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Gleason Realty Takes Dramatic Strides in Real Estate, Self-storage

By
Jackie Janulewicz (left) and Tony and Jenna Gleason
Cover Story

Moving Story

Jackie Janulewicz (left) and Tony and Jenna Gleason

Jackie Janulewicz (left) and Tony and Jenna Gleason

 

Tony Gleason recalls that the landscaping business he started when he was 16 and had grown into one of the 100 largest such ventures in the country was at a critical crossroads.

“We had substantial, profitable, high-end accounts, and we thought we had achieved optimal growth,” he explained. “Our future paths would have been an outward geographic expansion or inward expansion through our real estate and self-storage portfolios, and I felt that, when comparing the offers that were presented and looking at both paths, it was going to be easier, and bring me more joy, to go down the path of real estate growth and expansion and moving our self-storage business forward than to try take our landscape and snow removal business regional.”

Thus, he sold the business to Yellowstone Landscape, the second-largest landscaping firm in the country, in May 2023, thus beginning what we’ll call the next chapter of his entrepreneurial exploits. It includes the formation of the Gleason Realty Group and that inward growth of the real estate and self-storage divisions that he mentioned.

With the former, the company has acquired what would be considered downtown Northampton landmarks — the historic Coolidge building, also known as the old Post Office on Pleasant Street, as well as what Gleason calls a three-part purchase of the Fitzwilly’s building on Main Street and the Fitzwilly’s and Toasted Owl operating businesses.

The portfolio also includes 179 Northampton St. in Easthampton, a mixed-use campus, as well as the Gleason complex on Pearl Street, where the family has done business for more than a century, and where other tenants, from a brewery to the Registry of Deeds, reside. And it will continue to grow in controlled fashion, said Gleason, adding that the real estate market is in an intriguing state of flux where both opportunities and challenges abound (more on this later).

“Storage can be extremely profitable or stagnant, depending on how you enter the market. You have to take a lot of time to invest in the diligence process and look at the metrics — there’s square-footage-per-capita metrics that tell the story of the demand, and you have to remain true to those metrics.”

With the self-storage division … it has become the purview of Gleason’s wife, Jenna, who left a job working in marketing and brand strategy for Baystate Health to assume this challenge. The two are both BusinessWest 40 Under Forty winners, Tony in 2010 and Jenna in 2017; Tony also won the Alumni Achievement Award in 2022.

“It was a big jump and a big risk, but it’s one that we believed in, so I totally pivoted my career,” said Jenna, while offering a primer on the self-storage business and acknowledging that she had to learn it herself, and is still learning.

Tony and Jenna Gleason

Tony and Jenna Gleason at their self-storage facility in Easthampton, part of a portfolio that now includes more than 2,200 units.

“I had limited exposure to the storage industry — Tony had some experience in that he owned a facility in Hatfield for three or four years — but it was really my baptism-by-fire learning experience,” she went on. “I looked at everything from different software programs we wanted to use to how to brand ourselves and differentiate ourselves; we really got to create it from the ground up.”

This side of the venture, called GiGi’s Self Storage, started with the acquisition of property in Easthampton that included 46 units of self-storage, a site that has been further developed, bringing the number to 200 units. Since then, there have been additions to the portfolio in Greenfield, Northampton, and, more recently, Sunderland, Pittsfield, Palmer, Leicester, and Stafford Springs, Conn., bringing the totals to nine locations and 2,200 units.

These investments include a mix of existing businesses and new developments, including the conversion of older properties into self-storage, as happened with the Dumont factory building in Greenfield, and in Pittsfield, where a three-decade-old warehouse and, more recently, a cannabis facility is being similarly converted.

As with the real estate arm, the plan for the self-storage division is controlled growth but eventually becoming one of the largest self-storage operators in the country, Jenna said, noting that the goal for the next several years is to continue filling in the spaces between the pinpoints already on the map.

Tony agreed, while noting that there is still room for considerable growth in this still relatively young business, with many communities in this region far from saturated — although some, like Springfield, have likely reached that point.

“Storage can be extremely profitable or stagnant, depending on how you enter the market,” he explained. “You have to take a lot of time to invest in the diligence process and look at the metrics — there’s square-footage-per-capita metrics that tell the story of the demand, and you have to remain true to those metrics.”

For this issue, we take an in-depth look at the Gleason Realty Group, now with a portfolio value approaching $70 million; its recent investments, totaling more than $30 million; and its plans for continued expansion.

 

Space Exploration

Tony Gleason told BusinessWest that his family has a long business history in Northampton — his great-grandfather operated a moving and storage company in what is now the Gleason complex — and with its most famous resident, the country’s 30th president.

