Party house of the weekend

Once again a unit at Rolling Green Apartments, a generation old complex a fair amount of townies call home out on the Amherst/Belchertown border, is our winner. This time #202. According to police narrative: "Loud Party. Loud voices upon arrival, numerous responses here. Town Noise Bylaw citation issued to resident, 20 year old Kanha Sinha."

And I think I'm going to expand my award to include Party House in the making. My first winner is 655 Main Street. According to police logs: "Reporting Party (neighbor) came into lobby to speak with an officer regarding trash and a junk car parked at 655 Main Street. RP also advised us of loud parties from the college students at the listed location. RP was explained the options for calling in noise complaints and the potential for violations of the nuisance house bylaw. RP advised he may call Health Department as well for the trash violation."
655 Main Street (back view)

Side view

A site (visit) to behold

Frat Row: A wide expanse of flat open space in the perfect location, shovel ready

The Amherst Redevelopment Authority met principal vision consultants from American Communities Partnership both formerly at the Planning Department in Town Hall and informally at Judie's--my favorite downtown restaurant--and and then ambled along a site tour (both driving and on foot) of the general area that will someday--hopefully soon--transform the Gateway Corridor leading to UMass.Perhaps Friday was not the perfect day to get an idea of the true nature of the neighborhood as UMass is on Spring break so things were a lot quieter than normal, still the pros from ACP consulting were certainly able to get the physical lay of the land.

The main corridor easiest to define is North Pleasant street running along Frat Row with bookend churches, Mercy House on the southern end close to town center and the First Baptist Church at the northern end just before entering the main campus.

Mercy House Church

First Baptist Church

Stakeholder meetings with all the major players--immediate neighbors, UMass and Town officials, local business leaders, Town Meeting Coordinating Committee, League of Women Voters, etc--will start April 12 and conclude on April 14, setting the agenda for the wide-open interactive public event known as a charrette, now scheduled for April 28,29 and 30.

And since the two churches are well within the Gateway Corridor, one will probably be drafted as a convenient host site.


The Daily Collegian reports

Like a big pizza pie...

ZBA approves ABC permit...finally!

Third time was the charm as the ZBA last night, after two annoying continuations, approved by unanimous vote (which was required) the "special permit" necessary to allow the Amherst Brewing Company the right to pay a Connecticut company a lot of money (but essentially the same as what they were paying a local landlord for their smaller downtown location) to transform the former Leading Edge Gym on University Drive into a cozy, comfortable, responsible, adult-oriented--as opposed to rowdy student--brew pub.

Nice way to celebrate St. Patty's Day, eh?

Gateway: out of the gate, off and running

The Amherst Redevelopment Authority had a most productive meeting, including a brief 10 minute Executive Session to discuss property acquisition, that started this evening at 5:00 (instead of the usual 7:00) and wrapped up at 6:30.

ACP Visioning and Planning, awarded the four-month consulting contract only two weeks ago at our March 1st meeting (one of four bidders for the $30,000 contract), already demonstrates one reason they were chosen: A team will be in town all day this Friday for a series of work sessions with town planning staff, including a walking tour of the proposed main corridor (although an exact footprint is still to be determined) and formulating a list of stakeholders to include in the ultra-public process about to unfold.

The ARA is treating the walking tour of the possible impact area as a "site visit," which is a public meeting--so the general public may tag along--but no policy discussions or public comments will take place.

The old "Frat Row" at the main Gateway to UMass, 1.86 acres of prime real estate, is currently the only swath of land that is certain to be included in the final plan. UMass will donate the keystone piece to the ARA after state legislature approval. Senator Stan Rosenberg, one of the state's more powerful politicians, resides in Amherst and graduated from UMass/Amherst, our flagship institution of higher education.

In 2007 Alpha Tau Gamma, Inc. sold the property to UMass for $2.5 million and as part of the deal donated $500,000 the Stockbridge School of Agriculture endowment plus covered the $300,000 demolition/clean up costs. Since they were a private entity, in their final year of existence as infamous party houses they paid Amherst $60,000 in property taxes.

Since the Gateway Project will also be privately owned-and-operated, it could easily generate over a million dollars in annual tax revenues for our cash-strapped municipal coffers. Giddyup!

Here's to you Cpl Frank Buckles

America's last veteran of World War 1: "The war to end all wars."

By Presidential decree

Party house of the weekend

Strangely enough there were none this weekend--or considering it was Spring Break week--perhaps not so strange. I bet Florida had more than its share. Although the previous weekend there were more than enough party hardy contenders for the award, so I'm sure at tomorrow's Amherst Redevelopment Authority meeting the subject will come up during Public Comment period as ammunition to torpedo the Gateway Project.