Page 12 - BusinessWest October 3, 2022

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it became a little harder to do the canning in the garage — the bottling wasn’t terribly hard, but that kind of forced us to switch. Plus the vol- umes were picking up, so that’s where we had to get better capability.”
Buel added that, if not for the location and people in Wilbraham, the two might well have given up
on the constantly changing indus-
try. Instead, they are taking their
venture in a new and intriguing direction.
Avery and Buel originally approached Mark Pafumi, co-owner of Pafumi’s Pizza, about leasing space in the proposed building, but then decided to buy into the prop- erty along with another investor. “We felt that owning and renting
to ourselves made a lot of sense, as opposed to renting from someone else,” Avery said.
Three historical buildings, including the Landry, Lyons, and Whyte Real Estate office, were demolished to allow space for a new joint facility. The new location will be about 8,000 square feet, fea- turing two outdoor dining areas — one for each business — a taproom in the rear, Pafumi’s Pizza restau- rant in the front facing Main Street, a small rental area for outdoor performers, and a second story of apartments.
Brian Easler said WMA’s 400 students add to the economic vibrancy in town.
“We wanted to make it bigger and better to suit our needs, the needs of Scantic River, and the needs of the community,” said Pafu- mi, noting, as Buel and Avery did, that the new facility will be a true destination.
“The restaurant and the brewery will bring some life — there will be a lot of added foot traffic,” he said. “The center is the most heavily foot-trafficked area in the whole town; we’re a restaurant for the com- munity, a place to bring your family.”
School of Thought
Wilbraham & Monson Academy (WMA) is looking at taking a couple of spots in the apartments as well, according to Barone. Because the school serves a diverse population of international students from 34 countries, families will need space to come and visit.
WMA was created in 1971, a time when the prep schools of New England began to merge, often with a school for girls merging with a school for school for boys, creating a coed institution.
“It was a good business strategy for the time; times were tight dur- ing the 1970s,” said Brian Easler, head of school at WMA. “It was a way for schools to tighten their budgets and eliminate a lot of their debt all at the same time. But Wilbraham Academy & Monson Academy were both all-boy schools, so the merger didn’t go quite as smoothly — they were archrivals for sports. It was kind of a tricky situation.”
Since then, the school has grown exponentially, a pattern that con- tinued even during the pandemic.
Indeed, Easler told BusinessWest that the school was able to stay open during the pandemic when many public institutions had to close their doors and resort to remote learning. Through rapid antigen testing and taking precautions as early as the summer of 2020, WMA was able to keep its positivity and transmissions rates relatively low throughout its community. Astoundingly, only 50 international stu- dents were not able to travel to the U.S. due to travel restrictions.
Surveing the current landscape at WMA, Easler said it is very close to business — or school — as usual, only with even better recruiting of top students.
“I had a senior faculty member, someone who’s been here longer than me, tell me the other day that the incoming class this year is the strongest group of students she’s seen in his 30 years at the academy,” Easler told BusinessWest. “We had one of our best college-admission lists in recent memory, and I’ve been here for about 25 years; I think it was our strongest college-admissions list yet.”
Students are excited to return to a normal school year, he contin- ued. Classes are filling up, and families are having to be turned down. WMA is a nonprofit — all of the money that comes into the school goes to support the school, finding a way to “flood back out” to the commu- nity through consultants, service providers, contractors, and employ-
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12 OCTOBER 3, 2022
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT BusinessWest