Gleason said his great-grandfather’s company moved Calvin Coolidge into the White House when he assumed the office after the death of Warren Harding in 1923, and also helped move his items back to Northampton and into his presidential library. Meanwhile, Gleason Realty now owns and manages the Coolidge building, and the Fitzwilly’s building is home to Coolidge’s old law office. It’s on the second floor and is now occupied by a researcher.

The old Post Office in Northampton

The old Post Office in Northampton is one of several recent additions to the Gleason Realty portfolio.

But enough about Silent Cal. His former office is a small part (250 square feet) of a much larger picture, with the Gleasons and their team still filling in the canvas.

On the real estate side of the equation, there have been several additions over the past several years, including the mixed-use campus in Easthampton, which houses a diverse mix of tenants, including a doctor’s office, a tattoo parlor, a chiropractor, and other small businesses, said Jackie Janulewicz, a former school librarian (who also worked for Gleason’s landscaping company while earning her master’s degree in education) who joined Gleason Realty in 2024 and serves as director of Operations and Development and wears many hats, including property manager.

But much of the recent activity has been in downtown Northampton. The Coolidge building was acquired at auction in late 2023 when it was only half-occupied, said Tony, adding that it is now 100% occupied, with a mix of medical, office, and special-use tenants.

Meanwhile, the Fitzwilly’s building and the Fitzwilly’s and Toasted Owl businesses were acquired over the past few months. (The acquisition also includes a separate building off Route 9 in Hadley that will be separately marketed for sale or lease.)

“My first thought is always that we’re helping our customers, which are, ultimately, also our neighbors.”

The Fitzwilly’s building, also known as the Masonic building, was broken up into six different condo units with separate ownership, said Janulewicz, adding that the property is nearly full. “I only have two small spaces left, and I have bites on both. I don’t imagine them being vacant much longer.”

Moving forward, Tony said the real estate division will continue to grow and add to its portfolio, but in a smart, controlled fashion.

“We’re always looking for new opportunities, but the deal has to be right, and we have to be cautious and conservative in all of our decisions related to the commercial real estate business, because there are ebbs and flows to occupancy and varying levels of risk factors that tie into different types of tenants that may into a building,” he explained. “Our primary focus is on our self-storage business growth, but we are always going to look at Western Mass. real estate opportunities as they come around.”

Elaborating, he said the trend toward remote work continues to impact the commercial real estate industry, with many larger buildings in different markets seeing higher rates of vacancy as businesses continue to downsize. There is interest in smaller spaces, 5,000 square feet and under, he noted, adding that his company will continue to look for opportunities that provide those footprints.

“One of the reasons we did these last two deals is that a lot of these spaces are smaller in nature, and it’s easier to grow occupancy,” he explained, adding that there are many properties now coming onto the market, and the company will be diligent and cautious as it seeks to grow the portfolio.

“I think I look at 10 or so deals a week,” he explained. “Some advance five minutes, some advance 20 or 30, and some four to six months through a due-diligence process that ends up in an actual acquisition. What sets us apart is trying to remove emotion from the decision, as well as not going after everything that’s available; 95% of what’s out there is not going to work, and that’s OK.”

 

What’s in Store

Jenna Gleason remembers telling friends and colleagues at Baystate of her decision to leave her role in marketing, shift to the family business, and focus most of her energies on growing its self-storage portfolio.

“Some of them were like, ‘what are you thinking … you’re getting into self-storage?’” she recalled with a laugh, adding quickly that this is serious business, one that has grown steadily over the past half-century or so and still has enormous growth potential.

But before getting into it, she had to learn it, as she acknowledged earlier. And there was a lot to learn.

The Fitzwilly’s building

The Fitzwilly’s building, another addition to the Gleason Realty portfolio, is now at nearly 100% occupancy.

“I listened to a lot of podcasts on storage and tried to read as much as a I could on the business and the industry — any article I could find — and we worked together to figure out how we were going to leave a footprint,” she recalled, adding that she got involved as Tony was fully engaged with selling the landscaping business. If she had a problem, she said, he would usually reply, ‘figure it out.’ And she did, learning while doing.

From the beginning, the goal has been to stand out in a field that was crowded with players of all sizes and has become more crowded since, she went on, adding that she believes the company differentiates itself through a personal approach defined by building relationships with customers.

“My first thought is always that we’re helping our customers, which are, ultimately, also our neighbors,” she explained. “When someone’s in need of storage, typically it’s a stressful time in their life; they’ve lost a loved one, it might be a change in a professional career, a change in a relationship or home life — there’s usually a quick, dire need for storage. So we want to be there for them and make this less of a hassle and more easy.”

