti, associate publisher at BusinessWest, which is now in its sixth year of producing the Expo. “Business owners and managers need to circle Nov. 3 on their calendars and clear whatever was on for the date so they can spend the day at the MassMutual Center.”

But now, back to the future — as in the future of the region’s workforce and the future of the area’s business community and some of the companies that may shape it. These will be two of the main focal points of the Expo.

It’s called the Workforce of Tomorrow Hub, and that name speaks volumes about what will take shape on this large segment of the Expo show floor.

The Hub will be, well, a hub, with activity all morning and afternoon. It will include everything from robotics demonstrations and training initiatives involving area vocational and technical high schools to booths featuring businesses and agencies focused on workforce development, to a seminar series focused on today’s multi-generational workforce.

Individual seminars will focus on the art and science of recruiting, training, and retaining top talent; motivating the Millennial generation; methods for getting the four generations at work today to function cohesively, and much more.

“Every business is struggling to attract and retain top talent; the skills gap is a formidable challenge,” said Campiti. “The Expo will bring together experts on the subject of workforce development to offer timely and invaluable insight into how to build, maintain, and maximize a company’s best asset — its workforce.”

Meanwhile, in other corners of the show floor, the focus will be on entrepreneurship and various initiatives taking place across the region.

Programming includes a panel discussion on ongoing efforts to build and refine an entrepreneurial ecosystem, a ‘where are they now’ panel featuring several high-profile participants in Valley Venture Mentors’ accelerator program, and a pitch contest, conducted by SPARK Holyoke, featuring several area startups.

“The efforts to stimulate entrepreneurship and mentor startups is one of the most important components of the region’s economic-development strategy,” said Campiti. “The Expo will shine a light on these efforts, while also providing attendees an opportunity to meet and hear about some of the entrepreneurs they’ve read and heard so much about.”

The Western Mass. Business Expo will again be presented by Comcast Business. Other sponsors include Express Employment Professionals, Health New England, the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, Johnson & Hill Staffing Services, MGM Springfield, Wild Apple Design, the Western Mass. Economic Development Council, Savage Arms, the Better Business Bureau, and the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County. The event’s media partners are WMAS, WHMP, and Rock 102/Laser 99.3. Additional sponsorship opportunities are available.

Exhibitor spaces are also available; booth prices start at $725. For more information on sponsorships or booth purchase, call (413) 781-8600, ext. 100. For more details, go HERE

Westfield Development Being Whipped into Shape

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

 

Kate Phelon and Joe Mitchell

Kate Phelon and Joe Mitchell say the new Pioneer Valley Transportation Authority Intermodal Center will add to the revitalization of downtown and the Gaslight District when it opens next March.

Joe Mitchell says critical components of the Elm Street Urban Renewal Plan that was approved in 2013 by the state and Westfield City Council are finally coming to fruition.

“The plan is something that had been considered in one form or another for the past 20 years, but we’re finally making tangible and visible progress,” said the city’s advancement officer.

The plan is focused on revitalizing 4.88 acres in a two-block area in the heart of downtown Westfield that runs along both sides of Elm Street, which is the main commercial thoroughfare. There has also been a major effort made to revitalize the Gaslight District adjacent to it.

The efforts are critical because neglect and disinvestment has plagued the downtown area since 1986 when a fire destroyed the J.J. Newberry Department Store on the west side of Elm Street. Over the years, there were several attempts to redevelop the parcel and adjacent sites, but they failed, and additional buildings were vacated or torn down.

But the scene is changing rapidly. The city has spent $6 million over three construction seasons on infrastructure improvements to make the area attractive to shoppers and people dealing with area businesses.

In addition, the City Council recently allocated $509,000 to Westfield Redevelopment Authority to purchase four parcels that adjoin the new Pioneer Valley Transportation Authority’s Intermodal Center in the Gaslight District. The funds will also pay to demolish an old bowling alley on one of the sites, as well as legal fees associated with the purchases.

When that is done, a request for proposals will be issued for the construction of a four- to six-story, multi-use building on Elm Street. The first floor of the building will have space for retail establishments and a restaurant, while the upper floors will contain office space and market-rate housing. The final phase of the project will involve construction of a smart parking lot near the building, which is part of the Urban Renewal Plan.

The Gaslight District has also undergone dramatic change, and Kate Phelon, executive director of the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce, took BusinessWest on a tour of the district, where she pointed out new pillars with the words ‘Gaslight District’ engraved on them, new sidewalks, lighting, signage, reconfigured parking lots that contain islands with trees and brightly colored plantings, and pocket parks with fountains, large concrete planters, and other streetscape enhancements that are expected to be finished before winter hits.

Mitchell said business owners are taking more interest in their properties as a result of the enhanced infrastructure. “In the past, they didn’t have any incentive to make improvements because the area was blighted, but the Urban Renewal Plan is expected to increase property values and encourage investment.”

Construction on the new, $6.6 million PVTA Intermodal Center is also underway, and when it opens next March, it is expected to increase the use of public transportation and spawn related economic development. The state-of-the-art center will include parking space for four buses with bicycle racks, as well as a bicycle-repair station, which are important because the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail is only a block away.

Phase I of the rail trail has been completed, and Phase II will be finished next June, but at this point, bicyclists can access the trail from Main Street and ride all the way to New Haven, Conn.

However, it’s a complex project because the elevated, 3.5-mile trail will cross seven bridges when it is finished.

“But the economic impact will be significant; we expect tens of thousands of travelers to use it, including cyclists on multi-day trips and organizations that plan bicycling vacations,” Phelon said. “Retail stores and eateries will benefit, and the area will become a perfect spot for bed-and-breakfast operations.”

She added that the city has joined forces with Don Podalski of Horizon Sports to get funding for bicycle racks in the shape of black squirrels installed throughout the area. (Westfield is known for its large population of the rodents.)

Mitchell said the PVTA design team incorporated infrastructure elements and materials that are identical to the Gaslight District accents, such as matching pavers and lampposts that will make the revitalization of both areas appear seamless.

Indeed, the city and chamber are both on an upward trajectory in terms of growth and have a number of other projects on the drawing board to help existing businesses, attract new ones to Whip City, and advance workforce-development efforts.

Broad Base of Expansion

A ribbon cutting was staged Sept. 20 for a new, $6 million solar farm at 219 Russell Road that was developed by ConEdison and sold to Westfield Gas & Electric.

The new facility, which features 8,864 solar panels and is capable of producing 3 megawatts of power that will be consumed by the community, is set on 10 reclaimed acres of a 30-acre site that was a former sand pit and dumping ground for construction debris.

Mitchell said the city worked to help make the project possible by providing a 20-year tax incentive; ConEdison will pay Westfield $10,000 a year for the first 10 years of operation, then pay $26,000 a year for the following 10 years in lieu of taxes.

The property was once home to Kohls Construction Co., but had been vacant for 10 years and contained environmental hazards due to construction debris.

“The solar farm is a win-win for an underutilized piece of real estate,” Mitchell said, adding that it allowed a former liability to be turned into an asset.

Another ribbon cutting was held the week before at Prolamina Corp., a division of ProAmpad that manufactures packaging for the food and medical industries, including individual sugar packets.

“The 31,000-square-foot expansion allowed them to keep 256 jobs in Westfield,” Mitchell said, adding that another special tax agreement was formed to make the expansion possible, which included signing a new, 20-year lease with the landlord, and adding $2.9 million of state-of-the-art equipment, which will lead to 12 new jobs.

“Every city wants to grow, but we’re looking at smart growth that fits in well with the community,” he noted, explaining that Westfield is the third-largest municipality in the state in terms of geography, and is a gateway city composed of urban, industrial, residential, and agricultural sections.

“We’re at the intersection of the Mass Pike and Interstate 91, have rail service, and are home to Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport, which we see as an economic engine for the city,” he continued.

Westfield has a 66-acre industrial park and is in the process of creating a second industrial park on city-owned land adjacent to Barnes Regional Airport.

“We’re doing permitting activities to advance it to a shovel-ready site,” Mitchell said, explaining that he receives two to three phone calls every week from people looking for buildings or land to build on, and since the city doesn’t have a large inventory of buildable industrial land, the new, 40-acre industrial park will provide property developers and large companies with the space they are seeking in the Whip City.

Mitchell says it would be an ideal site for industrial or aviation tenants, but at present, city officials are working with the state’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program to determine if there is sensitive habitat on the property.

In addition, many businesses are expanding. Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., which is a unit of Virginia-based General Dynamics, has completed a $23 million expansion in Westfield Industrial Park, which will lead to the creation of more than 100 new jobs.

Meanwhile, Jarvis Surgical is planning to almost double the size of its facility, and Advance Manufacturing and Tell Tool number among the city’s precision manufacturers that have expanded or have plans to do so.

Coordinated Efforts

Phelon has worked hard to retain and grow the number of businesses who are members of the chamber of commerce. Although she says this is a problem that every chamber faces, the executive director has taken a proactive stance to help members and work with the city to support them.

For example, Phelon and Westfield Public School Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski have met numerous times to discuss workforce-development initiatives and a gap in technical skills noted by chamber members.

The former Westfield Technical Academy principal, who was named superintendent in July, wants to develop a task force composed of representatives from each school as well as business leaders, who would work together to identify areas where collaboration can take place.

Czaporowski said many businesses already participate in a cooperative education program at Westfield Technical Academy, which allows 60 seniors to alternate a week of academics with a week of internship at local firms, but he would like to expand programs for middle- and high-school students that would allow them to get an inside look at how businesses operate and gain real-world experiences.

He noted that 38% of students from the academy go directly into the workforce after graduation, while 7% of students from the high school choose that path.

“The task force will allow us to find out what schools need to do to prepare students to work in local businesses,” he said.

Phelon said the idea has generated enthusiasm and endless possibilities. “If we can keep the dialogue going, our businesses and our school department can help each other,” she told BusinessWest, adding that the academy was recently named one of three high schools in the country that have a program certified by the Federal Aviation Assoc. Gulfstream donated $200,000 to advance the school’s airframe and power-plant program several years ago, and recently donated an additional $100,000.

Gov. Charlie Baker recently appointed Phelon a member of the Mass Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, which is a statewide initiative aimed at increasing advanced manufacturing in the Commonwealth.

