October 13, 2012

South Worcester Industrial Park

The other night, against my better judgement, I went to a meeting of the South Worcester Industrial Park.  Before I go any further everyone there are very nice people and this is nothing against our new District Councilor, Councilor Rivera.  Read this link from Nicole's blog.    August 1994 was the initial proposal!

Specifically

October 7, 1999 – “Stephen F. O’Neil, director of the city manager’s Office of Planning and Community Development, said an estimated 1,760 new jobs with a payroll of $45 million could be created at the blighted South Worcester Industrial Park, a 25-acre complex of old buildings. The city estimates it would need $27 million to clean the area


18 years later since the initial proposal and we have spent millions and have not created one job!!!  In fact we have lost jobs by having companies move out of some of these businesses that were torn down.   The other night the talk was about 1) a marketing plan, which we do not have and 2) a name change.  I say Metro-West Boston Worcester Industrial Park.

Bottom line is the South Worcester Industrial Park Task Force and the City of Worcester Economic Development office has had 18 years to work on this.  

It is time to give this project to someone else!!  Look no further then Gateway Park!!!!   This is no differen then the airport.  Just like the City of Worcester should not be in the airport business, we should not be in the Industrial Park business.

Eighteen years and we do not have a marketing plan and not one job. 

3 comments:

jahn said...

".....payroll of $45M could be...." realized. The operative term being could. Dare I ask has there been any dev'ment there at all?

Rename the place????....!!!!!...GGGGGRRRRRR This always the political answer. Ya know what I mean....kinda like wars being called Overseas Contingency Operations. Bill, you cant be serious ....renamed to Boston Worc Indus. Park...???? BTW what ever happened to the CC's proposed name change to Boston Worc Metro Airport?

Under one of the below threads Entitled "Picture" , I penned an OT piece about a letter to the editor boasting about how one 3rd grade class at one elementary came in 1st in MCAS results statewide. My beef was that nothing else was mentioned about how the rest of the other 15 or 20 3rd grade elemmentary school classes did or how the school system as a whole fared.

Well fast forward 4-5 days and looo and behold the School super. will be delivering her State of The Schools address 700pm Monday.

T&G says...."the speech also comes after the state released test [MCAS] scores that show the district [city] is not where [the super] hoped it would be when she created the Worc Compact three years ago. .......goal was 80% of 3rd to 8th graders be proficient in math and English.............instead only 41% of 3rd graders were at least proficient in in reading and math" and a letter to the editor someone is thumping their chest about this?

Yup another fancy name change, "Worc Compact". Lotsa good that did ! Long story short, someone writes a letter to the editor 4-5 days ago touting one, tiny, infintesimally small portion of 3RD GRADE elemmentary school kids rank highest in MCAS in the state and it ends up on editorial page. Meanwhile in totallity, the wheels are coming off city MACS scores and story is buried in the Saturday morning T&G, 6th page.

Superintent Boone, you're fired. Letter writer to the editor, you're fired. S Worc Indus Park , you're fired but not renamed. Bill, you're fired too. Your crime? Espousing a name change to Boston Metro Indus Park.
All 4 of you, the street level, express elevator is behind ya. Mr. Jahn has been gracious enough to cover 4 cabs to La Gaurdia :)

Bill Randell said...

Jahn

Come on!! They were seriously talkning about a name change??

I was kiddin when I said Metro-West Boston.

Bill

Jahn said...

Wow, Nicole's piece detailing the history of the S Worc Industrial Park has similarities to the citys other dev'emt ventures like the airport and The Main St business district.

However Worc does get an A+ in dev'ing inefficient, cost prohibitive, densely built low income housing. Industrial buildings dont vote democratic, but low income housing sure does.