Page 24 - BusinessWest March 18, 2024

Tim Burke calls the Bousquet complex “a critical local asset that had fallen on some tough times.”
Since taking what he called a “clustered approach” to housing stock in the area, Mill Town has accumulated more than 200 units of housing in Pittsfield alone, as well as a few commercial buildings and mixed-use properties, with apartments on the upper floors and commercial space on the lower floors.
“So the real-estate approach there has been trying to improve neighborhoods with housing at the forefront, but also supporting
small businesses and restaurants where we can.”
Public investment has sometimes followed that private investment, Burke said, with the city or state coming in with utility upgrades or streetscape improvements.
“So it’s really a multi-faceted approach, and it certainly has a patient-capital component
to it as well, where we’re not looking to get in and monetize things really quickly. We have more of a patient, long-term approach to it.”
On the business-enterprise side of the led- ger, Mill Town now owns about a dozen local businesses, either directly or in partnerships.
One example is Bousquet Mountain Ski Area, one of the oldest continuously operat- ing ski areas in the country. “We felt that’s a great example of a critical local asset that had fallen on some tough times and needed a lot of investment,” Burke said. “I don’t think many rational investors would have gone in there with a pure investment business case, but we felt like it was worth saving.”
These enterprise investments tend to be clustered in regional assets in real estate, recreation, and hospitality, such as the Cen-
tral Downtown Inn & Suites in Pittsfield; Gateways Inn in Lenox; Blueprint Property Group in Pittsfield; Framework, a Pittsfield co- working space; and others — about a dozen in all.
“We’ve been involved in those types of projects for a number of years, some of which are business-oriented projects, and some are philanthropic, that we do through our our 501(c)(3) foundation. That includes things like improvements in Springside Park, which is a large, local park in Pittsfield where we helped reshape and rein- vest in trail networks there.”
Mill Town has also provided contributions to the Berkshire Natu- ral Resources Council for a project that connects the various trail networks in the Berkshire mountains.
“Is this project good for the region? Is it good for the local economy? Does it have the chance to spur economic development or other potential investment, and, if so, how can we make it work?”
TIM BURKE
Commercial Real Estate
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