“Westfield has more than 40 manufacturing companies, and I’m excited to do my part to keep the initiative moving forward so we can remain competitive globally,” she said.

Phelon also just completed the first four-year Institute of Management program for executives who run nonprofit organizations, which will increase her skill base and help her to develop programs to benefit membership in the chamber by increasing its value.

To that end, the Greater Westfield Chamber has already begun implementing practices identified in a Horizon Initiative: Chambers 2025 report.

The chamber’s 2017 calendar has two new dinners, but two fewer breakfasts, and the board of directors now meets quarterly instead of nine times a year.

“We realize that people’s time is valuable, and although the board sets policies, much of the work has shifted to committees,” Phelon explained.

In addition, there is no longer a charge for members to attend After 5 networking events, and the number of them has increased: one will be added in December, and two will be held for the first time next summer.

The chamber also plans to work with the city on the Shop Small American Express Small Business Saturday event, which is held on the last Saturday of November.

Phelon has been named a Neighborhood Champion each year, and as a result, small participating businesses will receive free doormats, shopping bags, balloons, banners, bandannas for animals, and pins to give out.

“Our tagline used to be ‘To Inform, Educate, and Advocate,’ but we have changed it to ‘We Focus on the Most Important Economy. Yours,’” Phelon noted. “We want to be viable, valuable, and vibrant in the year 2025.”

Promising Future

Real progress is taking place in the Whip City, and efforts to promote the growth of new businesses as well as the success of existing ones will continue.

“We’re on the cusp of great change, and the potential for the future is unlimited,” Phelon said, adding that Westfield is great place to live, work, and play.

Mitchell agreed. “Westfield has a bright future. We have many resources and attributes that are attractive to businesses as well as residents, and expanding our industrial base will help to keep the local economy vibrant,” he said.

All this has involved a tremendous amount of time and effort that is finally resulting in concrete change.

Enfield Attracts New Warehousing, Distribution

By
Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Peter Bryanton

Peter Bryanton says aggressive marketing efforts led to the speedy purchase of a large distribution center and development of plans for its reuse.

Last spring, Enfield officials were notified that the Hallmark Cards distribution center was consolidating its operations and planned to move to Kansas City, Mo. within a year.

Not only did that mean a loss of 500 jobs locally, but it left a huge footprint to fill. Indeed, the property on 25 Bacon Road contained a 1.1 million-square-foot building and three parcels totaling 324 acres in the northeast quadrant of town, which would be expensive to maintain and keep secure if the property was left vacant.

Hallmark asked for the town’s help in marketing the property, which was immediately granted, and after a tour, Community Development Director Peter Bryanton worked in collaboration with the broker on an aggressive marketing plan that proved so successful, it resulted in a bidding war.

WE 25 Bacon Road LLC, which was set up through Winstanley Enterprises LLC in Concord, purchased the site in June for $12 million, and its ambitious plans for the property are already underway.

Hallmark moved its operations at the end of June, and Winstanley has begun the first of a three-phase renovation plan that includes creating space for two Fortune 500 companies from outside Connecticut who are consolidating their operations and are expected to move in by the end of December.

“We couldn’t have asked for anything better,” Bryanton said, adding that phase I is expected to cost more than $7.5 million and will bring at least 90 full-time jobs to the town, while phase II will cost $12 to $14 million.

Director of Planning Roger O’Brien noted that a property at 80 Shaker Road known as the Parker Building, which was used primarily for industrial storage, also received multiple bids in the last month.

“The commercial-industrial market here has become very active over the last year,” he said, adding that he initially was working with a company in the industrial park who wanted to put on an addition and was interested in the site. But it was purchased by Camerota Truck Parts, which will gain enough space to double in size when it moves from its current location on Shaker Road.

A number of other sites that sat empty for years were also recently filled, and the town is definitely on an upswing in terms of economic growth and development.

Bryanton attributes this surge to several factors. The first is the town’s location; it sits along the I-91 corridor that connects Springfield to Hartford and New Haven. The second is the comparatively attractive price of land that has good access to rail and highway transportation, and the third is the fact that the economy is rebounding.

“Winstanley told us the Springfield-New Haven corridor has become a distribution center for the Northeast,” Bryanton said, noting that Amazon built and opened its first new England distribution center in Windsor last June, containing 1.3 million square feet, and Dollar Tree built a new, $104 million distribution facility in that town several years ago.

Meanwhile, the former Hallmark distribution site in Enfield has seemingly unlimited potential.

“When Winstanley heard the property was being vacated, they launched into action very quickly and did a thorough examination of the site and how it relates to their business model,” said Valarie Ferro, principal of Good Earth Advisors and development advisor to Winstanley Enterprises.

“It’s truly a signature property that grabs people’s attention, and they liked the fact that Enfield is positioned on the I-91 corridor with proximity to regional markets in Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as its position between Boston and New York,” she continued, adding that the property was industrially zoned and already set up for warehousing and distribution, which is one of the areas Winstanley concentrates on developing.

For this edition, BusinessWest looks at the work that is planned for the site as well as other developments that have brought new life to Enfield in the past year and filled the majority of its empty commercial and industrial spaces.

Surge in Growth

Ferro said Winstanley has the right posture, sources of equity, and technical capacity to execute the plans for the former Hallmark site.

The first phase of renovations, which was approved early last month, is focused on a 697,533-square-foot building that contains 48 loading docks and is referred to as the low-bay section.

Work will include installing a new HVAC system; a state-of-the-art fire-suppression system; new LED lighting; a new, five-foot-wide, bituminous-concrete sidewalk along the east side that will provide a pedestrian connection from the parking lot; repairs to the loading docks on the building’s west and north sides; and improvements to the parking lot itself.

Phase II will include significant renovations to the high-bay section of the building, and the company’s plans will be presented to the Wetlands Commission Sept. 20 and the Planning and Zoning Commission Sept. 22. The two areas of the building are attached and sit on 133 acres.

“The high-bay section is 80 feet tall and was constructed for Hallmark operations,” Ferro said, explaining that it contains racking systems that are holding the roof up, making the building functionally obsolete. So renovations to the 350,000-square-foot area will include installing a lower roof that will bring it up to code and make it usable for a new client.

Phase III will include construction of a new, 700,000- to 800,000-square-foot warehouse/distribution building on the northern part of the site.

“The company is making a significant investment in the property, and they feel strongly about Enfield and the marketplace. It will be a great project,” Ferro said.

The town has held two special meetings that included all the department heads agreeing to move it along quickly. “We are trying to show we are nimble and responsive and have pooled our limited resources to get projects like this done,” O’Brien said. Although approvals are sequential, if everything is laid out ahead of time, it can speed up the permitting process without shortchanging any regulations.

Meanwhile, there are other developments taking shape within the community. Enfield Memorial Industrial Park is a popular site for businesses, and Phoenix Manufacturing at 80 Shaker Road is adding several thousand square feet to its South Street location.

“We’re seeing new people move in and existing businesses expand, which speaks well for the community,” O’Brien said.

In addition, another former Hallmark facility at 35 Manning Road that sat vacant for a number of years has been filled. The 286,800-square-foot building was purchased by Enfield Distribution Center in 2014, and in the last year, Ashley Furniture and Namco Pool Supply took up the remaining available space.

“The building went from being completely unoccupied two years ago to being completely filled,” Bryanton said, noting that the town’s website does not contain a listing of available commercial and industrial properties, but people who call town officials are not only guided in the right direction and put in touch with owners, they are helped through the permitting process.

The former 19,600-square-foot Namco Pool supply store at 1551 King St. was also recently sold and purchased by Secure Energy Additions, which just received the approvals to convert it into office space and warehousing for solar panels and supplies.

“It’s another example of a site that was underutilized, but had four different proposals,” O’Brien told BusinessWest.

New jobs were also gained when World Color Printing’s site at 96 Phoenix Ave. was purchased by Conval Inc. The mid-sized valve manufacturer relocated 90 jobs from its former Somers location, and plans to expand operations in the near future.

And another site at 1559 King St. has finally regained its former vibrancy. Although United Laboratories took over 40,000 square feet in 2012, the remaining 144,200 square feet remained vacant for the past eight years.

But it has become home to three new companies in the last year. All-Phase Electric Supply took 25,000 square feet, CED Greentech solar equipment took 35,000 square feet, and most recently, A.H. Harris & Sons Construction Supply took 67,500 square feet, Bryanton said.

In addition to industrial warehousing and manufacturing companies, the town is home to a number of medical facilities located on a mile-long stretch of Hazard Avenue, a short distance from Enfield Mall.

“It’s become an impressive corridor and hub for medical facilities within the past 10 years,” Bryanton said, noting that Hartford Hospital, Johnson Memorial Hospital, Community Health Resources, and other groups have facilities there.

The newest venture is being undertaken by developer Huntington Chase, who broke ground several weeks ago on a new 49,500-square-foot medical facility at 160 Hazard Ave. that is expected to open in the spring of 2018.

The town has been highly successful in filling much of its empty space, but one area that continues to struggle is Enfield Mall. Bryanton said the previous owner purchased it around 2000 when the market hit a peak and could not afford to drop lease prices or make any renovations when it crashed a few years later.

“The owner wasn’t investing in the property, and the rents are high, which precipitated the departure of a number of tenants and led to a foreclosure in February; the bank is working with the management company to do some renovations and bring the leases in line with the current retail market and is looking for a new buyer,” he said, noting that anchors Target and Sears own the spaces they occupy, and the mall property consists of the adjoining hallways.

However, there are seven malls and plazas in the area that contain many retail shops, so despite Enfield Mall’s vacancies, the area remains a thriving hub for retail operations and draws shoppers from a wide range of towns in Connecticut and across the border in Massachusetts.

Changing Landscape

Many people bemoan the fact that a multitude of white-collar jobs have been lost in Connecticut, but Bryanton simply views it as a paradigm shift.

“Connecticut used to have a lot of office jobs, and you hear a lot about out-migration in Connecticut because many companies are leaving the state,” he said, citing, as one example, General Electric, which moved its 1970s-style corporate campus in suburban Fairfield to downtown Boston’s Seaport District earlier this year.

