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A Ski Resort Rebrands as Ultraexclusive, and Some Locals Feel Left Out

Windham Mountain, a ski resort just over two hours north of New York City, was in need of revamping. The lift lines were too long. The food and drink quality had declined. So when word got out that a new ownership group was taking over, the change was initially welcomed. But then the new owners, led by the founder of a national restaurant chain and a hotel group scion, unveiled a slick website that laid out their plans for an ambitious rebrand in October. Windham Mountain would now be known as the Windham Mountain Club. The resort promised skiers “a rare time in rarified air.” The club’s restaurants would receive a “gastronomique glow up.” Memberships to access the new amenities would come at a steep price: $175,000 for those who joined right away, and $200,000 for those who waited until March. If current members, some of whom paid as little as $25,000 for their spots, did not opt in, their memberships would be terminated on May 1. “It’s no secret that they’ve managed to alienate and, frankly, piss off a lot of people,” said Nick Bove, who owns Windham Mountain Outfitters, a local equipment store.

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5 for Good: Boston and Lawrence-based nonprofit helps budding beauty businesses

5 for Good: Boston and Lawrence-based nonprofit helps budding beauty businesses TLC Center for Urban Entrepreneurship offers free supports to local makeup, hair businesses Share Copy Link Copy I FEEL LIKE THIS CHANGES YOUR WHOLE LIFE. A HIGHLIGHT OF THE BROW, A BOLD STATEMENT THAT THE RIGHT MAKEUP CAN MAKE THAT MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE. BUT CERTAINLY BARBARA RODRIGUEZ KNOWS PLENTY ABOUT LIFE CHANGES. YOU DO NOT WANT TO TAKE OFF. YOU WANT TO APPLY BY A FREELANCE MAKEUP ARTIST AND EDUCATOR. BARBARA STARTED HER CAREER WORKING FOR OTHERS. LANCOME. I WORKED FOR SEPHORA AND THEN FROM SEPHORA LANDED IN MAC, THEN IN 2016, SHE LAUNCHED HER OWN COMPANY. ME. IT WAS NOT EASY. I THOUGHT I MADE A MISTAKE. I AM A SINGLE MOM AND NOT TO PUT EMPHASIS ON THAT, BUT THINK ABOUT THAT WHEN YOU HAVE A CHILD AND YOU’RE GOING TO DECIDE TO WORK FOR YOURSELF. SO SHE ULTIMATELY FOUND THE BUSINESS SUPPORT SHE NEEDED AT THE CENTER FOR URBAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP, WE SERVE BEAUTY PROFESSIONALS AND EARLY STAGE BEAUTY BUSINESS OWNERS WHO REALLY WANT TO NOT ONLY JUST LAUNCH BUT BUILD A THRIVING BUSINESS, A BANKABLE BUSINESS. TRICIA YOUNG STARTED THE NONPROFIT AFTER A DIFFICULT TIME IN HER LIFE. I LEARNED I WAS SICK. WITHIN MONTHS OF THAT, I HAD LOST MY JOB THAT I LOVED SO DEARLY. THEN SHORTLY AFTER THAT, MY MY HUSBAND AND I SEPARATED AND ULTIMATELY DIVORCED. SHE REALIZED HOW HARD TRANSITIONS ARE. THEN IN THIS BEAUTY LOVER DECIDED TO HELP OTHERS HERE IN LAWRENCE, BUILDING A BEAUTY BUSINESS INCUBATOR, TLI OFFERS FREE HANDS ON TRAINING BOTH MAKEUP AND HAIR BUSINESS CONSULTING AND GRANTS, AND EVEN MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORTS. BEAUTY PROFESSIONALS OFTENTIMES DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO THOSE CRITICAL RESOURCES THEY NEED TO BE ABLE TO FORMALIZE A BUSINESS AND AND SET IT UP TO WHERE IT CAN BE SCALABLE. AND JUDY DELA CRUZ FOUND TLI WHEN HER NORTH ANDOVER DAY SPA WAS IN TROUBLE, WE WERE IMPACTED TO 2019. WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAS EXPLOSION. BUSINESS WENT DOWN THINKING THAT WAS THE WORST YEAR EVER. NO. THEN 2020 CAME IN BACK TO BACK AND SAME THING WE HAD TO CLOSE FOR MONTHS. KELLEY STEPPED IN, OFFERING TECHNICAL SUPPORT. THEY HELPED ME REVAMP MY WEBSITE. THEY ALSO HELPED ME WITH POS SYSTEMS AND UPDATING MY COMPUTER SYSTEMS, WHICH WERE ANCIENT. THEY CREATED REPUTATION FOR ME. IF THAT MAKES SENSE, BARBARA SAYS. KELLEY NOT ONLY HELPED WITH HER WEBSITE, BUT ALSO WITH BUILDING A CLIENT BASE. SHE NOW TEACHES SOME OF TLIIS CLASSES. THOSE COURSES ARE BOTH IN-PERSON AND ONLINE. THERE’S EVEN A REENTRY PROGRAM FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE INCARCERATED, EAGER TO BUILD SKILLS BEFORE THEIR RELEASE. SOME OF THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS THAT COME WITH LIFE. YOU DON’T KNOW UNTIL YOU EXPERIENCE IT. BARBARA SAYS. BATTLING THROUGH HER TRIALS WITH TLIE SUPPORT HELPED HER ARRIVE IN A PLACE SHE LOVES. IT IS JUST REWARDING FOR ME. I GOT TO WAKE UP THIS MORNING AND BE LIKE I’M GOING TO DO MAKEUP, I’M GOING TO TEACH MAKEUP LIKE HOW AWESOME IS THAT? IT IS AWESOME. SO TLI RAISES MONEY TO SUPPORT THESE BUDDING BUSINESSES IN A VARIETY OF WAYS. FOR ONE, THEY PARTNER WITH GYMS AND HOLD FITNESS FUNDRAISERS. TRICIA, WHO AGAIN STARTED TLI, SAYS FITNESS HELPED HER THROUGH HER HARD TIMES. AND YOU CAN FIND MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THESE EVENTS ON GET LOCAL BREAKING NEWS ALERTS The latest breaking updates, delivered straight to your email inbox. Your Email Address Submit Privacy Notice

