Page 11 - BusinessWest April 15, 2024

“What I’m most excited about is that we now have all these people who are thinking collectively about how we can make the most of this momentum.”
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Greenfield
Ginny Desorgher says she wasn’t keen on adding ‘mayor’ to her personal profile, but became convinced it was time for a change in Greenfield.
Staff Photo
comprise a good mix of age groups, thus providing a boost for the growing number of restaurants and venues like the Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center.
“The Community Builders is being thoughtful in the way they’re designing this space to encourage folks not to just exit out a rear door, get in their cars, and leave,” she explained. “Instead, they’re going to make it so it’s
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munity and its many civic and business organizations, from officials in City Hall to the chamber; from the GBA to the Franklin County Community Development Corp. (FCCDC).
“There’s new energy taking place on a partnership level, and
it was nice to see Greenfield leaders like the mayor come down and take action,” said Deane, adding that the cleanup was just one example of this energy. Another was the aforementioned listening session, which she said was likely the first of its kind.
“The business owners and community leaders really appreciated having the opportunity to have that kind of forum with the mayor — an open forum where they could say, ‘here’s what’s going really well, here’s what we think needs work, and how are we all going to work together to bring Greenfield forward?’ That was great.”
The streetlight cleanup project and listening session represent just two of many forms of progress, with some steps larger and more significant than others, said those we spoke with, but all criti- cal to that sense of momentum and building toward something better.
And there are many reasons for optimism, especially what most refer to simply as the ‘Wilson’s project.’
For decades, the store represented something unique — an old- fashioned department store in an age of malls and online shopping. When it closed just prior to the pandemic, it left a huge hole in
the downtown — not just real estate to be filled, but the loss of an institution.
There’s no bringing back Wilson’s, but the current plan, a pro- posal put forward by the Community Builders and Green Fields Market, a popular co-op currently located farther down Main Street, will bring retail and housing, specifically roughly 60 mixed-income units, to Main Street.
The housing units, as noted earlier, are expected to bring foot traffic and more vibrancy to the downtown, said Cahillane, noting that this will be foot traffic that doesn’t leave at 5 o’clock and should
very easy to get from the apartments onto Main Street; this encourages
Greenfield
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