As for the name, Gigi is a family nickname for Jenna, and GiGi’s Self Storage gives the venture a less corporate feel, they said, adding that, as with the real estate division, the goal with this side of the business is controlled growth.

There are plenty of existing facilities that come onto the market, said Tony, adding that the company is continuously looking for opportunities that make sense, knowing that size brings obvious efficiencies and economies of scale.

And there is room for new development as well, they said, noting that, unlike with the banking and cannabis sectors, most area communities are not yet saturated or oversaturated with self-storage facilities.

Still, there are risks involved with such developments, and due diligence, in the form of understanding a market and its needs, is necessary.

“When you’re building from the ground up, you have to be very confident in the market — that you can lease out the spaces,” Tony said. “You want to make sure the demand is there. The worst possible scenario would be to build or overbuild a facility and look back three or four years later and not be able to fill it.”

And for the first time in the history of the industry, there are signs of oversaturation in some markets, he went on, adding that smart growth will be the course with GiGi’s, which is still a tiny player within the market, but has plans to become one of the 100 largest in the country, and can get there by growing four or fivefold.

That’s the plan for the next five to 10 years, anyway, and based on the success of Gleason’s landscaping business, there is little doubt that these driven entrepreneurs can get there.

Inside the Campaign to Reopen the Iron Horse This Spring

By Contributor
Chris Freeman
Cover Story Creative Economy

Music Will Live Again

By Emily Thurlow

Chris Freeman

Chris Freeman, executive director of the Parlor Room Collective
Photo by Emily Thurlow

There’s a lot to love about the Iron Horse Music Hall.

Though it’s not as apparent from the outside, with its large storefront windows covered in layers of tape holding up posters advertising myriad performers and upcoming shows, the downtown space holds countless special memories for lovers of live music in Western Mass., as reflected in its venerable slogan, “music alone shall live.”

Over the course of its more than four decades in existence, thousands of musical acts have graced the stage at the historic Northampton venue — one of a handful of hotspots, in fact, that helped define the city as an entertainment destination.

Whether leaning on the balcony railing or sitting at a table, or swaying from side to side at the edge of the stage, audiences of multiple generations have been entertained time and time again by artists like jazz musicians Freddie Hubbard and Bobby McFerrin, singer-songwriters from Brandi Carlile to Robyn Hitchcock, rockers like Graham Parker and the Smashing Pumpkins, and contemporary folk icons like Dar Williams and Dan Bern.

And while concertgoers and performers alike cherished the intimate atmosphere within the historic walls, it’s no secret that the Iron Horse also carries a less-pleasant legacy with regard to uncomfortable room temperatures, underwhelming bathrooms, and a poorly maintained green room — not to mention labor complaints and an extended closure that marred the last few years of the venue’s previous ownership by Eric Suher.

The the new owner, however — a nonprofit called the Parlor Room Collective that operates other small, local performance spaces — has plans to make those less-appealing accounts a thing of the past and reopen the Iron Horse this May.

“This is a living place. You can have people seated around the outside on the balcony or standing, and you could have college kids moshing and dancing in the pit while you have all of their parents eating a nice meal around the outside. Everyone feels safe.”

Nearly halfway to the $750,000 goal of a capital campaign launched in November, the Valley-based nonprofit continues to call on the public to invest in the Iron Horse Music Hall. The Parlor Room Collective will use that investment to expand and renovate the facility’s footprint to enhance the overall experience for patrons and improve the space for artists, which will, in turn, bring people together through music as it did not so long ago, said Chris Freeman, executive director of the Parlor Room Collective.

“Our mission at the Parlor Room Collective is to enhance the health and vitality of our community through the power of music. We have witnessed the magic of our local music scene and its ability to fuel the engine of our economy, enhance the overall well-being of our community, and contribute to our cultural vitality,” Freeman said. “And now we stand at a pivotal moment in our journey as a nonprofit arts organization. We have a unique opportunity to revive a local treasure that has resonated with music lovers for generations: the Iron Horse.”

 

The Good, the Bad, and the Disgusting

Many who have entered the music industry at a grassroots level have performed at one point or another at the Iron Horse, Freeman said.

Take singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, for example. Prior to taking home numerous Grammy awards for her eponymous 1988 debut, Chapman played at the Northampton venue, long before it was the multi-level experience it is today, Freeman noted.

“From John Mayer and Wynton Marsalis to Allen Ginsberg and Beck … the amount of performers that have played here goes on forever, and in every genre,” he said.