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Like no other: Popular Connecticut pizza chains 1st Massachusetts location opens today

WOBURN, Mass. — A wildly popular Connecticut restaurant chain known for serving up “crafted pizza like no other” is officially opening its first Massachusetts location on Thursday. Sally’s Apizza, founded in New Haven in 1938, is ready to begin welcoming customers at its new Woburn Village restaurant. Sally's APizza (Woburn location (Sally's APizza rendering)) In a Facebook post, Sally’s wrote, “You see, restaurants, they come and go. But Sally’s. Sally’s is forever. Who’s excited for Woburn?” You see, restaurants, they come and go. But Sally’s. Sally’s is forever. • • Who’s excited for Woburn👀 • • shoutout to ... Posted by Sally's Apizza on Thursday, December 7, 2023 Sally’s offers customers a choice between nine coal-fired Neapolitan pizzas, as well as classic Italian entrees, and an array of apps including skillet meatballs, Italian wings, rigatoni vodka, fried mozzarella, Brussels sprouts, crispy calamari, arancini, baked clams, garlic shrimp. “Famous for our distinctive tomato sauce and chewy, crispy crust with an iconic oven-kissed char, Sally’s draws pizza fans from around the world,” the restaurant’s website states. Sandwiches, salads, bruschetta, and desserts are also available on Sally’s menu. Sally's Apizza Woburn grand opening tomorrow!! https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2023/12/11/sallys-apizza-woburn/ Posted by Chris Brandon on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 Their renowned pies were named among the best in America by USA Today, among other publications. Sally’s also has three Connecticut restaurants in Fairfield, Stamford, and New Haven. Additional spots are also coming to Wethersfield, Norwalk, and Newington, as well as the Boston Seaport in 2024. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ©2023 Cox Media Group

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Tesla Strike Is a Culture Clash: Swedish Labor vs. American Management

A guinea pig is a popular pet for many. However, concerns are growing on where they're sold in Boston. Lawmakers on Monday are putting that topic in the spotlight at City Hall. The goal is to ensure these animals are safe and being treated humanely, rather than just a commodity. The MSPCA and other animal welfare groups asked the City Council to build on an ordinance from 2016 that prevents selling dogs, cats or rabbits in pet stores unless those stores partner with a shelter or rescue. Since then, the MSPCA said Massachusetts animal shelters have been overwhelmed with guinea pigs, so adding them to the ordinance would help address overpopulation problems and the surrender of strays, allowing them to have a more streamlined process to get them into homes. Get New England news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NECN newsletters. The hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. It can be watched remotely on Zoom.

