Page 13 - BusinessWest March 31, 2021
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  East Longmeadow
Continued from page 10
mixed use, which would allow residen- tial as well as commercial buildings to locate there. McNally said the new zon- ing bylaw applies townwide.
“Previously, mixed-use zoning didn’t exist in East Longmeadow,” McNally said. “Because this zoning change applies to more than just the Package Machinery site, it opens the door for developments all over town.”
At this time, there are no formal proposals to develop the Package Machinery site, but past discussions have suggested construction of single- family homes, condominiums, apart- ments, and light-use business entities, she noted. “The idea would be to have a new walkable neighborhood near the bike trail and the center of town.”
Business Perspectives
While several businesses in East Longmeadow suffered from the pan- demic, others experienced more demand for what they sell. Bobbi Hill is the fourth generation to work for W.B. Hill, a custom builder of oil trucks that has been incorporated since 1910 and located in East Longmeadow since 1965.
Hill’s title is manager, which she defines as running sales, marketing,
“We are experiencing a bit of a boom in housing due in large part to the low interest rates.”
parts, and human resources. The com- pany primarily builds and maintains tank trucks, the kind that carry home heating oil and trailer tanks (known as ‘trailers’ or ‘tankers’) that connect to a truck cab, most often associated with hauling gasoline. Despite the world burning less petroleum during the pandemic, Hill said she saw only minor impact in a couple areas of business.
“The pandemic had a little impact on service work for tankers that need- ed repair,” she noted, quickly adding that COVID has not affected sales of new tank trucks, which have a back- log of orders. “If a customer walked
in today to order a tank truck, I prob- ably wouldn’t be able to deliver it until September.”
In the only consumer-facing part
of the business, W.B. Hill is an offi-
cial vehicle-inspection station. At the beginning of the pandemic, it shut down the consumer-vehicle business but continued with tanker inspections. “Pandemic or not, tankers need to be inspected,” she said. “They go through a lot of rigorous testing every year and cannot travel with an expired sticker.”
Though business is brisk right now and there is still plenty of demand to transport heating oil and gasoline, Hill has begun looking to the future.
“With electricity being pushed all over the country, I’m looking for us
to become more of a parts business,” she said. By purchasing a building next door from Northeast Wholesale Lumber, she conceded that her “big dreams” of increasing the parts busi- ness is not happening right away because of high startup costs. Until then, Northeast continues to lease half the building.
“We sell parts now, but I’d like to
do more online and on a much larger scale,” she said. “There really isn’t any- one in New England who sells parts for
East Longmeadow
Continued on page 43
From left, Michael Meunier, owner Kendall Knapik, and Orpheus Barrows from Pioneer Valley Arms.
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         COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
MARCH 31, 2021 13
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