“That move created a lot of angst, and some people are worried, but space in Enfield is filling up. There are a lot of goods being moved around, and we are poised to take advantage of that situation. We may be losing jobs in insurance and financing, but it is simply a shift because we are gaining logistical, warehouse, and transportation jobs in places such as the former Hallmark site,” Bryanton continued. “It all goes back to our location.”

That should translate to success for the firms that have chosen to locate there, and with millions of dollars worth of work planned at the former Hallmark site, the future is bright.

“Winstanley is preparing buildings in Enfield for the next generation of business,” Ferro said. “There is a lot involved in the project, but it’s work that must be done to stay competitive.”

 

Enfield, Ct. at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1683 in Massachusetts; annexed to Connecticut in 1749
Population: 44,654 (2010)
Area: 34.2 square miles
County: Hartford
Residential Tax Rate: $36.86 (plus fire district tax)
Commercial Tax Rate: $36.86 (plus fire district tax)
Median Household Income: $68,356
Type of government: Town Council, Town Manager
Largest Employers: MassMutual, Retail Brand Alliance, Lego Systems
* Latest information available

Friendly’s CEO Says the Company Has Achieved Needed Momentum

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FriendlysFeature 0916a
Features

Moving Beyond the Heavy Lifting

CEO John Maguire

CEO John Maguire says Friendly’s has achieved its first real mission — to once again be competitive in the marketplace.

As he talked with BusinessWest  roughly four years ago, soon after assuming the title of president and CEO, John Maguire said his assignment, while complex in nature, came down to two simple words: fixing Friendly’s.

There were, of course, many things that needed to be fixed, and Maguire, then, as now, summed them all up by reciting comments attributed to a woman from New Jersey who was part of a focus group assigned the task of gaining valuable input concerning the restaurant chain, its food, and service. Yes, he knows the passage by heart, because he’s lost track of how many times he’s quoted it.

“She said very eloquently, ‘the problem with Friendly’s is … your people aren’t friendly, your food is mediocre, your restaurants are dirty, and you don’t fix things when they break,’” he noted. “And that was all you needed to know to sum up what had happened to the brand.”

To make a long, four-year story much shorter, the menu has been simplified, the food has been upgraded from mediocre, the restaurants have been cleaned and renovated, and perhaps, most importantly, the people are, indeed, friendly. (If they’re not, they don’t work there for long, if at all.)

Despite all this, Maguire isn’t remotely ready to retire the present tense as he talks about what is still his assignment. Indeed, he is most definitely still fixing Friendly’s. But sufficient progress has been made now for him to summon the phrase “we’re competitive now,” and he did so quite often. The implication was clear; for years, this chain that was started in Springfield in 1935 and has been a part of the landscape ever since, wasn’t competitive.

“You never say that work is done — that’s not how it is with brands; fixing and improving is a continuum,” he explained. “But we are competitive in the marketplace once again, and we’re taking market share from other restaurants.”

The work to achieve competitiveness was described as the “heavy lifting” by Maguire, who was quick to add, however, that there is still plenty of that to do.

And the company will use the capital gained from the sale several months ago of its large and quite successful manufacturing division to Dean Foods to continue to move the needle in the right direction.

Initiatives include everything from new restaurants to continued renovations of existing venues, to the installation of drive-thru facilities at some locations where infrastructure permits it.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Maguire about the progress that’s been recorded at Friendly’s and the considerable work still to do to return the chain to the prominence it once enjoyed.

Recipe for Success

Retracing the steps that led to the sale of the manufacturing division, what he called a “powerful transaction,” Maguire said that in some ways it was a difficult decision to make. After all, the unit had been enjoying steady growth, and was, in some respects, the top-performing business within the company.

But this strong track record is also what made it quite attractive to the many large companies that dominate that realm and have been searching for additional, and potential-laden, growth opportunities.

So, with a need for additional capital, Friendly’s leaders eventually saw the sale of that division as a means to an end.

“As I looked at the total business, we had this gem called the retail and manufacturing business,” he told BusinessWest. “The first year I was there, we grew the business maybe 45% and launched our novelty business as well. What became evident to us fairly quickly was that we could use the growth from that business to give us the capital, but also the time and the space, to do the things we needed to do on the restaurant side.

Friendly’s

Giving restaurants a new look and feel and has been one of the primary missions at Friendly’s.

“So we put a full focus on that division, and as a result of those efforts, four years later, we ended up with a business that had grown more than 105% over that time,” he went on. “We were in more than 9,000 grocery stores, we were in 49 states, and had really a national footprint.”

The question then became what to do with this tremendous asset, he went on, adding that one option was to expand it, perhaps by opening one or more new plants in different parts of the country. The other was, as they say in business, to ‘sell high.’

It was decided to canvas the market to see if there was any interest in it. The response was overwhelming, to say the least.

“We were blown away by the response we got, both from private-equity companies and the ‘strategics,’ the people who were in the ice-cream business,” he explained. “We got back such a response that we believed that what made the best sense was exiting that retail and manufacturing business.”

John Maguire said one of the needed steps is his efforts to ‘fix Friendly’s’ was to revise and simplify the menu.

John Maguire said one of the needed steps is his efforts to ‘fix Friendly’s’ was to revise and simplify the menu.

The company will buy all its products from Dean, which acquired the division for $165 million, while continuing to own the recipes and setting the standards for quality, said Maguire, adding that Dean has made it clear it has no intention of moving the operation from Wilbraham or downsizing that workforce. In fact, it has plans to grow the division and expand those facilities.

Meanwhile, the transaction allowed the company to retire debt on the restaurant side and continue to gain momentum in the drive to make the restaurant side not only competitive, but a sector leader, and, in the process of doing all that, change the narrative from people like that woman from New Jersey.

“We went to work on solving those issues she cited,” he said. “We made improvements with our people, for example; if you weren’t friendly, you couldn’t stay; if you didn’t want to take care of kids and families, you couldn’t stay; if you didn’t really want to be in the service business, you couldn’t stay; if you were a manager and you couldn’t be accountable for the results and deliver on the things we needed to deliver on, you couldn’t stay.”

But weeding out those who couldn’t provide the desired experience was just part of the equation, he went on, adding that a bigger piece was making the necessary investments in training so they could provide it.

If people were part 1 of the broad assignment to fix Friendly’s, then food, or improving it, to be more precise, was part 2.

“The food was mediocre,” said Maguire. “Over the years, Friendly’s had cut costs and stopped investing in food. We reduced portion sizes and cut back on the quality of the ingredients.”

So the company went back to fresh beef in its burgers, real ice cream in its shakes, haddock in the fish sandwiches, and extra large eggs and better bacon at breakfast. Just as importantly, it removed from the menu items that didn’t sell or that Friendly’s had no “credibility in serving,” as he put it — the ‘chicken-and-shrimp stir frys’ of this world.

Just Desserts

Such improvements were both needed and quite timely, said Maguire, a food-industry veteran who has a turn-around effort at Panera Bread at the top of his résumé’s list of accomplishments, adding that the burger and ice-cream business is flourishing, despite what amounts to rumors to the contrary.

“I know everyone talks about eating healthy, but there’s not much real evidence of that,” he said, adding that this assessment is buffeted by the strong performance recently of chains such as Five Guys, Steak ’n Shake, Dairy Queen and its ‘Grill & Chill’ concept, and relative newcomers such as Shake Shack. “The truth of the matter is, if you have a compelling product in the burger and ice-cream segment, you can be pretty darn successful.”

In most ways, Friendly’s is qualified to use that word ‘compelling,’ he went on, adding, again, that food is just part of the equation, and this brings him to what would be considered the third leg of the stool regarding the company’s return to competitiveness — the restaurants themselves.

Looking back only a few years, he said that woman from New Jersey was right on the money with her assessment.

“Our restaurants were, quite frankly, in deplorable shape; they hadn’t been remodeled in 12 to 15 years on average, and when things broke, we didn’t fix them,” he explained, adding that the company has made needed improvements and has remodeled 95% of the 130 company-owned locations, with the rest slated for work over the next 12 months. There are 130 more restaurants that are franchised; 60% of those have been remodeled, and the company has received commitments for the rest to be done by the end of 2017.

Add all that up, and the result is that measure of competiveness Maguire mentioned. And now that Friendly’s is competitive, it can do the things it needs to do to grow the brand, he told BusinessWest.

“Now that we’re competitive, the real work begins,” he explained. “Now, it’s about showing not only that Friendly’s can be viable — which I would say it can be — but that it can be a growth vehicle. And there’s a big difference between the two.”

Growth will come from improving the average unit volume of each location, or simply bringing more people to those sites, he said, adding that, while all the initiatives taken above are part of that equation, additional steps are being taken.

These include the addition of drive-thru windows, he said, adding that this additional convenience has proven its worth for countless other brands. And while Friendly’s doesn’t exactly fit the description of fast food, Maguire noted that it gets food to the drive-thru customer within four or five minutes on average.

“We’ve begun to retrofit some of our locations for drive-thrus,” he said, noting that the location in Westfield was the first to be done over, and six have been completed to date. “And those drive-thrus are seeing a 25% lift in sales volume.”

The company plans to be aggressive in this realm and add another 25 to 50 such retrofits in the coming years, with the goal of having one-third of the locations equipped with them.

Meanwhile, the company continues to expand with new locations, including one at Logan Airport, another in Merrimack, N.H., and two more in Southern New Jersey, with more planned for next year.

Shaking Things Up

If you visit a Friendly’s location, you won’t see a picture of that focus-group participant from New Jersey on the wall.

Still, Maguire gives her ample credit for the company’s turnaround efforts and return to competitiveness. In fact, he even called her “wise” as he relayed her sentiments, or previous sentiments, to be more accurate.

Making those observations dated constituted the ‘heavy lifting,’ as Maguire called it, in his efforts to change the company’s fortunes, and now the real work has commenced to become into an instrument of growth.

As happened in individual locations, Friendly’s has fixed what became broken — its brand. Actually, it’s still fixing it, because, as Maguire noted, such work is a continuum, and it’s never really done.

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

Partnerships Attract Business to Quaboag Region

By
Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Lenny Weake

Lenny Weake says the Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce has partnered with QVCDC to promote resources available to startups and existing businesses in the region. 

