Community Spotlight

Laurie Tierney, seen in front of Hotel on North, describes Pittsfield as the “Brooklyn of the Berkshires,” which is meant as a compliment.

Laurie Tierney likes to refer to Pittsfield as the “Brooklyn of the Berkshires.”

By that, Tierney — co-owner, with her husband, David, of Hotel on North (as in North Street, downtown’s main drag) — implies there’s some grit when it comes to that region’s largest community. “We’re gritty, not necessarily pretty,” she said with a laugh.

But if one were to look closer and beyond the grit, they would see much more — in this case, culture, restaurants, some retail, and outdoor recreation, for starters, she told BusinessWest.

“I think Pittsfield is doing a great job of reinventing itself,” she said of the ongoing transformation from the days when its economy and overall vibrancy were dominated by one large employer, GE. “Barrington Stage and the Colonial Theatre have been a big part of that; we have a great arts community … we just need more people to get to know us.”

Rebecca Brien, managing director of Downtown Pittsfield Inc. (DPI), agreed, adding that a multi-faceted marketing campaign is being launched in an effort to prompt more people — especially locals, but also those from other area codes — to give Pittsfield a closer look.

It includes Hey Neighbor, a program awarding marketing grants to 10 businesses in downtown Pittsfield, with grantees receiving custom video ads before films at the Beacon Cinema and radio advertisements on WUPE/WEBC during that same time period.

In addition, the city’s two major theaters, Barrington Stage Company and the Colonial Theatre, have received what she calls “dinner-and-a-show” radio spots on NPR.

“This initiative aims to drive foot traffic, build community awareness, and showcase the diverse stories of Pittsfield’s small business community,” Brien said of Hey Neighbor, adding that the theater spots are designed to remind neighbors that the city offers world-class theater and attractive dinner options just a short drive away (more on this later).

“If it isn’t daily workforce that’s occupying the restaurants and coffee shops and visiting the businesses, then it needs to be residents that are doing it in the morning and the evening after work, or while working remotely.”

These promotional initiatives and broader efforts to bring people to the city comprise just one of many developing stories in this community of roughly 44,000 people. Others include:

• Ongoing efforts to create more housing of all kinds, but especially market-rate and affordable units. Several projects in various stages of progress will add more than 100 units, but 200 to 300 will be needed, Mayor Pete Marchetti said;

• The demolition and rebuild of historic Wahconah Park, with the goal of bringing collegiate league baseball back to Pittsfield;

• Early-stage work to gauge interest in forming a business improvement district in the downtown;

• Late feasibility-stage work to build a new elementary school, one that would merge two existing schools into one; and

• Several infrastructure projects, including work on North Street.

Housing remains a critical issue in the community, said those we spoke with — both to meet an urgent need for more options among workers, the elderly, and other constituencies, and to bring more vibrancy to a downtown still suffering from the side effects of COVID, especially the transition to remote work and hybrid schedules, which has reduced the level of business activity in the neighborhood.

Jonathan Butler, president and CEO of the regional economic development agency 1Berkshire, said there is no turning back the clock in this regard, leaving housing as the best option for commercial space in the downtown — and for providing the critical mass of people needed to support the wide range of hospitality-related businesses.

The Hey Neighbor campaign is part of a broad effort to bring more attention to Pittsfield, its cultural attractions, and its eclectic mix of small businesses.

“If it isn’t daily workforce that’s occupying the restaurants and coffee shops and visiting the businesses, then it needs to be residents that are doing it in the morning and the evening after work, or while working remotely,” he explained. “They’re replacing those people who were formerly working in commercial spaces and buying their morning coffee and lunch.”

“In the spirit of post-pandemic urban planning, downtown Pittsfield, like a lot of other urban centers, has seen a shift away of commercial activity — we’re seeing employers shifting to more work-life balance models with remote working and hybrid office models,” he explained. “So we’re seeing some investments in housing, to meet the city’s needs and a much larger regional need.”

For this latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest turns its lens on the Brooklyn of the Berkshires and the many ongoing efforts to inspire people to look beyond the grit.

Staying Power

Hotel on North is marking its 10th anniversary this year, Tierney said, and there is much to commemorate.

Indeed, the boutique 45-room hotel — created out of buildings more than a century old that were once home to the menswear and sporting goods emporium Besse-Clarke — has become a cornerstone of an ongoing transformation of downtown Pittsfield, from the retail-heavy and business-focused days when GE’s transformer division was employing more than 10,000 people, into a more hospitality- and arts-dominated district where more people live than in decades past.

The hotel and the guests it draws from across the Northeast and beyond have inspired several new businesses, she said, listing Methuselah Bar & Lounge and an expansion of Steven Valenti’s men’s clothing store among them.

As for the hotel itself … well, Tierney said it shares its personality with the Berkshires (and Pittsfield itself), meaning an intriguing blend of the past and present, heritage and innovation.