Before earning that reputation, the 20 Center St. mainstay was known as the Iron Horse Coffeehouse. At the time of its opening in 1979, the club’s capacity was limited to 60 people. Co-founded by Jordi Herold and John Riley, the venue was named for a work of sculpture that Herold’s mother had created.

About a decade — and a few expansions — later, the club could accommodate 170 seats and had became known as the Iron Horse Music Hall. Suher, a notable Northampton developer, purchased the venue in 1995 and owned it until its sale to the Parlor Room Collective in 2023.

Though he’s spent considerable time in the space, Freeman still marvels at how the unique venue lends itself to an eclectic, multi-generational experience. “This is a living place. You can have people seated around the outside on the balcony or standing, and you could have college kids moshing and dancing in the pit while you have all of their parents eating a nice meal around the outside. Everyone feels safe.”

At the same time, the venue has presented some unpleasantness for its guests. In recent years, some artists have publicly addressed such issues. Freeman recalled attending a show for Vanessa Carlton, who talked about how cold she was during her 2017 performance at the venue.

Carlton, best known for her 2002 hit single, “A Thousand Miles,” publicly thanked an audience member who loaned her fingerless gloves via a post on Twitter, stating, “it was freezing on stage” and Suher’s Iron Horse Entertainment Group “wouldn’t turn the heat up.”

In response, Suher denied Carlton’s assertions and told the Daily Hampshire Gazette at the time that “the performer was cold on the stage. The venue temp was 70 degrees.”

Carlton further spoke of the disarray in the green room, which was also located in the basement. On Twitter, she posted a photo of furniture with ripped and torn fabric and cushions collapsing and urged owners to toss it, so that she would return to the venue again in the future.

Though the space allowed fans to get close to artists, the space wasn’t especially welcoming, Freeman noted, adding the green room was known in the area for its poor condition, and the basement was the only place on site equipped with bathrooms. “These two disgusting bathrooms are supposed to serve 250 people — including the artists. They’re so, so gross.”

“Understanding its history, I kept thinking about how it’s just such an important place for our whole community, and I thought that somebody has to reopen this place.”

As for the HVAC unit, Freeman said the Iron Horse is in need of a serious upgrade. He explained the challenges of trying to keep a packed house well-regulated, whether the meant warm enough or cool enough. “There are tons of famous artist complaints of playing in here with it being 90 degrees — and 20 degrees outside.”

 

Music and Memories

Freeman’s knowledge of the Iron Horse goes well beyond his time as a board member for the Parlor Room. Growing up in Farmington, Conn., he would often attend shows at the Iron Horse with his father. The Valley’s music scene was especially attractive to him and made him want to move to the area, he said.

“Northampton was kind of like a grungy, artsy, cool place where people knew about artists. People had an understanding of bands that ran a little bit deeper than whoever’s on the big country radio station or the big pop stuff,” he said. “I remember the first time I came here. I knew I wanted to be a musician, and I thought that if I could just open a show at the Iron Horse, I’ll have made it.”

By his 10th or 11th visit to the Iron Horse, Freeman did just that and performed with the Americana/folk-rock group he helped found, Parsonsfield.

His band, which was signed to the Signature Sounds record label, was among the first artists to perform at the Parlor Room, located at 32 Masonic St. — just a block away from the Iron Horse. The Parlor Room was founded by Signature Sounds Recordings in the fall of 2012 as an “artist-and-audience-friendly” listening room, performance space, and school of music, he explained.

Chris Freeman

Chris Freeman sits on the Iron Horse’s prominent stairs to the second level, where the new restrooms will be located.

Freeman spent roughly a decade touring with Parsonsfield at venues throughout the U.S. In February 2022, he transitioned into the role of executive director of the Parlor Room and played a critical role in helping the organization transition into a nonprofit music venue and school last January.

On a near-daily basis, Freeman, who is now a resident of Northampton, would find himself walking by the Iron Horse, seeing the legendary venue remain dark.

“Understanding its history, I kept thinking about how it’s just such an important place for our whole community, and I thought that somebody has to reopen this place,” he told BusinessWest. “This was a place that is the heart of the whole Western Mass. music scene. The culture and the city around it made me want to move here.”

Freeman’s understanding of the value of the property led him to reach out to Suher. This past September, the Parlor Room announced it had reached an agreement with Suher to purchase the business, which includes the venue’s liquor license.

The Parlor Room signed a 15-year lease to not only operate the business at its current space at 18 and 20 Center St., but also to expand into 22 Center St. Connecting the adjacent storefronts will allow the Iron Horse to have a dedicated bar and community space and will increase the venue’s overall square footage by 40%, he explained.

