Showing posts with label Downtown Amherst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Downtown Amherst. Show all posts

Friday, September 2, 2016

A King Is Born

233 North Pleasant Street (between former Carriage Shops and Kendrick Place)

The north end of downtown has a new destination spot for fine dining and you don't have to be Lebanese to appreciate their fresh offerings. 

Malek Shawarma (meaning "king" of the Shawarma sandwich) Mediterranean Cafe opened today just in time for the reawakening of our little college town.  The business is owned by Eliana Dabbous who operates a barber shop next door and her son Ali will be managing the restaurant.

 Ali Dabbous (right)

Anyone who has ever run a small business knows it's a full-time + commitment, and the odds of success are increased dramatically if you have a partner who shares your enthusiasm for serving the general public and the onerous work ethic that requires.

It also helps if you have a great product.

Beef slow cooking

Thursday, August 4, 2016

No More Free Ride

Amity Street lot is across the street from Jones Library

Or maybe I should say "free park," as the pay machine was just installed at the most popular municipal parking lot in town center, which reopened July 11th after a complete renovation.

Yesterday afternoon


Good thing of course since Amherst needs all the parking it can get and I'm sure shoppers appreciated the free parking over the past three weeks.

Although the town Transportation Fund not so much, since the Amity Street lot generates $150/day in revenues.

Friday, July 15, 2016

The Homeless Problem

Chief Livingstone (center) Phillip O'Connell (right)

Last night's Public Forum On Homelessness attracted a standing room only crowd to the Town Room including two Town Managers and an Assistant Town Manager, two Public Safety Chiefs, department heads, Town Meeting members, social service workers, the clergy, and of course some of the homeless who call our streets home.

 Incoming Town Manager Paul Bockelman (blue shirt)

The final speaker -- homeless downtown poster boy Phillip O'Connell -- became borderline disruptive, criticizing the outreach efforts as all show and no substance.  He went so far as to compare the treatment of the homeless as being, "worse than a Jim Crow negro in the Jim Crow south."

Umm, exaggerate much?

But it did cause a stir among the crowd.  And reinforced the image of the homeless in Amherst as being disruptive.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

New Top Economic Cop In Town

Tim O'Brien, new Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director

The Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, after a 3.5 month search, has appointed a new Executive Director, but since they are pretty good at writing press releases I'll let them tell the story:

 Click to enlarge/read




Monday, July 11, 2016

Open For Business

7:30 AM the first car (and driver was proud of it)

The centrally located Amity Street Parking lot, after two months closure, reopened this morning with everything except pay machines.  So for the time being parking is free.

The lot increases slightly in capacity from 33 to 35 spaces with three of them handicapped accessible, where previously there were only two.

 4:00 PM

The improvement plans also call for a raised crosswalk connecting to the Jones Library instead of the current temporary painted crosswalk as well as sidewalk improvements. 

Later this month the Planning Board and Tree Warden will decide the fate of the large (22") Linden tree which stands in the way of the construction.

Tree is currently leaning towards Amity Street

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Off The Streets (For Now)

APD arrests Paul Scace, age 54, June 30th at CVS


Paul Scace a "frequent flyer" with our first responders who lists his address as "streets of Amherst" was sentenced to ten days in the House of Correction after he pleaded "guilty" yesterday to the charge of "trespass" at the CVS in town center.

 Paul Scace (APD booking photo)

Which means he will not be out in time for the July 14th town sponsored community forum on homelessness .

One For Two

Centrally located Amity Street lot should reopen tomorrow

Our downtown is about half done with construction projects as the most popular downtown parking lot, adjacent to Amherst Cinema and the Jones Library, reopens for business (any minute now).

But construction continues in the north end of downtown as our DPW is preparing the area for the removal of ugly above ground utility poles, which hopefully will be completed before the lifeblood of our community -- college aged youth -- come flocking back to town the middle of next month.

 Triangle/East Pleasant intersection yesterday.  Next year will become roundabout

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Last Minute Development Tweak

One East Pleasant within close proximity of (5 story) Kendrick Place (top right)

 Carriage shops sold to Archipelago for $4.6 million and will soon be demolished

Archipelago Investments who brought us a bunch of five story places -- Kendrick Place, Boltwood Place, Olympia Place -- have a (sort of) do over Special Permit request going before the Planning Board later next month.

 Boltwood Place, town center
Olympia Place near UMass

Essentially it's only a tweak as they are not asking for any real physical changes in height or coverage for their proposed One East Pleasant Street, but simply a reshuffling of units in the building as well as an increase in green space.

Click to enlarge/read





If Vince O'Connor's zoning article mandating 10% affordable units for any project requiring even the slightest use of a Special Permit had passed Town Meeting last month this current proposal would have been impacted, thereby requiring ten of the 135 units be "affordable."