In 2006, Nelson Rivera opened the Sharpest Edge Barber Shop on Main Street in Ware.

A few years later, he wanted to purchase a building on Pulaski Street to house his expanding operation, but didn’t think he could qualify for a commercial bank loan due to his poor credit score.

However, he found help at the Quaboag Valley Community Development Corp. (QVCDC), where he was referred to a bank that granted the loan he needed to buy the property.

“The QVCDC opened the door for me,” Rivera said, adding that he also took a QuickBooks class from the organization and recently got a loan from them that allowed him to make needed building improvements.

“The help they offer is amazing and if you have a good idea for a business, this is definitely a great place to launch it,” Rivera continued, as he told BusinessWest that business owners and residents in the area are very supportive of new and existing enterprises.

Lenny Weake agrees, and says the Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce has partnered with QVCDC to promote resources available to startups and existing businesses in the region. The chamber represents 15 towns: Belchertown, Brimfield, Brookfield, East Brookfield, Hardwick, Holland, Monson, New Braintree, North Brookfield, Palmer, Spencer, Wales, Ware, Warren, and West Brookfield.

“We want businesses to come to our area and stay here; we have a lot to offer and have established a cohesive network of resources to help them,” said the president of the chamber. “Anyone can open a new company, but it doesn’t mean they know the best way to market their product or service or have the financial knowledge they need to be successful.”

To that end, the chamber and QVCDC have coordinated their efforts and are working collectively to help new businesses as well as landlords with property to rent in the 400-square-mile rural region. “If a business in Ware does well, Palmer and Brimfield also benefit, and if we all work together, we can bring more businesses to the area, which will lead to more jobs,” Weake said, adding that, although some might question the desirability of setting up shop in this region roughly halfway between Springfield and Worcester, it is not as far away as people think. “Palmer is only 15 minutes from Springfield and has an exit on the Mass Pike,” he noted. “Spencer is 20 minutes from Worcester; Route 9 runs from Ware through West Brookfield, East Brookfield and Spencer; Route 20 runs from Palmer to Brimfield into Sturbridge; and the Quabbin Reservoir attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.”

The area contains many former mill buildings that have been converted into office or light-manufacturing space, including the Palmer Technology Center and the Wrights Mill complex in West Warren, which is in close proximity to highways and freight-rail transportation systems.

“We’re a very vibrant region with beautiful open spaces, a rich history and culture, and wonderful people,” said Sheila Cuddy, executive director of the QVCDC and the Quaboag Valley Business Assistance Corp.

Indeed, Weake says some business owners have found that the Quaboag region is an ideal location. “Mike’s Party Rentals moved into space on Route 32 in Palmer several months ago because of its access to the Mass Pike and main roads,” he noted.

For this edition, BusinessWest takes a look at how organizations are working cooperatively to provide invaluable assistance  to businesses in the Quaboag region, which include a number of new programs, a workforce-training initiative, and education for landlords.

New Programs and Services

The QVCDC was formed in 1995, and it works in partnership with the Quaboag Valley Business Assistance Corp. and numerous community partners to provide a wide range of offerings. They include loans of $500 to $100,000 to businesses that are not bankable, job creation, and services designed to help businesses start, stabilize, and grow.

There is also help for outcome-driven projects, thanks to mini-grants of $300 to $750 and a network of professionals who offer their services at reduced rates to help business owners with legal issues, marketing, and more. For example, someone can get help with a logo or have an attorney review a contract or lease or provide assistance writing a contract for customers.

The QVCDC also offers classes on business topics not duplicated by other organizations, and Cuddy said a survey conducted in the region uncovered problems that the agencies are working collectively to address.

For example, many business owners reported they had trouble finding qualified employees, so a new program was designed to resolve that issue. QVCDC formed a partnership with Holyoke Community College, which led to the creation of the E2E (Education to Employment) program and the Quaboag Region Workforce Training and Community College Center in Ware.

The center contains two classrooms, private study areas, and office space, and has 10 computer workstations for people who want to enroll in HCC’s online credit classes.

Holyoke Community College President William Messner (far right), who recently retired, shakes hands with Tracy Opalinski during the opening ceremony for the new E2E (Education to Employment) program in Ware.

Holyoke Community College President William Messner (far right), who recently retired, shakes hands with Tracy Opalinski during the opening ceremony for the new E2E (Education to Employment) program in Ware.

In addition, there are non-credit classes in hospitality and culinary arts, and plans to expand course offerings in the future. Classroom education will be supplemented by hands-on training at Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School in Palmer, and HCC will offer academic advising and career-counseling services on site beginning this month.

“This is the first installation of any education past high school in the Quaboag region,” Cuddy said, noting that it’s a public-private partnership that will provide critical help to low- to moderate-income residents and local employers.

Tracy Opalinski agrees. “Businesses in this area are starved for qualified employees, so we’re trying to create our own feeder program and build a base so people can live and work locally instead of having to move far away or commute to find employment,” said the trustee of the Edward and Barbara Urban Charitable Foundation, which provided support to the E2E program.

Other E2E community partners and supporters include Country Bank, Monson Savings Bank, the Donovan Foundation, Baystate Mary Lane Hospital, Quabbin Wire, Meredith Management, Otto Florists, and Carol Works for You.

In addition, QVCDC offers free computer-software training to incumbent employees and businesses in Worcester, Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties. The training, which is funded by a state grant, takes place in Ware or at satellite training sites in Palmer or Brimfield. But if it is not feasible for employees to travel to those locations because of time, distance, or expense, the training sessions can be held at the businesses themselves.

“The program began last year and has been very popular; there are still slots available, but they are limited,” Cuddy noted.

She added that QVCDC’s most recent project is the Quaboag Connector, a regional initiative designed to transport people to and from work and the E2E program.

“One of the barriers to employment is the lack of affordable public transportation, and the creation of the E2E accelerated the need for it,” Cuddy told BusinessWest, adding that vans are being donated by the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority, and funding was provided by the Mass Dept. of Transportation and Baystate Wing Hospital in the form a $30,000 grant.

Another local initiative is the TRACK (Three Rivers Art Community Knowledge) program, which is using art as a catalyst to revitalize the downtown area and has been quite successful. Artwork is being displayed in empty and filled storefronts, there have been waiting lists for events for children and adults, and Workshop 13 in Ware held a business-planning session for artists that was attended by 15 aspiring entrepreneurs.

“We’ve recognized that we’re stronger when we form partnerships and work together,” Cuddy said, adding that the Quaboag Hills and Three Rivers chambers of commerce, the Ware Civic and Business Assoc., the Ware and Palmer Community Development Authorities, and the Palmer Historical and Cultural Center are among the groups that have joined forces to promote economic growth.

Their combined efforts have been enhanced by generous support from donors, which increased substantially over the past year after the QVCDC was selected to participate in the state’s Community Investment Tax Credit Program, which provides a 50% tax credit for donations to selected community-development corporations.

“We went from $126,000 in donations in FY 2013 to more than $208,600 in FY 2016,” Cuddy said. “Substantial support from our community partners has funded innovative new programs, sustained vital existing programs, and helped us leverage significant funding from state and federal sources.”

Ongoing Efforts

Weake said the Quaboag Hills Chamber of Commerce is also playing a vital role in economic-development efforts. For the past two years, its economic development committee has worked to match businesses that want to move to the region with available vacant space. It developed a form for them to fill out that provides information about their needs, and identifies suitable sites during monthly meetings.

“We have space available for $4.50 per square foot,” Weake noted, adding that this is very affordable compared to larger cities and towns.

The chamber’s efforts have extended to landlords; there are few commercial realtors in the area, and many property owners lack marketing experience and don’t know what to charge for available properties.

“We have landlords with space for rent who don’t put up signs, and we want to make people aware of what we have to offer,” Weake continued, noting that the chamber is working to become the central point for startups or businesses looking to relocate within the region.

Education is also being provided to landlords on a variety of topics, including the importance of forming and maintaining good relationships with tenants, because there has been a fair amount of turnover in the past.

Weake suggested that some landlords may want to consider measures such as graduated rents based on business profits or a number of other parameters. They are also being advised to provide new tenants with information about things such as rules and regulations regarding signage, and outline exactly what they are responsible for in a lease agreement.

Such education is critical, Weake said, citing the example of a business in Palmer that had to close when a leak in the roof caused damage it wasn’t prepared to fix because the owners hadn’t read the terms in their lease carefully enough.

“We’re doing all we can to work cohesively because we want small businesses to come here,” said Weake, referring to the sum of the many recent initiatives. “They’re the backbone of the community and give so much back to it, while adding life and energy to our towns.”

Agency Fuels Entrepreneurship in Greater Holyoke

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Features

Providing a SPARK

Since its launch nearly two years ago, SPARK Holyoke has become an important addition to the region’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, providing a learning-and-nurturing environment for a variety of business owners. To sum up its impact, one participant said the agency gave him the discipline to be “both a creator and a finisher.”

Farid Kheloco

Farid Kheloco says SPARK was created to help start-ups get off the ground — and maybe help fill some of Holyoke’s vast supply of vacant mill space.

When asked to talk about the agency known as SPARK (yes, that’s an acronym, but not really; hardly anyone knows what those letters stand for) and how it’s helped her create, shape, and realize a vision for her company, Hot Oven Cookies, Sheila Coon found it necessary to do a little comparing and contrasting.

And the other subject in the discussion was a close cousin among organizations that are part of what is now being described as an ‘entrepreneurial ecosystem’ — Valley Venture Mentors, known for many things, but especially its high-octane, extremely intense accelerator program, with which Rivera also participated.

“VVM … I love it because I’m kind of a high-action person,” she told BusinessWest. “With VVM, you go the edge of the cliff, they hand you a prarachute, and tell you to jump. And as you go down, they tell you ‘jump this way’ or ‘jump that way.’ It’s very high-paced.

“SPARK, on the other hand … kind of has you sit back, and think, and analyze things slowly and more methodically,” she went on. “It gave me the opportunity to slow down and think things through. And it was very intimate — there were 10 people in the class; we had more time to think and talk things through. It was amazing.”

Though perhaps not intentionally, Coon used this exercise to not only point up the differences between the two organizations, but also spell out, in an effective manner, why SPARK Holyoke, which has the Hispanic community as one of its main focal points, has become an important addition to the entrepreneurial landscape in Western Mass.