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Former Eastfield Mall sign to remain put as new shopping plaza rises in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD — Developers creating the new Springfield Crossing out of the rubble of the former Eastfield Mall plan to keep the mall’s entrance sign in place. Onyx Partners Limited purchased the 56-year-old mall for $4.5 million last March to develop the $65 million to $85 million Springfield Crossing and began demolition on the 45-acre site in August, starting at the former Cinemark movie theater. While one giant sign on Boston Road that used to announce Eastfield Mall happenings has been replaced with a giant banner announcing leasing at Springfield Crossing, the entrance sign in front of the former building itself will remain. Other than a bit of touch-up, Onyx will leave the sign in its current form and size, said Brian Kaplan, vice president of development for Onyx Partners. “We have no plans of taking it down or destroying it,” Kaplan said. “It’s been a staple in the community for years, and so we want to make use of it in the new project.” He added, “We don’t have any definitive plans for exactly what we’re going to do to the sign, we just know that we’re going to leave it in its current location and size. I can imagine that (Springfield Crossing’s) name will be on it.” The demolition is on schedule, according to Kaplan, who expects it to be complete within a few weeks. Site work will follow to meet a project deadline to finish construction in summer 2025. The new 360,000-square-foot retail complex, under the direction of leasing agent Atlantic Retail, intends to house Hobby Lobby, PetSmart, Old Navy, Burlington Coat Store, Ulta, Five Below, and Sketchers, several of which have locations nearby. The new site’s largest retailer remains a mystery. The unidentified “Proposed Anchor Tenant” is speculated to be a Target, though neither the developers nor the store will confirm. In a previous report, Anton Melchionda, founder of Onyx Partners Limited, said that the company has reached out to all national tenants, a pool of 300 potential businesses.

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Former Eastfield Mall sign to remain put as new shopping plaza rises in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD — Developers creating the new Springfield Crossing out of the rubble of the former Eastfield Mall plan to keep the mall’s entrance sign in place. Onyx Partners Limited purchased the 56-year-old mall for $4.5 million last March to develop the $65 million to $85 million Springfield Crossing and began demolition on the 45-acre site in August, starting at the former Cinemark movie theater. While one giant sign on Boston Road that used to announce Eastfield Mall happenings has been replaced with a giant banner announcing leasing at Springfield Crossing, the entrance sign in front of the former building itself will remain. Other than a bit of touch-up, Onyx will leave the sign in its current form and size, said Brian Kaplan, vice president of development for Onyx Partners. “We have no plans of taking it down or destroying it,” Kaplan said. “It’s been a staple in the community for years, and so we want to make use of it in the new project.” He added, “We don’t have any definitive plans for exactly what we’re going to do to the sign, we just know that we’re going to leave it in its current location and size. I can imagine that (Springfield Crossing’s) name will be on it.” The demolition is on schedule, according to Kaplan, who expects it to be complete within a few weeks. Site work will follow to meet a project deadline to finish construction in summer 2025. The new 360,000-square-foot retail complex, under the direction of leasing agent Atlantic Retail, intends to house Hobby Lobby, PetSmart, Old Navy, Burlington Coat Store, Ulta, Five Below, and Sketchers, several of which have locations nearby. The new site’s largest retailer remains a mystery. The unidentified “Proposed Anchor Tenant” is speculated to be a Target, though neither the developers nor the store will confirm. In a previous report, Anton Melchionda, founder of Onyx Partners Limited, said that the company has reached out to all national tenants, a pool of 300 potential businesses.

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Deerfield potato farmer who battled summer floods gets a shout-out from Mass. Gov. Healey