Once renovations are completed and the Iron Horse has reopened, the Parlor Room will be, as its name suggests, a collective that encompasses three projects: the Iron Horse, the Parlor Room, and the Parlor Room School of Music. The original Parlor Room venue on Masonic Street will live on as the headquarters for the School of Music and an intimate performance venue.

“My main goal is, I wanted this place to come back, and I wanted to live in a city that has music — that’s why I moved here in the first place. My secondary goal is to make the Parlor Room become just as big of a part of this community,” Freeman said. “The ability to merge these together and to make sure that this place comes back — in the right way and with the right mission and in line with the community’s goals — felt like a really important thing to do.”

 

What’s the Plan?

With the aim of reopening this spring, the Parlor Room has set an ambitious renovation timeline that’s already underway, while the capital campaign continues. To date, the campaign has surpassed $317,500.

Among the biggest costs will be an upgraded sprinkler system and HVAC unit, Freeman said. The first phase of renovations also encompass updates to flooring, a new sound and lighting system, and stage and bar enhancement funded in part by a $73,000 American Rescue Plan Act grant from the city of Northampton.

The nonprofit has also partnered with Dave Schrier, co-owner of Easthampton’s Daily Operation, to redesign the dining and bar experience at the Iron Horse.

Phase two of the renovations will focus on accessibility and other upgrades. Instead of the two basement bathrooms, the new space will include 10 bathrooms that will be relocated for increased accessibility. This also includes two bathrooms accessible for those who use wheelchairs, in compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. A wheelchair lift will also be installed to make the stage accessible for all.

The Parlor Room Collective will also establish a brand-new green room that includes private bathrooms with a shower. A new floor layout will allow for 300 people for standing-room-only events and variations of more than 200 people seated in new furniture.

“There is no better investment in our community — and what, historically, has seen Northampton as a community thrive, business-wise — than bringing back the Iron Horse and having this place open 250 nights a year with a bar, with the way that it impacts other restaurants and tourism in the area,” Freeman said.

To donate to the “Revive the Iron Horse” capital campaign, visit ironhorse.org.

New Life for the Iron Horse

By
Opinion

Editorial

 

Forty-five years is a long time, and for more than 40 of them, the Iron Horse Music Hall, which opened in 1979, provided not just live entertainment, but countless moments of connection, of joy, of the kind of shared experiences folks tend to remember.

How many young people were inspired by a show there to pick up a guitar and start making their own music? How many solo concertgoers bonded over being seated together at a table, and then carried the conversation to a local bar or café afterward? How many first dates turned into long relationships, marriages, and a whole lot more concerts?

Those moments — and the music itself, of course — have been missed since the legendary College Street storefront in downtown Northampton went dark during the pandemic and, well, never came back. Until now. Or, more accurately, later this spring.

The Iron Horse’s motto for decades has been “music alone shall live.” There’s truth to that — great music does outlast a lot of things. But for a lot of us, live music is about more than the music; it’s about feelings of community, the energy of the give and take between performer and crowd — and, again, a shared, completely unique, ‘you had to be there’ experience.

And, as the story details, you can soon be there again, thanks to the efforts of the Parlor Room Collective, a nonprofit that bought the troubled property from longtime owner Eric Suher and, with the help of many generous donors to an ongoing, $750,000 capital campaign, is renovating and expanding the room.

Chris Freeman and his team certainly want the renovated space to reflect its vibrant past — seating at tables, where a reimagined menu will be served — but they’re also improving what needed improving, from the run-down green room to the famously inadequate bathrooms.

It’s a heartening development, to be sure. We’ve written often about the value of performing-arts institutions to a region, and certainly, venues like Symphony Hall in Springfield, the Drake in Amherst, Hawks & Reed in Greenfield, MASS MoCA in North Adams, and the Parlor Room itself in Northampton continue to deliver plenty of music and good times.

But the Iron Horse always seemed … well, special, with its wild array of styles — both major stars and rising lights from the genres of rock, folk, country, blues, jazz, and a dozen others have graced its stage over the years — its unique setup, and its striking intimacy.

When the Calvin Theatre returns at some point — Suher has been working on a sale of that larger concert hall as well — that will be more great news for a downtown, and region, that could use more music and fewer vacant storefronts.

But no venue has embodied the spirit of ‘music alone shall live’ like the Iron Horse, and we’re hopeful it will rise again to the prominence of its heyday, sending home countless concertgoers with the feeling they’d experienced something truly unique, together.