In short, since being launched in late 2014 as part of a Working Cities Challenge grant, SPARK Holyoke has enabled a number of aspiring entrepreneurs to sit back, think things through, and, hopefully, go into business for themselves.

It does so through a 15-week course that, according to Executive Director Farid Kheloco, has a number of moving parts and objectives and is designed to help a wide range of individuals, from start-up owners to those who have been operating for several years and, for one reason or another, are trying to change how they do things. In other words, people like Coon.

“We want to hold your hand so you can take your idea and turn it into a bullet-proof business plan,” he said while smashing the mission down to a simple phrase.

The current series of classes started earlier this month, said Kheloco, noting that the one that ended during the summer featured 42 participants and 31 businesses.

Since it was launched, SPARK Holyoke has provided assistance to individuals involved with a wide variety of businesses, from cookie making to motorsports sales; from home remodeling to sock-manufacturing; from event planning to window-tinting.

Sheila Coon, seen here with her husband, David

Sheila Coon, seen here with her husband, David, says SPARK helped her create a vision, and a game plan, for her venture, Hot Oven Cookies.

Overall, SPARK is part of a series of initiatives undertaken by Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse and his administration to spur entrepreneurship, create jobs, and generate more interest in Holyoke, especially with the younger populations.

Those efforts have been successful enough to earn the city placement on Popular Mechanics’ list of the “most entrepreneurial” cities in the country.

And while the goal is to encourage entrepreneurship and help businesses get off the ground, there is another, very practical element to the agency’s existence. That would be the roughly 2 million square feet of vacant mill space in this former industrial powerhouse, and a desire to fill it, said Kheloco.

He doesn’t expect SPARK to make a huge dent in that inventory any time soon, but the agency’s work can certainly be a factor in bringing more life to the old paper and textile mills that gave this city its identity and providing another spark (there’s that word again) to broad efforts to revitalize the city.

“SPARK is helping to put us (Holyoke) in the game when it comes to promoting entrepreneurship,” said Kheloco, as he spoke with BusinessWest in the Holyoke Chamber of Commerce offices (where the agency is housed) on High Street. “SPARK has a definite role in that perception of Holyoke, and that’s important for our city, because we have a lot of open space.”

For this issue, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at SPARK Holyoke and how, despite the fact that it doesn’t issue parachutes to participants, it does help them get off their ventures off the ground.

Igniting Passion

For the record, SPARK is short for Stimulating Potential, Accessing Resource Knowledge. Kheloco and others involved with the program can probably recite all that (again, that’s probably) but most participants wouldn’t care to try.

But they do care about trying to take ideas they have a product or service and advancing them in the form of a new business. Or not, if they determine that said idea is not really viable, and SPARK Holyoke can help with that, as well.

It’s all part of that ‘thinking through’ concept that Coon mentioned, and while there is quite a bit that goes into it, the agency’s broad goals are to simplify the many matters involved with a business as much as possible, said Kheloco, who can speak with experience as he goes about working with aspiring entrepreneurs.

“I’ve been entrepreneurially minded my whole life, and growing up here I was told that you should leave the area if you want to be an entrepreneur,” he said, adding that while he works today to dispel such notions, at the time, he took that advice.

He went to New York and then Dubai, before relocating to the western part of this country and eventually for working for several different IT companies.

He returned to this area a few years ago, soon became program  manager of TechFoundry, and found himself immersed in the work of VVM and other agencies involved with entrepreneurship.

He was looking to launch his own venture — one that would produce wooden sunglasses — in Holyoke, but wound up launching SPARK instead.

“The market is pretty much saturated with wooden sunglasses,” he joked, adding that the opportunity to run SPARK — a career path recommended to him by Katie Stebbins, who was then overseeing Holyoke’s Innovation District and is now working in the Executive Office of House & Economic Development — sounded like much more of a winning proposition.

Felix Santana, owner of Northeast Motorsports

Felix Santana, owner of Northeast Motorsports, says SPARK has given him the discipline to be “both a creator and a finisher.”

Initially, his work centered around getting the agency started, honing its mission, and developing its curriculum, he said, adding that now, he spends more of his time getting the word out — in essence, filling seats for the classes — while also achieving sustainability; the grant that funds the program is three years in duration, and this is year 2 of the initiative, so new funding sources must be attained.

“We’re kind of in our teen-aged years,” he said of the organization. “We’ve identified a little of what we are, but we need to mold that and solidify what’s needed to survive for the long term.”

Kheloco’s various outreach efforts drive home the basic point that SPARK is a community organization to help what he called “every-day entrepreneurs.”

That’s certainly not a technical term, but one he summoned to describe “neighborhood projects” — small ventures, mom-and-pop operations that may or may not scale.

“We want to work with them to give them the guidance they need to get started,” he went on. “So we take a lot of the competition aspects out of the equation, and we take a lot of the business jargon out of it; we try to make it team-oriented and say ‘now you’re part of this group, the SPARK starters, and how are we going to help each and work together?’”

SPARK carries out this work with a host of partners, which include VVM, the chamber, SCORE, Holyoke Community College, Easthampton Savings Bank, and Nuestras Raices, a nonprofit group that seeks to promote economic, human, and community development in Holyoke through projects related to food, agriculture, and the environment.

“Predominantly, we deal with concepts, and we work on taking the idea and turning it into a business model,” he went on. “We like to say that we work with anyone’s who’s stuck.”

Getting Down to Business

‘Stuck’ might not be the best term to describe what Coon was when she encountered SPARK and its curriculum, but it’s in the ballpark.

To be more precise, she was at a crossroads of sorts, or transition phase, and in need of some guidance and perhaps technical help with regard to where she could and should take her venture — as well as ‘how’ and ‘when.’

Backing up a bit, she said Hot Oven Cookies was enjoying decent success and had developed a solid following (one fan called this the ‘Ben & Jerry’s of the cookie world’) with its 100 flavors — some staples, or “classics” and other varieties rotated in weekly — and a business focused on gifts and catering, all delivered.

“That keeps it fun,” she said of the large inventory of flavors. “It’s good for the customers, but it’s good for us, too — we get to keep creating.”

This first phase of the venture, as Coon described it, helped pinpoint demand and identify need, and with regard to latter, what emerged was a desire to enable customers to buy a cookie or two or three, and not a full dozen, the minimum she set for deliveries.

And this led to talk of putting a food truck on the road and bringing the product directly to consumers. It’s a big step and a sizable investment, and she credited both SPARK and VVM with helping her bring it all the fruition; the truck makes its debut next month.

She was in the second accelerator cohort, which wrapped up its work in the spring, and through that experience was introduced to Kheloco and SPARK Holyoke, and took part in both programs simultaneously.

She credits VVM with helping her take an idea off a napkin, as she put it, and take it forward, but she said SPARK provided that more-intimate, slower-paced environment that enabled her to stop and work things through.

“We talked through all of my phases,” she said of the SPARK experience, adding that the experience not only helped her conceptualize her ideas, but pitch them in a more-effective manner.

Felix Santana wasn’t exactly stuck, either. But he did need some help with his venture, Northeast Powersports, which seeks to become the largest provider of Chinese-made motorsports — primarily scooters, dirt bikes, and go carts — in the region.

The company has become an authorized dealer of Cao Cao products, offering both sales and service, he said, adding that he graduated from SPARK’s first class.

He said it provided him with both support, in the form of mentorship, and technical guidance.

“I went in there with a really solid business plan — it was a matter of getting the numbers and the data to back it up,” he explained. “They helped me get my business plan focused and connect with the right people, like SCORE, and get organized.”

He noted that he’s a serial entrepreneur of sorts, but one that doesn’t “finish,” as he put it.

“I was one of those entrepreneurs who was a really good starter, but when I got to the middle point, I never knew how to finish and would usually sell whatever idea I had at that point,” he explained. “SPARK helped give me the discipline to be both a creator and a finisher.”

Seeing the Light

Searching for more words and phrases to describe what SPARK Holyoke is and what it does, especially with regard to the proverbial ‘big picture,’ Kheloco said it acts as the glue that binds the many organizations and agencies promoting and facilitating entrepreneurship in Holyoke and the communities surrounding it.

And in that capacity, it is not only helping to create new opportunities in Holyoke and fill some of that vacant mill space, but also taking on an important role within a growing entrepreneurial ecosystem.

SPARK is technically an acronym, but mostly it’s both a noun and a verb, and as such, the word effectively describes what the agency is, and what it provides.

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

West Side Balances Private, Public Projects

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

By Kathleen Mitchell

Mayor William Reichelt

Mayor William Reichelt says the $6 million Fathers & Sons auto dealership under construction on Memorial Drive will enhance the commercial corridor.

Mayor William Reichelt says West Springfield is a small town that in many ways assumes the character of a city, due in part to the popular retail establishments — stores and restaurants — that line its two main commercial corridors, Riverdale Street and Memorial Avenue.

Indeed, the traffic that passes along these stretches each day makes them such an ideal location that little commercial space remains. When parcels do become available, they move quickly, and right now, more than $34 million in new construction is underway along the two thoroughfares.

But that economic development has been balanced by efforts initiated by the new mayor: Reichelt, a member of BusinessWest’s 40 Under Forty Class of 2016, took office in January and has already streamlined the permitting process and formed new committees and task forces to ensure that the zoning is appropriate, traffic flow does not affect residential neighborhoods, and blighted properties are addressed.

“West Springfield is easy to get to for people coming from the north, south, east, and west, and we have become a cut-through community, so we’re trying to improve the quality of life for our businesses and residents,” he said, noting that the town’s roadways connect Springfield to Agawam; Westfield to Springfield and points farther south; and provide access to Riverdale Street and Springfield for residents of the hill towns.

Reconstruction of the Memorial Avenue rotary on the West Springfield side of the Memorial Bridge, which contains two overpasses on Route 5 to the north and south, was recently completed by the state Department of Transportation under its Accelerated Bridge Program.

It’s an important gateway, which is matched by another one to and from Agawam at the end of the 1.7 mile strip, and last year the town signed a contract with Greenman-Pederson Inc. to create a design that incorporates principles of the Complete Streets program and will accommodate the increased traffic flow expected to occur when the MGM Casino in Springfield is finished.

