January 13, 2009

Dewey Not in The Hall Yet

Telegram story about UNUM and City Square

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are still going to get our Hollywood Theatre too or has that gone away now after all the waiting?

http://newcitysquare.com/news/read_news.cfm?news=17

Anonymous said...

I walked again tonight....WTF do we even have a sidewalk snow clearing ordinance???

There is absolutley no intention of ever pro actively enforcing it in the neighbor hoods..............in the business district yes.........and once someone does rat out their neighbor you're going to have a snowball effect with everyone ratting out everyone else until all think they have settled their score by tattle-taling on each other. This snow brings out the worst in soem people.............i was just told an unbeleivable story about a Somerville snow related incident over behind Cambridge Hospital.......8 cops had to come and quell the imbroglio.....

Paulie's Point of View said...

was just downtown for a drive..counted maybe 4 business open-a convenient store, 2 nice pubs and 2 dives...phew! City Square can not come any quickah

David Z. said...

Bill,

I was listening to Jordan Levy yesterday who "tipped" me last week about the pending UNUM @ CitySquare announcement. It is a done deal according to his sources. It will take some time to iron out the final agreement but for all practical purposes, it IS a DONE deal!

Just like I've been predicting right along!

What a great week; 1st my teammate gets elected into the HOF and now I get to crow!

Anonymous said...

So is this the one tenant we need to trigger new construction?..........or are more needed?

David Z. said...

Jahn,

This is the one tenant that gets us over the pre-leased space that was required to get the project going.

SIGN MAN said...

Talked with a long time business down town... he lived through two malls and said did not make a difference... believe me I hope this does

Anonymous said...

David, I just hope in this economy that those finacing City Sq for Berkley do not now require more pre-leasing commitments before they advance the constr funding...or is this money coming the state or feds and not from conventional lending sources...or is it just the demolition money thats coming from gov't??.........is the amt. something like $25m?

Also the radio talkmeisters thsi morning were talking like this is a completed deal, yet UNUM counsel seems to say they have 60(?) days to iron out all the details...or something to that effect...and that nothing is 100% sure

SignMan, I am almost thinking of this project as "Back to the Future" given that area street pattern(s) (Front St) will look more like 1968 once it is punched through again. I do agree with one talkmeister that this is just a "wash" for downtown....take what is now on Chestnut St empty it and move the tenant/owner to the other side of Main St.

Let us please keep in mind if I am UNUM, I am looking for all kinds of concessions....a euphemism for money...!!!..as in discounted rent....UNUM is in the drivers seat here.

Let us also keep in mind that if we dont change the demographics of Worcester....we'll have plenty of new buildings and a population that has no discretionary disposable income....which is a precrisption for disaster. Inundating Main south with low income housing will only drag the city down more.

Dont forget that when Great Brook Valley was built in the late 1940's, it too was touted as great solution to what ails Worcester....dittos for:

a. the Outlets Mall in 1994 (just ask Judith Light)

b. the St V's Hospital in 2001.


All the new buildings in the world mean nothing if you cant change citys population for the better.

Anonymous said...

Jahn: You're gonna stir up a Paulie 'Urban Core' speech if you keep this up...

Harry T
Worcester, MA

Paulie's Point of View said...

I'm working on it right now Harry T:>)