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Gothic Renewal

32 North Prospect Street, Amherst town center


It will be interesting to see if the usual NIMBY suspects turn out for the June 30th  Zoning Board of Appeals Special Permit hearing on 32 North Prospect Street, located in a residential neighborhood, but about as close as you can get to being in the actual downtown.

The historic beauty is currently owned by the legendary Hastings family, who founded A.J. Hastings, Inc in town center over 100 years ago.

 A.J. Hastings, Inc  45 South Pleasant Street, town center

 Click to enlarge/read

The proposed project would leave the beautiful building intact although doubling occupancy to two dwelling units (currently the house is a "one family" unit); and perhaps more controversial, constructing a new 4,700 square foot two-story structure out back housing an additional four dwelling units.

Thus the town gains an additional five units of badly needed housing within (sleep) walking distance of the downtown business core, which will directly benefit A.J. Hastings, Inc and all our starving restaurants.

And the sacred "Master Plan" that everyone seems to love quoting does call for this exact type of infill. The Design Review Board and Historical Commission have already supported the project.

Parking: Reality vs Perception

Amherst downtown core is a five minute walk end to end

With four major municipal building projects costing over $100 million in town money looming on the immediate horizon the likelihood of adding a new parking garage to that expensive short list is pretty close to zero.

 Downtown Parking Working Group

Especially after yesterday's presentation to the new Downtown Parking Working Group by Nelson/Nygaard consultants Jason Schrieber and Liza Cohen.   Their recent study showed peak demand never absorbs more than two-thirds of total parking available (within 10 minute walk) although that includes private parking lots.

Jason Schrieber and Liza Cohen

And the $40,000 study also concluded overall demand has remain essentially unchanged since the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission parking study in 2008, which also found plenty of parking available, but just not at the right time when consumers prefer it.


This is not the entire presentation

When asked about a new garage after their 40 minute presentation Schrieber responded "The reality is you have plenty of parking spaces."

And he pointed out that a garage is very expensive with no state funding available these days so you have to charge a minimum of $1 per hour to cover the capital costs, which scares away customers.

CVS side of lot was full at 1:30 PM but only 3 customers in store
CVS portion of lot on right

Other cheaper solutions are to work out deals with private owners to share parking.  For instance the town could start a pilot program with CVS for their parking lot, which is contiguous with a town lot.

By allowing free parking for the first hour or two it would take care of any potential CVS shopper and more than double the amount of parking available to them.

 Amity Street lot is currently off line for renovations

The CVS lot has also been talked about as the location for a new parking garage, but besides the high cost that would require a zoning change and the Boltwood Parking Garage was a bitter enough battle in Town Meeting 20 years ago, resulting in too small a structure.

 Tiny Boltwood Garage was built with possible expansion in mind
Click to enlarge/read

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Leaving A Good Taste

Taste of Amherst looked good from any angle

According to Interim Chamber of Commerce Director Jerry Guidera this year's Taste of Amherst was about the best ever due to a combination of wonderful weather and a fine tuned array of offerings from all the food vendors as well as a live music and things for the young or young at heart.

Or maybe is was the full page ad in Hampshire Life using a cool background photo:


Either way, best of all (also weather related) our historic Town Common did not take a beating.

Town Common this morning

More Trouble In Paradise

Antonio's Pizza, 31 North Pleasant Street, downtown Amherst

Yesterday was a bad day for local iconic restaurants.

Rafters slid closer to the abyss after our Select Board approved a "Letter of Support" for yet another medical marijuana dispensary that wants to locate on their grave and legal notice was published in the venerable Daily Hampshire Gazette of an upcoming auction for the building that houses Antonio's.



Double Yikes.

Anyone who knows anything about downtown Amherst knows Antonio's is The-Little-Train-That-Could of restaurants, even slaying a McDonald's that dared to open up next door.

Bruno Matarazzo, the hardest working man in Amherst prior to his untimely death, opened the business back in the early 1990s when the concept of pizza by the slice was pretty much untried.

According to assessor records the building was purchased from his wife Barbara in 2003 by Reves Amherst Pizza Property LLC.  And that company has since expanded Bruno's winning concept to Belchertown, Easthampton, Worcester, Providence R.I. and College Station, Texas.


Wednesday, June 1, 2016

In & Out Sweets

Insomnia Cookies opened last week in time for the Community Fair

Town center -- the heart of our business district -- lost a somewhat established business but gained a new one to keep things in balance.  Such is the trying nature of small business.

 For sale or lease

FroyoWorld frozen yogurt opened a few years ago in direct competition with GoBerry pretty much across the street, but now their freezers are shut down.

Amherst is not so much a mecca for frozen treats as iconic Ben & Jerry's couldn't survivive in the downtown and equally revered Bart's Ice Cream was saved by a last minute buyout and their name change to Amherst Ice Cream.