“Memorial Avenue is expected to become a pinnacle of the Complete Streets plan,” Reichelt told BusinessWest, adding that the Big E is also studying the traffic flow through its property, and efforts will be made to ensure that any work that is done meshes together well.

The cost estimate for the Complete Streets project, which includes repaving the corridor, adding a two-lane bicycle path, updating utilities, and adding new landscaping, is estimated at $15 million, and since it’s more than the town and MassWorks can pay for, officials are hoping the Transportation Infrastructure Program will help fund the project.

“Memorial Avenue is the first view people have of West Springfield when they cross the Memorial Bridge, and we want to make it more attractive,” Reichelt said, noting that two major multi-million-dollar projects are underway along the commercial strip that will further enhance its desirability and likely spark investments by other businesses.

For this, the latest installment in its Community Profile series, BusinessWest looks at what is going on in West Side and the measures being taken to strike a balance between commercial growth and the needs of the town’s residents.

Major Investments

Reichelt said Fathers & Sons is building a new $6 million, 50,000-square-foot Audi and Volkswagen automotive sales showroom and service center on Memorial Avenue. The company’s former Volkswagen showroom and Kia of West Springfield, which it had closed earlier, were demolished to make way for the new facility, which will include two large showrooms and a 23-bay, state-of-the art service area and waiting room with flat-screen TVs, leather couches, and Internet access.

The company expects the new service area to increase efficiency and reduce customer waiting time, and notes that the new Audi store will free up space at the Fathers & Sons dealership on 989 Memorial Ave., which will sell and service Volvo vehicles exclusively once the new facility opens.

The town has never undertaken a comprehensive review of its zoning, and we want to make traffic flow and the use of property in our commercial areas harmonious with the rest of the town.”

The project is expected to create 20 new jobs, and Reichelt noted that the city approved a five-year tax-increment-financing deal with Cartelli Realty LLC, which owns the Fathers & Sons site. It will provide limited tax breaks on the so-called growth portion of the assessed valuation of the property at 434 Memorial Ave., and town officials hope it will help enhance the corridor’s desirability.

“The new dealerships will bring more business to Memorial Avenue, and we hope it will help it to become the new Riverdale Street. Everyone wants to move their business there (Riverdale Street) because it gets so much traffic, but space along that corridor is expensive,” Reichelt said.

Work is also underway on the grounds of the former St. Ann’s Church, which was sold to the Colvest Group by the Diocese of Springfield about four years ago.

Colvest President Frank Colaccino said the company acquired and combined three parcels, which include the church property, the Bridge Street road closure, and a parking lot behind Clark Paint Factory on 966 Union St., and created a plan to build a one-story, 9,000-square-foot retail structure on the 1.5-acre site that has been approved.

Currently, utility lines on the property are being relocated, work that must be finished before construction can begin.

“It will be a good addition,”Colaccino said. “West Springfield is a great town which is well-perceived; and the new mayor is very capable and gets an A+.”

Colvest recently signed a lease with Florence Bank, which will become the anchor tenant in the new building. The new bank branch will have a drive-through window and ATM, and its current West Springfield offices will be moved into the structure when it is finished.

But it has taken years to ready the site for construction. “The church property was contaminated when we purchased it. The diocese was responsible for cleaning it up, and it has been a process to get it ready for a new building,” Colaccino said, adding that the company is in negotiations with several businesses interested in occupying the 65% of the building that Florence Bank does not need.

“It’s nice to see the church property being reused for a commercial purpose,” Reichelt said, adding that traffic along the roadway is also driven by the Big E, which attracts thousands of visitors every year and can help spur continued growth.

However, new investments are ongoing. McDonald’s held a ribbon-cutting ceremony several weeks ago to celebrate a complete renovation of its 429 Memorial Ave. eatery; and a Chipotle Mexican Grill is in the permitting process and hopes to open next summer in the former home of Jiffy Lube, which moved into a new facility on 788 Memorial Ave.

Growth is also occurring on Riverdale Street, where a new four-story hotel with 92 rooms is in the permitting stage; and scattered improvements are being made throughout the community. The Food Bag on 884 Westfield St. is being remodeled; Arrha Credit Union recently opened on 63 Park Ave. in the former home of Springfield Teacher’s Credit Union; and plans submitted to knock down the Cumberland Farms on Park Avenue and built a new one have been approved.

Helpful Measures

The town is rife with private investments, and Reichelt is doing his part to facilitate balanced growth; he immediately began taking action to address issues and areas of concern after he was sworn into office earlier this year.

He told BusinessWest that he heard complaints from some business owners about the length of time it took to navigate the permitting process, so in April he kicked off a new program. Today, meetings are held on the first and third Mondays of the month, and business owners and developers meet with a team that includes the mayor, the chair of the planning board, and 11 department heads, which helps iron out difficulties and streamlines the process.

A new, 13-member Zoning Review Committee is also being formed to take a close look at West Springfield’s zoning as well as the zoning in a variety of communities across the state. The group will begin meeting in September and will determine what needs to be done to facilitate growth, while protecting the quality of life in residential neighborhoods.

“The town has never undertaken a comprehensive review of its zoning, and we want to make traffic flow and the use of property in our commercial areas harmonious with the rest of the town,” Reichelt said, adding that the committee will also look at pedestrian crossings to make sure residents are safe.

He noted that to that end, the entire lighting pattern at the intersection of Park and Elm streets was revamped after the 2011 tornado, and new pedestrian crossways were added.

A Blight Task Force has also been formed to deal with the 100 or more vacant or derelict properties in town. Members include the building inspector, two health inspectors, and the town attorney; who take calls from residents in a centralized location about sites that need to be addressed. The mayor told BusinessWest that since the task force was formed, four homes have gone into receivership and three are being rebuilt.

In addition, action is being taken at the former Standard Plating Co. on 964 Main St., which has been vacant since 2011 when it was ravaged by the tornado that swept through the area.

The city worked with the owner to remove contamination at the brownfields site, which is within walking distance of the Memorial Avenue rotary. The building has been razed, and when the environmental cleanup is complete, the Redevelopment Authority will take possession and build a new commercial structure there.

West Springfield also plans to apply for a $1.5 million MassWorks grant for a new pumping station and an extension of the sewer lines along Route 5.

“There are five properties near the river, including a large car dealership, that have septic systems right now,” Reichelt said, noting that the pumping station was built when Riverdale Plaza consisted of a drive-in movie theater and airport, and the area occupied by Costco was farmland.

He added that Agri Mark on Riverdale Road is also building a new processing plant. “They’re making a $10 million investment in West Springfield,” the mayor said.

Continued Progress

Although a significant amount of new construction is taking place in West Springfield, balance is critical to the town’s future.

“If you leave the business corridors, you find neighborhoods and two schools in the Merrick section of town,” Reichelt told BusinessWest. “Union and Main streets are walkable areas that contain small businesses, and as you move up the hill you encounter the residential subdivisions that have grown up over the past 20 to 30 years.

“There are a lot of commercial projects underway, and we benefit from being the crossroads of New England, but the town is also a great place to live,” he said. “We’re community-oriented and have active groups that range from the Tree Committee to the Garden Club, so we are careful not to forget about our residents.”

Which makes West Springfield far more than an address for the Big E and two busy commercial strips that have become a destination due to the large number of retail establishments and eateries that flourish there.

It’s also a community that residents and businesses alike love to call ‘home.’

West Springfield at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1774
Population: 28,391 (2014)
Area: 17.49 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $16.99
Commercial Tax Rate: $22.21
Median Household Income: $54,434
Family Household Income: $63,940
Type of government: Mayor; Town Council
Largest employers: Eversource Energy; Harris Corp.; Home Depot; Interim Health Care; Mercy Home Care
* Latest information available

Nancy Creed Takes the Helm at the Springfield Regional Chamber

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NancyCreedFeature 0816a
Features

A Job in Sales

Nancy Creed

Nancy Creed

As she takes the helm at the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce, Nancy Creed brings to the job a diverse résumé that includes work with nonprofits and in nonprofit management; in small businesses, large businesses, and her own business; and at the chamber itself. She believes these experiences have prepared her for the many challenges facing this organization — and all chambers.

Nancy Creed still remembers her first feature byline — and even the headline that went over the copy.

It was the fall of 1989. Creed was only a few months out of Syracuse University and, after briefly considering and then rejecting thoughts of trying to break into journalism in the Big Apple, had come back to her hometown of East Longmeadow to work for the Reminder as an assistant editor.

Her first feature story took her to Main Street — literally. Actually, it took her to the individual who had kept it clean — since Calvin Coolidge was in the White House — and was finally retiring.

“‘Street sweeper sees the end of the road’ — I was really proud of that headline,” Creed recalled. “He had been doing it for like 65 years or something like that; I interviewed about what he’d seen on the streets of East Longmeadow for six decades. His time had come, and I was there to write about it; that’s how I got started.”

She summoned similar wording — that ‘time has come’ part — to talk about a much different career milestone, specifically her ascendency to the role of president of the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce.

“I think it’s … my time,” she said with a solid dose of confidence in her voice, acknowledging that she might sound a bit cocky with that remark, but doesn’t intend to be. She implied that those words are merely what amount to the expression of an opinion — that she spent the 27 or so years since the street-sweeper profile preparing herself for such an assignment, and this one in particular. And now it’s time to put that accumulated experience to work.

“This is the logical next career step for me,” she noted. “Chamber work is in my blood.”

A quick look at her résumé would seem to bear this out. It includes work in journalism, marketing, and public relations; at small businesses, large businesses, and her own business; with nonprofits and as a nonprofit manager; and, perhaps most importantly, during two stints with the Springfield Regional Chamber, including the past three and a half years as vice president of Marketing and Communications.

Her first stint, as Communications director, came in 1999, when the name on the stationery was the Affiliated Chambers of Commerce of Greater Springfield. But so much more has changed over those years besides the name, and the sum of these transformations goes a long way toward explaining why ‘Creed’s time’ is, and will continue to be, an extremely challenging one for this chamber — and all chambers, for that matter.

The big challenge is to continue to provide value to the smaller businesses — they’re the backbone of this region’s economy.”