Reconsider Northampton’s Redesign

By Contributor
Opinion

Opinion

By Judy Herrell, John DiBartolo, James Winston, Jon Reed, and Amy Mager

 

Save Northampton Main Street has surveyed the Northampton Main Street business district to assess the number of businesses in favor or opposed to the city of Northampton’s redesign. In the media, city officials have touted that 50 businesses on Main Street are in favor of their redesign.

However, our findings clearly show that most downtown businesses are opposed to the current redesign plans by the city of Northampton. Our results show, of 100 businesses surveyed, 69 are opposed, while only two are in favor. Several businesses were not aware of the proposed changes and needed more information, and four businesses were neutral about the changes.

What was the most interesting was how businesses listed on the city’s list that were surveyed by our team were not aware they were on any list, let alone one that was published.

Additionally, Save Northampton read and analyzed the Toole Design report [detailing the Main Street redesign]. John DiBartolo of our group wrote a letter outlining these issues to the City Council in Northampton and the Mayor’s office. Some of these issues are:

• Traffic increase and travel time. This new design will create traffic jams and extended travel time for people traveling down Route 9 through Northampton for any reason. According to the city, the intention of the project is to slow down traffic for safety, and it was never an objective to keep travel time or improve traffic flow.

• Bike safety. This new design will create unsafe bike crossings at intersections without traffic lights and visibility issues with drivers, bikers, and pedestrians. According to the city, the current design’s internal lanes are 40% safer than other designs, including our suggestion of adjacent-to-traffic bike lanes with enhancements.

• Requested public meetings. The city refuses to meet with business owners and residents except individually. They claim to have had many in-person meetings during COVID, which were Zoom meetings. There was no city public hearing on this subject (only one Zoom hearing by the DOT). The city feels that their process was robust and inclusive.

• Comparing Northampton’s redesign to Concord, N.H. While the size of Concord and Northampton are relatively the same, Concord is set up as a grid, which Northampton is not. Northampton has no natural bypass for drivers who wish to bypass the Northampton shopping district. Furthermore, Concord has shared bike and vehicle lanes with no separate bike path and was always a one-lane-in-each-direction road. In Concord, they removed parking to create larger sidewalks and green areas. Concord’s main shopping district is not a state highway. Concord’s city officials conducted 50 meetings in person with concerned businesses and residents before deciding on their plan. Northampton had only 20 Zoom meetings, the last of which was both in-person and over Zoom.

• A new design alternative. Save Northampton has had numerous discussions with residents, businesses, and property owners and is currently working with an architect to provide the city with an alternative plan which can also receive the same funding and might be a bit less expensive.

We continue to hope the city of Northampton will call for a public meeting to access the city’s views on the current design, as our data indicates more residents are opposed than in favor of this design. Our Save Northampton Main Street petition currently has more than 2,000 signatures, mostly from Northampton, Florence, and Leeds residents and business owners.

 

Judy Herrell, John DiBartolo, James Winston, Jon Reed, and Amy Mager are members of Save Northampton Main Street.

Cooley Dickinson Receives $100,000 from Greenfield Co-op

By Contributor
Banking and Financial Services

Kicking Off a Campaign

 

Cooley Dickinson Hospital announced last week that it has received a $100,000 gift from Greenfield Cooperative Bank to support the expansion and renovation of its 50-year-old Emergency Department. The bank’s donation also serves as the kickoff gift for a $1,000,000 challenge opportunity.

“This incredibly generous gift in support of the Emergency Department is an investment in our shared commitment to a healthy Pioneer Valley,” said Dr. Lynnette Watkins, president and chief operating officer of Cooley Dickinson Health Care. “We are honored and grateful to Greenfield Cooperative Bank for this gift of support, which will benefit their customers, our patients, and our collective communities by providing access to the region’s top providers and leading healthcare services in a newly renovated and expanded Emergency Department.”

The gift will support the $26 million expansion, reconfiguration, and renovation effort to allow Cooley Dickinson to meet the ever-evolving emergency-medicine needs of the community it serves. To accomplish this goal, the hospital has embarked on an ambitious and comprehensive fundraising campaign, with nearly $7.2 million has been raised to date.

“Cooley Dickinson Hospital is a vital part of the health of our neighbors in the Valley,” said Tony Worden, president and CEO of Greenfield Cooperative Bank. “This donation is a way for us to show our support for the hospital and the people it serves. Many of our staff, family, and friends have needed to receive care at the Emergency Department. We are grateful for the work that the hospital does, and we are thrilled to help them continue their mission.”