She and David have traveled all around the world, and they’ve incorporated their experiences into Hotel on North, such as its revolving door, a concept borrowed from a hotel in Nashville.

Over the past decade, the hotel has become a big part of the changing scene in Pittsfield, a tight-knit community of hospitality, arts-related, and service businesses that support one another and, together, have become more of a destination in recent years rather than a place to drive through on the way to somewhere else.

Mayor Pete Marchetti says that, while new housing units are coming online, there is more work to do to meet enormous need in the city.

But in many ways, it is still an unknown, or at least underappreciated, commodity, said Tierney, adding that there is a need for the city to understand and appreciate all that it has become — “it’s been the ugly stepsister for the surrounding towns for so long that I think that sometimes it doesn’t see itself as the engine that can and will” — and do more to put its best foot forward.

Brien said this need to promote all Pittsfield has to offer is at the heart of DPI’s Hey Neighbor campaign, funded through MassDevelopment’s Transformative Development Initiative, as well as the spots promoting not only the shows at Barrington Stage and the Colonial Theatre, but nearby restaurants in Pittsfield.

With the latter, the goal, through the spots on NPR, is to introduce (or reintroduce) Pittsfield to a broad audience across Western Mass.

“We have great tourism that obviously goes on in the Berkshires, but Pittsfield is kind of that forgotten space,” she explained, adding that, while most area residents will go Northampton for dinner and a show, most don’t fully appreciate that they can do the same in Pittsfield.

“Why aren’t those same individuals coming here?” she asked rhetorically, adding that the answer may well be a simple lack of awareness.

Meanwhile, Hey Neighbor will spotlight 10 downtown businesses through those aforementioned cinema and radio spots, said Brien, adding that the eclectic mix includes Hot Plate Brewing Co., Thistle ’n Thorn Floral, WANDER Berkshires, Otto’s Kitchen & Comfort, Methuselah, and Berkshire Nautilus.

“Together, they say, ‘come back downtown and see what’s new,’” she told BusinessWest, adding that a third piece to the broad marketing campaign involves $1,000 grants to three summer event series to promote their offerings:

• The Pitt, a Friday summer music series being spearheaded by Hot Plate Brewing Co.;

• Rhythmscape, which offers weekly dance lessons on Sundays. (like the Pitt, these take place in Dunham Mall, a public pedestrian walkway that has seen several aesthetic improvements over this past year); and

• Depot After Dark, which pairs Tito’s Mexican Bar & Grill and WANDER Berkshires, a new gathering space, adding late-night dance parties to the alleyway just outside their businesses. 

Developing Stories

Such efforts are expected to bring more momentum to a downtown that has seen healthy doses of that commodity in recent years, even as it continues to build back from the many types of disruption resulting from the pandemic.

Perhaps the biggest of these is the change in how and where work is done, said Butler, adding that, like all downtowns in the region, Pittsfield’s suffers from having fewer people going to work there everyday.

This trend, coupled with critical need, is fueling investments in housing downtown, he went on, adding that several projects are in various stages of development.

These include renovation of the Wright Building, just a few doors down from Hotel on North, which represents an example of the shift from commercial to residential uses for downtown real estate. Butler said there are maybe a few hundred more people living downtown than a decade or more ago, and this growing population has helped support existing businesses and inspire new ones.

Meanwhile, this new housing is helping to meet soaring need across the city and the region, said Marchetti, a former Pittsfield Cooperative Bank executive and city councilor, who was elected mayor in November 2023.

He said the city is ready to cut the ribbon on some projects, including Terrace 592, redevelopment of the Wright Terrace apartments, which will bring online 41 units, most of them affordable, while others are in earlier stages.

Overall, there are perhaps another 150 to 200 units in early stage or predevelopment, Marchetti said, including redevelopment of the former Hibbard Elementary School, while Mill Town Capital has several projects in different locations across the city. These initiatives will make a dent in overall need, but more will be needed, he added.

“There’s a lot more work that we need to do, mostly because ours is an aging population,” he noted, adding that affordable options are needed if empty nesters want to continue living in the city.

Beyond housing, there are other issues facing the city, he went on, including the demolition and rebuilding of Wahconah Park, the city-owned landmark built in 1919, with work slated to begin next year.

The wooden grandstand, one of the few remaining in the U.S., was deemed unsafe, Marchetti said, and the park, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been closed for two years. Plans call for replacement of that grandstand but retention of other elements of the park, as well as creation of a historic walkway that will highlight the history of the park, which had a diamond oriented due west (it was constructed well before the advent of field lighting permitted night games), which resulted in brief suspensions of play at sunset so that the setting sun would not interfere with the batters’ view of the pitch.

The Pittsfield Suns, part of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League, played at the park before it was deemed unsafe, Marchetti noted, adding that the team could possibly return to Pittsfield — which would be yet another development blending past and future in this city in flux.