The big advantage with cookies is they are easy to deliver, which I'm sure will make up the major portion of Insomnia Cookies business.



After all, who doesn't like warm cookies delivered to your door at 3:00 AM?

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Fiery Friday

219 Amity Street this morning

While many of us townies were enjoying the Rotary sponsored Community Fair, which lit up the night sky like a giant Christmas tree, AFD was busy battling a blaze on a large rental two blocks away that most folks mistake for a rooming house at the corner of Amity and Lincoln Avenue.

Amherst Community Fair Town Common last night

In addition to this home turf battle AFD also assisted via mutual aid their brothers and sisters in Northampton for a potentially catastrophic fire at a senior care facility and a structure in Leverett that was "fully engulfed" when our Quint (Engine 2) arrived to assist.

 The Quint on scene Shutesbury Road, Leverett last night

Plus AFD was pretty much flat out earlier in the day with ambulance runs and an unattended death.

The timing of the fire was both good and bad.  Since the house is pretty much a student rental and UMass is no longer in session the number of potential victims was lowered.

But for the same reason AFD no longer has the "Impact Shift" operational, which is funded by $80K from UMass to assure four extra firefighters are on duty (bringing shift total to 13) during the busy weekend evenings when ambulance runs for substance abuse are all too usual.

Although, even is this had been one of those weekends the Impact Shift does not report for duty until 9:00 PM and the fire broke out about 45 minutes earlier than that.

I asked Chief Nelson about all this Saturday morning quarterbacking on my part about staffing and a proposal he mentioned a while back at the initial DPW/Fire Station Advisory Committee about the town  hiring a consultant to do a (badly needed) staffing level study and he responded:


"Our minimum was eight last night. It goes to seven on June 1st. We go back to eight in the fall.

At the time of the fire last night, one ambulance was at the hospital with another one returning to town. That meant we had 4 personnel in town at the time of the fire; 3 at North Station, 1 at Central Station.

The returning ambulance was backing in as E-1 was pulling out of the bay and an off duty AFD FF ran across the street to join the response. That gave us 4 Firefighters arriving initially with 3 Firefighters coming from North Station.

If this had been September we would have been at nine minimum from 5pm to 9pm. At 9pm the impact personnel come on duty.

 When we first began the impact shifts I convinced John Musante that it was a good idea to go to nine from eight personnel in order to keep an odd number which allows us to staff 4 ambulances and keep 1 Captain in town for command & control.

Once we instituted the Paramedic Firetruck we changed that posture to staffing 3 ambulances and staffing the Paramedic Firetruck with 3 personnel. ALS care in addition to Fire/Rescue coverage that doesn't leave the town potentially without protection.

Luck played a part last night but the main reason we were successful was because of the people I'm fortunate to work with on this department.

The RFP submittal period closed on Thursday. Now the submittals will be reviewed and consultant chosen."

Indeed. 

I can't count the number of time I've heard informed sources say AFD is a victim of their own success:  A talented, dedicated group of professionals who do so much for so many with so few.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Protectionism Or Preservation?

North Pleasant Street on west side of Kendrick Park is a big concern

As former Chair of the Dickinson Local Historic District Commission and a petitioner before them (not while Chair) of the most complicated project they reviewed -- a $500,000 renovation of historic Hills House on Main Street -- Jerry Guidera has a unique perspective on how Local Historic Districts work and he deemed his overall experience "onerous".

 Historic Hills House on Main Street
Jerry Guidera and Tom Ehrgood present to Linclon Sunset Local Historical District Commission last night

Even Steven Bloom Chair of the Lincoln/Sunset Local Historic District Study Committee freely admitted to the 25 or so people at the public hearing that it would be "Another layer of bureaucracy, another hoop to jump through."

 Bill Gillen (right) Steven Bloom (left)

Committee member Bill Gillen, a long-time architect, thought the hearings would be good for developers as it would give them an early insight into what the general public thinks of their project, kind of like acting as a canary in a coal mine.  

Although in Amherst, ANY project is opposed by somebody.

About two dozen attended the public hearing

During his original presentation Dickinson Local Historic District Chair Tom Ehrgood ruled out simply adding this new proposed district to his Committee's oversight as they are already overburdened and could not handle a 500% increase in jurisdiction area.

Only seven audience members chose to address the Committee and barely a majority favored forming the new Local Historic District, and not all that passionately.  

The Business Improvement District and Chamber of Commerce strongly oppose the inclusion of North Pleasant Street along the west side of Kendrick Park as it is contiguous with the downtown and the last remaining area ripe for development.

After hearing from prominent local developers earlier in the week over that particular concern, Bloom told the crowd the current proposed area "Is not set in stone, it's a trial balloon."

If the Committee decides to move forward with the project it could come before Amherst Town Meeting next year where it would require a hard to achieve two-thirds vote.