Indeed, the Affiliated Chambers took up considerably more real estate on the ground floor of what is now the TD Bank building back then, she acknowledged, noting that the staff was at least twice the size it is now. This contraction is a sign of the times, she said, adding that there are fewer members now, partly because there are fewer businesses that can be members due to a wave of consolidation that has enveloped banks, insurance agencies, healthcare providers, and more. But that’s only part of the story.

Another big part is the fact that chamber membership, once almost an automatic reflex action for someone new in business, is now anything but.

“Historically, joining the chamber was just the right thing to do; it’s no longer that way,” she said, adding that this is especially true with the younger generations. “So we have to figure out what people want to get out of the chamber — and provide it.”

Thus, chambers in general, and the Springfield Regional Chamber in particular, have come forth with new initiatives and programming designed to provide more of that all-important commodity — value.

As an example, Creed, who succeeds Jeff Ciuffreda at the chamber’s helm, pointed to new informational programs targeted for specific audiences (especially small businesses), such as the chamber’s Lunch ‘n’ Learn program, which has focused on topics ranging from social-media marketing to the new overtime laws.

“The big challenge is to continue to provide value to the smaller businesses — they’re the backbone of this region’s economy,” she said, referring to companies with 10 or fewer employees. “They make up 75% of our membership, so you really need to understand the issues and challenges they face and provide what they’re missing and need.”

But Creed’s time is challenging, and intriguing, for many other reasons as well, from the need to assemble almost an entirely new staff at the chamber (more on that in a bit) to the advent of what would have to be called the ‘casino era’ in Greater Springfield, to the groundswell of entrepreneurial energy sweeping the city and region.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Creed about, well, her time and the myriad components to that simple two-word phrase.

The Write Stuff

When asked what brought her to Syracuse, Creed offered a quick, one-word answer — “basketball” — before then elaborating.

“I loved college basketball, and I looked at all the big basketball schools,” she explained. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so I thought, ‘if I’m not quite sure what I want to do, I might as well go to a college where I can enjoy a hobby.’”

And in the mid-’80s, if college basketball was your hobby, there was no better place than Syracuse, then one of the top teams in the soaring Big East Conference. But while attending games at the recently completed Carrier Dome, Creed was also finding a passion — for writing and marketing — and earning a degree from the prestigious S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

The question, upon graduation, was what to do with it. As mentioned earlier, she considered, albeit briefly, trying to make it in the city that never sleeps.

“I thought about going to New York, but that probably meant living with eight other women in a studio apartment and earning $25 a story,” she said, adding that there were several things wrong with this picture, certainly enough to look elsewhere as she sought to follow her dream.

Eventually, home, and the Reminder, became the best option. She stayed with the publication for two years before taking the first of many career turns that would shape her diverse résumé.

She went to work for the Springfield-based law firm Robinson Donovan as assistant marketing director. There, she worked alongside one of the young associate attorneys, Russ Denver, who would later go on to direct the Springfield chamber.

MGM’s casino

Nancy Creed says helping area companies do business with MGM’s casino now taking shape in Springfield’s South End is just one of many challenges on her plate.

That connection would become a key storyline a few years later, when, after getting married, relocating to the Boston area, and serving as Communications and Public Relations coordinator for the nonprofit group Community Care Services Inc., she began searching for what would become the next line on her CV.

Denver was looking for a Communications director, and encouraged Creed to seek the job. She did, and prevailed in the search, eventually serving two years in that role before returning to big business as manager of Corporate Communications for Western Mass. Electric Co., now Eversource.

After more than four years in that role, her career took another sharp turn as she started her own business, N.F. Creed Communications, handling work for a wide range of clients, including two former employers, the chamber and Northeast Utilities, parent company to Western Mass. Electric.

But shifts in the economic winds, coinciding with the Great Recession and its aftermath, prompted many companies to bring marketing and PR work in house, Creed explained, thus prompting another career move — and a return to the chamber.

Over the past several years, she has been involved with a number of initiatives, from helping to coordinate a renaming and restructuring of the chamber to managing a host of events, including the chamber’s annual Outlook lunch, which draws nearly 1,000 people to the MassMutual Center and speakers such as Gov. Charlie Baker and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.

But mostly, she’s been working with Ciuffreda and other team members to do something chambers have always had to do, but not with anything approaching the sense of urgency they face now: sell themselves.

She sees this as both her primary assignment moving forward and the professional strength she will most call upon.

“When you look at my past experience … I’ve led, I’ve been led, I have entrepreneurial spirit, I worked in small business, I worked in big business and for nonprofits, so I understand the various challenges,” she said. “I have a really broad range of experience, and I think that’s important.

“And Jeff built a really strong foundation for the organization,” she went on. “So my marketing skills are probably the most important, because now we’re going to take that, and we’re going to sell it.”

Getting Down to Business

And as she talked about this process of selling the chamber, Creed said the organization has to do what all businesses across every sector must do — provide products and services that people want to buy.

And this brings her back to some of the newer offerings introduced in recent years, and the philosophy that brought them about.

“We used to have programs that were broad-based; there was no specific target market, no niche,” she explained. “We then created events and programs and services for specific markets, specific segments of our membership, and those have really become popular.”

Perhaps the best example is the Lunch ‘n’ Learn series, which focuses primarily on sales and marketing and employment- law issues, and was blueprinted for smaller companies that don’t have large teams, or even dedicated individuals, handling HR and PR.

“We had a session on social-media marketing, and it was designed for a specific segment of our membership that maybe didn’t have a marketing department or where the administrative assistant was handling social media,” she explained. “There are many issues that small businesses are faced with that they don’t necessarily have the internal resources to deal with, so we can provide those resources.”

This will be the mindset moving forward, she went on, as the agency looks for constructive ways to answer the question, ‘why should I join the chamber?’

Even the traditional, time-honored chamber breakfast has to be educational and value-oriented, she explained, noting that members need a reason to take that hour and half out of their day and attend.

“We’ve gotten pretty good at providing what people want to see out of those breakfasts,” Creed explained. “We continue to do our salutes because they want to see the success of other businesses and learn more about them. But with speakers, we’ve learned that people want to learn something, but they also want to be entertained.”

The chamber’s success in listening to members and responding to what they’re saying is verified in attendance figures at events, she went on, adding that they’re up across the board over the past few years.

Beyond the all-important work to sell the chamber and provide more value to members, Creed faces other, even more immediate challenges.

The first will be filling the offices and cubicles in the chamber’s space within what’s still known as the Regional Economic Development Center.

She must replace herself as vice president of Marketing, but also hire a new coordinator of sales and member benefits as well.

“We’re building an almost entirely new team,” she said, adding that the chamber’s former administrative assistant has been placed in a recalibrated position focused on events and program administration.

Assembling a solid team is critical, said Creed, again equating the situation to what faces businesses on a daily basis; there must be quality products and services, as well as people to sell them, market them, and coordinate all of the above.

But there are other pressing issues as well, including the schedule for the coming year, work traditionally done over the summer, and getting out and visiting as many members as possible in the weeks and months ahead as part of that process of listening to their needs.

Then there are the ongoing issues involving MGM’s $950 million casino, now finally starting to take shape in Springfield’s South End, specifically the matter of helping area companies do business with the gaming giant.

“We’ll continue to find ways to work with MGM to benefit our members,” she explained, adding that the process of becoming a vendor is somewhat complicated, but the chamber has resources that can help those interested navigate those waters.

Moving forward, another priority is to build upon existing partnerships with a host of entities — from Associated Industries of Mass. to other area chambers, to various economic-development agencies.

That includes those involved with promoting entrepreneurship and helping startups get to the next level, she said, adding that the rising levels of entrepreneurial energy in the region present a great opportunity for chambers, and hers in particular.

“When you look at the success of a group like Valley Venture Mentors … they’re creating a pipeline of new businesses and startups,” she explained. “The next logical step for those entrepreneurs is the chambers; there’s a huge opportunity for us.”

In Her Blood

Creed told BusinessWest that she will bring to her latest career challenge what she has brought to all the others — energy, imagination, and experience gathered from the stops that came before.

That includes the time spent recently managing a nonprofit organization, in this case, Dakin Humane Society. Creed has long served on the board of that agency, and agreed to step in and serve as interim director last fall.

She described this stint as yet another learning experience, one that was rewarding and enjoyable.

“It was easy, because it’s a passion of mine,” she said of her work with animals, adding that she has many others, including college basketball (still) and writing.

And chambers of commerce. This work is in her blood, as she said. That won’t necessarily make this assignment easy, or even easier, but it will provide her an edge, as will all that accumulated experience since the street-sweeper profile.

As she noted, it’s her time.

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

Nov. 3 Business Expo Will Put Emphasis on What Comes Next

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Features

A Focus on ‘Tomorrow’

WMassBusinessLogo2016

The Western Mass. Business Expo, produced by BusinessWest since 2011, has always put an accent on the future when it comes to programming and exhibits.

But this year, that emphasis will be taken to a still-higher level, said Kate Campiti, the magazine’s associate publisher. And this is out of necessity.

“Anticipating the future and preparing for it have always been stern challenges for all business owners,” she explained. “But now, these assignments take on even more urgency because the business world is changing rapidly and there are many powerful forces that will shape the competitive landscape in the years — and even the weeks — to come.

“These include everything from evolving technology, which presents a host of challenges and opportunities, to the emergence of younger generations, especially the difficult-to-read Millennials, in leadership positions, to a host of new social and employment issues that business owners and managers must face,” she went on.

All these focal points and more will take center stage at the Expo, set for Nov. 3 at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield. Details of the day-long event are still being finalized, but the broad themes have been identified, and organizers are now filling in the canvas. Here’s what we know:

• The Expo’s overriding emphasis will be on the future, meaning the short term, long term, and intermediate term, because business owners must keep their focus on all three.
• There will be a special accent on what would have to be called the ‘workforce of tomorrow,’ with emphasis on the issues facing all employers — those of quantity and quality.
• Education will again be one of the main stress points of the Expo, with three stages, or rooms, for informative seminars — one to focus on sales and marketing, another on emerging trends in the workplace, and the third on the younger generation now coming of age in the business community.
• Innovation will also be on display, and in many different forms, from robotics demonstrations to exhibitors on the cutting edge of technology and manufacturing.
• The Expo will again put the region’s business sectors in the spotlight. More than 150 companies of all sizes are expected to exhibit on the show floor, gaining the attention of more than 2,000 visitors.
• Also in the spotlight will be many of the emerging startups across the region — the Expo exhibitors of the future, if you will — that are taking full advantage of the services now available to them through a burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem.
• Networking, networking, networking: there will be opportunities for this most important of exercises at the day-opening breakfast, again presented by the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce; at a lunch presented by BusinessWest; on the show floor; and at the popular, event-capping Expo Social.

