October 22, 2008

Part 7: Low to Mod Housing Projects

What happened after Cambridge/Hacker?

The South Worcester Neighborhood Center decided to move on to the former City Builders site, which is roughly bounded by Southgate/Grand/Armory Street. For years it was a good business in the area that probably employed 10-15 employees, went out of business about 5-7 years and was bought by a private party, who rented out various parts of the property. I can honestly say it was underutilized and did not look good to the passerby. In other words, when the site was brought up as a potential development site even with Cambridge/Hacker on the table, I listened.

During the Spring/Summer of 2006, it was presented to board that we could buy this parcel for $495,000. My first reaction was this was "way too much money". I was told, however, that we could buy this parcel with a grant, not a loan, from the Commonwealth of Massashusettts from an organization called CEDAC.

We could in essence take control of this property for free, so I voted for the purchase. How could we lose?

Part 8: When a Grant becomes a loan.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did anyone else witness a 727 or DC9 fly into ORH around 04:30pm yesterday (October 22) ??? What was up with that? Private charter, perhaps? I couldn't see the logo on the tail as I was directly under it.

Harry T
Worcester, MA

David Z. said...

Speaking of the airport, Jim Polito on the WTAG Morning News had a guest on yesterday at the Business Expo. I didn't catch the name but I think it was Ed Warneck (President of Direct Air). He hinted strongly that additional destinations will be added from the airport due to the demand and initial response from the Worcester area and will be announced soon.

He went on to say that Worcester and Kalamazoo were their top two cities in terms of ticket sales even though service hasn’t begun yet at the airport. About 6,000 tickets were sold within the first 3 days after the announcement. He did acknowledge that ticket sales have softened a little recently but he wasn’t concerned and thinks it is a direct reflection of the state of our economy and not an indictment against Worcester.

And yesterday afternoon, he announced on the Jordan Levy Show that tickets for the balance of the year will be offered as low as $79. However a visit to the website still shows the starting price is $99.

On a side note, (Yes, Jahn I’m straying from the topic, LOL) does anyone watch the new FOX Series “Fringe”? Apparently, last week’s show featured our fair city. This is an excerpt from Scott Zoback’s Worcesteria (10/16) about the show.

“WORCESTER ON THE FRINGE: But that’s not the only case of non-existent Worcester water appearing where it shouldn’t. Tuesday night’s episode of FOX’s new series Fringe took place in Worcester, albeit with a few idiosyncrasies. There was that way too dynamic skyline at the beginning, the plot point involving a 26-story elevator fall, and, weirdly, the canal with bridges and cranes over it during a chase scene. On the other hand, most of that chase scene was clearly filmed on city streets, complete with new WRTA buses in the background; city street names appeared on a car’s GPS, and everything was very ... Worcester.”

Anonymous said...

Caught a little of what was talked about on WTAG this morning. Sounds like over 10,000 tickets have been sold. This has got to mean alot of sold out flights!

Just proves the resiliency of the people of Worcester and it's surrounding communities.

Sound like this airline is ready to make a commitment to our community and hopefully we can do the same for them.

This is a building block folks.

Anonymous said...

Jordan was all gung Ho for Direct Air...bowing at the Direct Air altar.

Do we have a date certain for the inaugural flight?

I heard Bob Spellane was the first one to buy a 1 way ticket.

10,000 passengers means we've met the threshold to get that $100,000 amt. from Washington for next year?

Do we have any food outlets up there or at least a push cart vendor in case Harry T buys a ticket.

Bill, where's that RFP for a restaurant up there?

I am liking what I am seeing & hearing.

We need to go over the terminal with a fine tooth comb............have it pristine for all of this winter and if we cant/dont have an eatery up there we should at least let a pushcart vendor peddle coffee & donuts but the cart and the server got to be 100% up to snuff.

Hey Dunkin Donuts has a traveling Dunky van....(maybe honey dew does too?).........maybe the C of C could get them up there with this Dunky Mobile for the 1st few flights??? I think they may even send it in possibly as a good will gesture with free coffee?????............or maybe if not free..... the city could make it free by using pronotional dollars to set up the Dunk Van Bar on the house? Maybe orange & black donuts for an OCT 31st inaugural flight?

David Z. said...

Jahn,

Direct Air announced sometime ago that the inaugural flight would be 11/22.

Anonymous said...

Not to rain on the ORH love in, but... during the worst stock market downturn since the Great Depression, Allegiant's stock is within $1 of reaching an all time high...

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ALGT

Not too shabby, eh ?!

Harry T
Worcester, MA

Anonymous said...

Oh wow ...11/22.....that's about the time Mr Chernisky is due for another letter to the editor.....beating up on some of the turkeys who inhabit the PIP and its environs.

Harry, so how many shares have u bought? [g]

Anonymous said...

Good point Harry. If we can make Direct Air sucessful and with gas now averging $2.67 a gallon we can get Allegiant try Worcester.
Pilots should be able to start flying more as gas gets cheaper!

Anonymous said...

USA3000 started service to St Pete's again. Maybe ORH could land them?

Anonymous said...

As my man, Bill Randell often likes to say... "Check Out the October 23 posting" at Paulie's blog...

http://www.pauliespointofview.blogspot.com/

Harry T
Worcester, MA