Worden added that “Greenfield Cooperative Bank is committed to giving back to the community, and we believe that supporting our local hospital is one of the best ways to do that. We are proud to be a part of this community, and we want to do our part to make it a healthier place.”

Diane Dukette, Cooley Dickinson’s chief Development officer, noted that the generosity of Greenfield Cooperative Bank will have a transformational impact as the kickoff gift for the $1 million Harold Grinspoon Foundation Challenge, which launched on Sept. 1.

Through Aug. 31, 2024, she noted, every new cash donation to Transforming Emergency Care: The Campaign for the Cooley Dickinson Emergency Department will be matched 50%, up to $1 million, by the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation. “When successful, that means that we will raise up to an additional $2 million for this campaign.”

Cooley Dickinson is expected to serve 40,000 Emergency Department patients this year. That care will be provided in a 1970s-era building that was designed for 17,000 patients annually and is currently 40% undersized. A shortage of space means some patients are treated in hallways. The Emergency Department also needs to expand its services to care for an aging population (triple what it was just 10 years ago). In addition, the expansion will provide additional beds for people experiencing mental-health emergencies.

The two-year project calls for adding 6,600 square feet of space, including nine new patient rooms; eight behavioral-health beds, which can ‘flex’ as patient needs arise; and a family waiting area. In addition, a computerized tomography (CT) scanning machine, which provides timely access to diagnostic imaging, will be added to the Emergency Department.

“This campaign is critical to the health of our community,” Dukette said. “In the newly renovated Emergency Department, patients will see a nurse when they arrive, they will be treated in single patient rooms that allow for privacy, and a central nurses’ station means our clinicians can respond better to patient needs. Overall, this is about making the Emergency Department as efficient and up-to-date as possible to enable our talented providers to take the best possible care of their patients. We are so truly grateful for Greenfield Cooperative Bank for stepping forward and supporting Cooley Dickinson Hospital so generously.”

Pioneer Valley Food Tours Is a Growing Venture

By
Deborah Christakos
Creative Economy

Getting a Taste of the Region

Deborah Christakos

When her research revealed that this region didn’t have any food tours, Deborah Christakos decided that was a void she needed to fill.

Deborah Christakos has spent most of her adult life in the food business — or several businesses, to be more precise.

Trained in France, she was a chef in restaurants in several major large cities, including New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Later, after moving to Northampton, starting a family, and deciding that a chef’s life didn’t mesh well with family life, she started offering cooking lessons.

And it was while teaching one class, where students shopped at a local farmers’ market and prepared what they bought, that she started to conceptualize a new and different kind of venture — at least for this region. She would call it Pioneer Valley Food Tours, and that name tells you all you need to know.

Well, not really, but it sets the tone.

These are, indeed, walking tours involving food — in the Pioneer Valley. There’s one focused on Northampton and another that takes people to various stops in Amherst. There’s a bicycle tour, a concept born at least in part from COVID-19 and the need to keep people socially distanced during the pandemic, and private tours that have taken people to Springfield, Greenfield, and other communities.

The tours take people to restaurants, bakeries, butcher shops, farmers’ markets, and other … points of interest, let’s call them, where participants can explore local food and beverages from source to table.

“If you just go buy a loaf of bread or pastry, you may never hear about it. But when you hear from them, in their own words, talk about what they do, how what they do is special, and what they love about it, it’s a really neat experience.”

Christakos started in 2017, and what she’s learned since then is that, while these tours are centered around food, they’re mostly about people, communities, and the mostly small businesses that participants get to visit.

The people come from all over, she said, adding that some are local, while others hail from across the state or neighboring states. Others are from further away, many in the area visiting friends and family and looking for something to do, specifically something that, well, whets their appetite when it comes to this region and its food.

“I thought it was a neat idea, and I thought we could really inform people that come to this area about what’s going on here,” she said. “I felt the food here was of incredible quality, and I felt like people were visiting the area, dropping their kids off at college, driving off, and not knowing what we had here. I felt that this area was very underappreciated, so one of my goals was to sort of lift up the profile and make it into a food destination.”

Easily the best thing about her business is the opportunities it provides to meet people and learn from them while providing some insight into this region and all that it offers.

“Something I didn’t expect was that it’s really fun to meet people from all over the country or different walks, and even locals,” Christakos said. “The conversation is different every time because people bring to this their own experiences. Some people are really into food; others are really into history. It’s always interesting and fun.”

 

food tours of Northampton

Guests enjoy one of the food tours of Northampton, which visit several sites in Paradise City.

