Community Profiles
Community Profiles
![Woodlawn Shopping Plaza](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Park-at-Woodlawn-Park-View-1-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight Rocco Falcone acknowledged that, when he and fellow partners Andy Yee and Peter Picknelly acquired the Woodlawn Shopping Plaza on Newton Street in South Hadley in 2016, they […]
![Phil Weilerstein](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/VentureWelllogo-768x432.jpg)
World Changers Katya Cherukumilli has a big idea with potentially bigger impact. Her nonprofit startup, Seattle-based Global Water Labs, is developing a scalable and affordable fluoride-removal technology that aims to […]
![](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/NorthamptonRailRendering-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight A rendering of the rail station expansion and renovation, scheduled to be completed this summer. A Knowledge Corridor study before the Amtrak Vermonter line opened four years ago […]
![An aerial shot of the sprawling, 26-building campus of MASS MoCA.](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/RS86821_DJI_0111-768x432.jpg)
Creating Impact Anyone who hasn’t been to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in the past decade might be surprised at how different it is from its early days. From […]
![Mayor Will Reichelt](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Mayor-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight West Springfield Mayor Will Reichelt recalls that, after his community’s City Council voted in the spring of 2018 to place a ban on any and all cannabis-related businesses, […]
![Jonathan Butler, left, and Benjamin Lamb](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Blueprint-768x1058.jpg)
Designs on the Future Jonathan Butler knows what happens to a lot of reports, and he’s determined to avoid that fate. “This wasn’t intended to be just a two-year study […]
![Charlie Blanchard says Palmer continues to make progress](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/PalmerSeal-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight Palmer’s leaders see the town as a destination — and hope the myriad players investigating east-west passenger rail service in Massachusetts view it the same way. That’s why […]
![Jennifer Tabakin](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Tabakin-Great-BArrington-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight Jennifer Tabakin is a believer in using public investment to spur private investment. After six years as Great Barrington’s town manager — she’s stepping down in June — […]
![South Deerfield center](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/DeerfieldDowntown-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight Deerfield boasts numerous draws for businesses looking to relocate, Diana Schindler says, from its reasonable property-tax rate to its proximity to Interstate 91, Route 116, and Routes 5 […]
![GTI’s cultivation facility in Holyoke](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CannabisGreenhouse-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight Alex Morse says his phone was already ringing — quite frequently, in fact — before he was interviewed on CBS This Morning late last June. But then, it […]
![Jeremy Goldsher](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Counter-768x432.jpg)
Come as You Are Co-working spaces — hives of business where members share office space — have taken root in many Western Mass. communities over the past several years, for […]
![Mayor William Sapelli](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Agawam-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight Mayor William Sapelli has developed a routine since he was sworn into office roughly 13 months ago. Always early to the ‘office’ (he worked within the city’s school […]
![Philip Zea says Historic Deerfield paints an often-surprising picture](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/PrincipleOutside-768x432.jpg)
Connecting Past and Present It’s a grand reopening more than 200 years in the making. Specifically, it’s a house in Deerfield, built in 1795, that operated as a tavern for […]
![Commercial Real Estate](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/CommercialRealEstateListings-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight By Joseph Bednar As part of her annual state-of-the-city address recently, Pittsfield Mayor Linda Tyer praised the arrival of Wayfair — the fastest-growing e-commerce home-décor company in the […]
![M.J. Adams says Greenfield’s status as a 4/20-friendly community is one of many forces driving economic development in the city.](https://businesswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/GreenfieldMainStreetNprth-768x432.jpg)
Community Spotlight The phrase ‘4/20-friendly’ has been around a while now. April 20 las long been an international counterculture holiday of sorts, when people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis. […]