“Since BusinessWest began producing the Expo five years ago, the basic strategy has been the same — to provide a value-laden event that will help business owners and managers gain exposure and also gain insight that will make them ever-more competitive in this increasingly global economy,” said Campiti. “For this year, the mission is the same, and this is shaping up as the biggest, best Expo ever.”

For details on the Expo as they emerge, and for sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities, visit www.wmbexpo.com.

What: The 2016 Western Mass. Business Expo

When: Thursday, Nov. 3

Where: The MassMutual Center, Main Street, Springfield

Features: More than 150 exhibitor booths; educational seminars; breakfast hosted by the Springfield Regional Chamber of Commerce; lunch hosted by BusinessWest; day-capping Expo Social

Sponsors: Comcast Business (presenting sponsor); Express Employment Professionals; Health New England; Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst; Johnson & Hill Staffing Services; MGM Springfield; Wild Apple Design

 

 

Wilbraham Sees Potential in Former Paper Mill

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Community Spotlight Features

Community Spotlight

Susan Bunnell and Jeffrey Smith

Susan Bunnell and Jeffrey Smith say businesses that choose to open in the former Collins Paper Co. will find that Wilbraham has a streamlined permitting process.

When Brian and Tanya Miller walked into Building 2 at the former Collins Paper Co. in Wilbraham, they knew immediately they had finally found the perfect place to open their new business.

The couple is about to launch Movement Terrain LLC, which they describe as a “functional fitness obstacle-course gym,” and they spent a year looking at sites throughout Western Mass. before their visit to Wilbraham.

“We saw many standard buildings that would be great places to get fit, but we wanted a place that had real charm,” said Brian as he talked about the mill’s brick walls, its high ceilings, and the Chicopee River that runs alongside the property, which he envisions as a place where prospective clients can kayak and enjoy nature in a soothing surrounding.

The new facility will combine elements of mud run races and the type of competitive challenges seen on the CBS TV show American Ninja Warrior, which will allow people to get fit by helping each other overcome obstacles.

“It’s more fun than lying on a bench doing bench presses and builds camaraderie,” Brian told BusinessWest, adding that his wife is a yoga instructor and he came up with the idea for their new venture after taking part in a mud run with 20 people.

“As soon as we walked in, we loved everything about the building, and we’ll be happy if we can help with the mill’s revitalization. We hope we’ll become a catalyst for other businesses to move here,” he told BusinessWest, adding that their new venture is in the permitting stages, and they hope to open in January, but the mill property, which is being revitalized, would also be perfect for a yoga studio, coffee shop, or holistic-health service provider.

The Collins Mill redevelopment effort is at the top of the town’s list of intriguing development initiatives, but there are others. They include new green-energy-generating facilities, and Wilbraham has two new solar farms that will soon be operational. The first is a 925-kilowatt facility on the town’s capped landfill that is expected to reduce the municipal electric bill by $100,000 annually for the next 20 years, while the second is situated at Merrick Farm off Tinkham Road on a six-acre wooded lot that was damaged during the June 2011 tornado.

“It was an ideal site to develop,” said town Planning Director John Pearsall. “It doesn’t affect the existing farmland and will provide the farmer with a new source of income.”

Wilbraham is also building a new, $8.2 million, 16,000-square-foot police station at 2780 Boston Road to replace its current facility, which is located inside the oldest building in town and is grossly inadequate for today’s needs.

We’re welcoming and willing to be flexible, and because we are a small town, the boards tend to work well together and are willing go the extra mile.”

A groundbreaking ceremony was held in April, and the station is expected to be finished next March. It is adjacent to the fire station, which received a $2.4 million renovation in 2012 that expanded the building from 3,600 to 11,500 square feet.

Infrastucture work has also been taking place, and the East Street Bridge, spanning the Chicopee River between Ludlow and Wilbraham, has been closed due to structural damage. But requests for proposals recently went out for the $2.3 million project, and state officials expect work to begin in the late fall.

There has also been an uptick in new subdivision activity; 11 homes will be built in the Willow Bark Estates neighborhood on acreage that once housed Bennett Turkey Farm, while a six-home development on Sherwin Road is under review.

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest looks at the mill project and other intriguing developments in this community that has long been known as a great place to live but is also becoming a more attractive option for those looking to do business.

Progress Report

Collins Manufacturing Co., which later changed its name to Collins Paper Co., was built in 1872. In its heyday, it was the primary employer in Wilbraham and was known for the fine writing paper it produced.

The mill officially closed in 1940, but continued partial operations until the 1950s. After that, it was used primarily for cold storage before becoming home to a number of small businesses and a plastics-manufacturing firm.

Doug Maxfield, who has maintained the property since 1972, said many Wilbraham residents and people who drive over the East Street Bridge in front of the mill don’t know it exists because it is hidden behind trees and underbrush and cannot be seen from the road.

But that is about to change, thanks to a new company called Wilbraham Land & Development, LLC, which purchased the property two years ago. Since that time, it has spent more than $500,000 to clean the interiors of the buildings, make needed repairs, and put a new roof on Building 5.

“The complex contains five main buildings and has 250,000 square feet of usable space,” said Wilbraham Land & Development Asset Manager Courtney Desmond, adding that three of the buildings are ready for tenants.

Renovations to Building 5, which contains 15,520 square feet on three floors, are complete; Movement Terrain LLC plans to occupy the 13,000 square feet in Building 2; and improvements to another structure with an elevator have been finished.

Desmond said architects and engineers were hired to work at the site shortly after the company took control of the property to identify areas that needed to be prioritized.

“It’s a very large project, and we’re approaching it on a step-by-step basis,” she explained, adding that space in the mill buildings can be customized to suit individual businesses.

Although she expects the revitalization to take a decade to complete, the mill is already attracting attention: a group of students from UMass Amherst filmed a movie there last summer, a number of businesses have approached her about moving in, and the Millers plan to open their fitness facility there.

“We hope to attract new businesses as our renovations continue,” Desmond went on, adding that the revitalization will bring new jobs to Wilbraham, and the vision for the future is to make the mill into a work/live space with residential units, retail operations, and a restaurant overlooking the river.

Maxfield says the mill is historically significant to the town. It produced its own hydroelectric power for generations thanks to its easy access to the Chicopee River, and at one time railroad cars carrying frozen foods traveled there frequently via a rail spur that was added to the main railway route for that purpose.

“The mill has had a number of owners and a multitude of tenants that included companies that built teepees and businesses that made casket liners,” he noted “It offers unlimited opportunities for the future.”

New Ventures

Part of Wilbraham’s appeal is the quality of education offered in its public schools and at Wilbraham Monson Academy, and improvements to that campus are made on a frequent basis.

“Right now, they are renovating Rich Hall, which is their anchor building, and they are also adding a new, multi-level dormitory for middle-school students,” said Jeffrey Smith, Planning Board chair.

Susan Bunnell, chair of the Board of Selectmen, says Wilbraham is an attractive place to live. “It is a great place to raise a family, educate your children, and retire in,” she told BusinessWest, adding that Wilbraham has also earned the reputation of being a business-friendly town. “We receive feedback regularly from developers, architects, and others that our professional staff and relevant elected and appointed boards work together to make the permitting process among the most efficient in the state.”

Pearsall agreed. “Wilbraham is very pro-business. We’re welcoming and willing to be flexible, and because we are a small town, the boards tend to work well together and are willing go the extra mile,” he said. “FloDesign recently requested that we approve a zoning change so they could purchase a small parcel next to them to expand their operation. It had been zoned residential, but the voters approved the change.”

Indeed, zone changes are not uncommon; another was recently made to enhance the desirability of the former Belli Restaurant site on 2451 Boston Road. The town took possession of the property in December through the tax title process and has plans to demolish the condemned building and clean up the overgrown lot to prepare the site for a new business.

However, Smith said the lot is too small to accommodate parking, so town officials approached the owner of the parking lot next door and asked him if he would be willing to sell it or lease it to the prospective owner of the new property.

“He agreed to the idea, but half of the land his parking lot sits on was zoned residential, so we changed the entire lot to a general business zone,” Smith explained.

Future Growth

Bunnell noted that Wilbraham offers myriad opportunities for new businesses.

“We have several properties available in prime locations: at least three in the town center and a number along the busy Boston Road corridor. And the former Collins Mill offers desirable space for everything from fitness centers to studios for artists,” she noted. “It’s an exciting time for Wilbraham, and the mill is ripe for innovative use.”

Brian Miller has begun collaborating with other business owners near the mill and recently visited a nearby taproom and grill, suggesting that once Movement Terrain LLC opens they could promote one another, which he says will also work well when other businesses are established within the mill property.

He noted that other revitalized mills throughout New England are flourishing, and he and his wife hope people will travel to Wilbraham to use their gym, which will offer people the opportunity to get in shape by joining together to overcome obstacles.

So while new members of Movement Terrain work to get fit, town officials and Wilbraham Land & Development LLC will do their part to help businesses overcome their own challenges as they look toward the future of one of the town’s most historic sites.

“It’s exciting and an enormous opportunity for Wilbraham. The space is an empty canvas and different from anything else we have to offer, so we hope it will bring in businesses that otherwise wouldn’t consider moving to the town,” Smith said. “And as new companies come here, it will only promote more and more growth.”

Wilbraham at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1763
Population: 14,484 (2016)
Area: 22.4 square miles
County: Hampden
Residential Tax Rate: $21.60
Commercial Tax Rate: $21.60
Median Household Income: $95,395 (2016)
Family Household Income: $107,715 (2016)
Type of government: Open Town Meeting
Largest employers: Baystate Wing Wilbraham Medical Center; Friendly Ice Cream Corp.; Big Y; Home Depot