As for the communities that participants tour, there are opportunities to learn about much more than food. Indeed, tour members get a ‘taste’ of these communities, be it the murals, architecture, and ‘vibe’ in Northampton or Amherst’s vibrant history, including, on most tours, a stop at West Cemetery, where Emily Dickinson and several members of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, portrayed in the movie Glory, are buried.

As for the small businesses, they are the focal points of the tour, said Christakos, adding that the tours not only support such ventures — and, during COVID, that support was critical — it celebrates them and their specialties and the manner in which they help provide a community with an identity.

For this issue, we talked with Christakos about her venture and how it has gained traction and provided tour participants with some food for thought — in every way one can imagine.

 

Walking, Taking, and Eating

As she talked about how and why she launched this venture, Christakos said food tours are common in other countries — as well as in larger cities in the U.S. She had only been on one herself, in Ireland, but she knew about them and all they aim to celebrate in a particular community.

Returning to that cooking class she was teaching and the visit to the farmers’ market, she started thinking there must be food tours in a region so rich in agriculture and restaurants. When some research revealed there wasn’t, she decided this void needed to be filled.

She did a trial run, spoke to the businesses that would be involved in these tours, and concluded that there was a market for such a concept. She launched in the summer of 2017, and at first tried to do both the tours and the cooking classes. Eventually, she decided that she wanted, and needed, to devote all her time and energy to the former.

The venture has seen steady growth over the years, although COVID certainly created some challenges.

At the start, most of the participants were local, she told BusinessWest, but eventually word started to spread.

“People from Central Connecticut would come up for the day, or people from Boston would come up for the day,” she explained. “And then, gradually over the next few years, people started coming from further away — Utah, California, all over, people who were coming to this area and looking for something to do.”

Many had been on food tours in other cities, regions, and countries, she went on, adding that her venture provides an opportunity to explore a different area.

In larger cities, there are many different kinds of food tours, she explained, noting that some will focus specifically on pizza, or chocolate, or a specific neighborhood. Her tours are broad in nature and focused on specific communities noted for their food, restaurants, and culture, especially Northampton and Amherst.

In Northampton, the food tour, which runs three hours on average, usually starts in Pulaski Park, where participants will make introductions and sample local produce that’s in season, such as blueberries, which Christakos will either pick herself or buy from a local farm. From there, there are roughly 15 different places a group might stop; Christakos generally picks five for each tour.

A common first stop is Hungry Ghost Bread on State Street or the Woodstar Café on Masonic Street, where participants can sample something Christakos has pre-selected and often hear from the establishments’ owners about what they do and the passion they bring to their work.

“If you just go buy a loaf of bread or pastry, you may never hear about it,” she explained. “But when you hear from them, in their own words, talk about what they do, how what they do is special, and what they love about it, it’s a really neat experience.”

This is the essence of the food tours, she went on, adding that participants can hear Hungry Ghost owner Jonathan Stevens and his wife, Cheryl, talk about what makes their bread unique and how they use local ingredients.

From there, the tour might go to Sutter Meats on King Street and a few of the restaurants in the city, such as Paul & Elizabeth’s on Main Street, a vegetarian restaurant; or the Dirty Truth, also on Main Street, a gastropub featuring craft beers; or the Mosaic Café on Masonic Street, a Mediterranean restaurant.

Along the way, participants take in murals, architecture, a little history, and the feel of downtown Northampton, she said, adding that the flavor of the community, and all that goes into that phrase, comes through.

It’s the same in Amherst, she noted, where tours generally start at the farmers’ market and proceed to stops such as the Black Sheep Deli; Lili’s, a Chinese restaurant; and Mexcalito Taco Bar, as well as West Cemetery and other points of interest.

There are generally two Northampton tours a week, on Friday and Saturday, and a few Amherst tours each month, she said, adding that they are offered year-round. Spring and summer are obviously the most popular times, but there is appetite for the offerings throughout the year — she conducted a ‘chocolate tour’ on Valentine’s Day — and she will carry on unless the weather is “dangerous.”

A fairly recent addition to the portfolio has been bicycle tours, she noted, adding that these will stop in a few different communities, visiting farms, food producers, and eateries and generally covering 20 to 25 miles at a decent, but not overly fast, pace.

“The people who take those tours like to bicycle, but they’re more interested in their food,” she explained. “They’re not Tour de France candidates.”

 

Bottom Line

Moving forward, Christakos, who splits the tours with the company’s other guide, David Bannister, said she would like to continue growing the concept, perhaps expanding to other communities (Springfield is a possible candidate).

In the meantime, she will continue honing the concept, which is bringing the region’s restaurants, farms, and other food-related businesses to light.

As she said, these tours are really about people and communities — and an opportunity to celebrate both.