Last July, Jay and Lisa Savage of Deerfield were contending with the fallout from a round of damaging flooding when Gov. Maura Healey rolled up to inspect the damage. The Democratic governor joined Savage, a fourth-generation potato farmer, as they “waded together through fields covered in mud and knee-deep in water. We saw hundreds of acres destroyed by flooding,” Healey recalled Wednesday. The visit was part of a regional tour that Healey and other state officials conducted to survey flooding damage across western Massachusetts. While she was there, Healey vowed to leverage as much and state and federal assistance as she could for the afflicted farmers. Healey recounted the visit as she addressed a joint session of the state House and Senate on Wednesday night, where she delivered the first State of the Commonwealth speech of her administration. The Savages, who were seated in the House gallery, rose to be recognized by lawmakers, and were greeted by thunderous applause from the crowd. “In Western and Central Massachusetts, I stood with families who were staring down the total loss of their crops, just before the harvest. They kept working hard, as they always do. And our state rallied around them,” Healey said in remarks prepared for delivery on Wednesday night. “We asked the Legislature for help, and you delivered. We set up a fund with the United Way and donors big and small sent what they could. And today, every single one of those farms is still on its feet. Jay and Lisa, thank you – and thank you to all the folks who work so hard to put food on our tables,” she said. Healey, who has spoken before about touring flood-afflicted areas of the commonwealth, and of her meetings with homeowners and business owners left to contend with the destruction left in their wake, called the damage “the reality of climate change today.” During her speech Wednesday, Healey touted her administration’s efforts to deal with climate change, noting that she had appointed the “nation’s first cabinet-level climate chief.” During her second, full year in office, Healey told the crowd Wednesday that she wanted to work with policymakers to “make Massachusetts the climate innovation lab for the world. “We’ll help Climate Tech companies not only start, but scale in Massachusetts – creating good jobs in the Climate Corridor we are building across our state,” she said. Healey also recalled a visit to North Andover last August, where “I stood in the kitchen of a restaurant ... with an owner who had just watched years of hard work destroyed. A month later, I met a homeowner in North Attleboro whose house took on six feet of water in 20 minutes – and was condemned while we were there.” “This is what it looks like when old infrastructure meets today’s storms. We have to protect our homes and businesses – for the long term, and right now,” she continued. Our communities need help, and they deserve a better response.” Healey said she planned to seek increased state funding to help communities shore up local riverbanks, to repair local dams and drainage systems. She also plans to seek legislative authorization of a permanent “disaster relief resiliency fund,” that would come in addition to the $15 million in disaster assistance that was included in the year-end budget bill that lawmakers passed, and Healey signed, last year. The resiliency fund is based on House and Senate legislation respectively sponsored by Rep. Natalie Blais, D-1st Franklin, and Sen. Joanne M. Comerford, D-Hampshire/Franklin/Worcester, that would speed the flow of assistance to disaster-stricken communities. Right now, the Bay State is one of only two states that doesn’t have a permanent disaster relief fund, MassLive previously reported. That means state officials only can provide assistance when the Legislature and governor pass a supplemental appropriation that addresses a community’s specific need. And that can result in months of delay when the need for funding is an urgent one, the lawmakers said during a news conference last November. Healey, who credited the two lawmakers for their work during her speech Wednesday, observed that “severe weather isn’t going away anytime soon. “Let’s future-proof our communities and be ready when help is needed,” she said.

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Multi family sells in Worcester for $1.2 million

A multi-unit house located at 6 Windsor Street in Worcester has a new owner. The 3,690-square-foot property, built in 1910, was sold on Dec. 15, 2023, for $1,150,000, or $312 per square foot. This three-story multi-family features a total of seven bedrooms and six baths. On the exterior, the home features a hip roof design constructed with asphalt roofing. The interior features just one fireplace. Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News

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MassHealth to cover doula services for pregnant, birthing, postpartum people

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed as moot a dispute over whether a disabled woman could sue a hotel for violating a federal disability law even though she did not plan to stay there. The woman, Deborah Laufer, had sued hundreds of hotels whose websites did not say whether they had rooms accessible to disabled people, as required by a regulation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She typically asked the hotels to admit they broke the law, fix the issue and pay her legal fees. “As the sheer number of lawsuits suggests,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for seven justices, “she does not focus her efforts on hotels where she has any thought of staying, much less booking a room. Instead, Laufer systematically searches the web to find hotels that fail to provide accessibility information and sues to force compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.” The case before the court, Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, No. 22-429, started in September 2020, when Ms. Laufer sued Acheson Hotels, the operator of the Coast Village Inn and Cottages, a small hotel in Wells, Maine. The question the justices agreed to answer was whether “testers” like Ms. Laufer had suffered the sort of direct and concrete injuries that gave them standing to sue.

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Uber cuts off Boston-based Drizly, the alcohol delivery app it bought three years ago

Uber cuts off Boston-based Drizly, the alcohol delivery app it bought three years ago Uber is shutting down Boston-based alcohol delivery app Drizly, the company confirmed, three years after acquiring the platform for $1.1 billion. Drizly will officially shut down at the end of March, Uber told The Associated Press. That means orders are open until then, Drizly said in details posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “We’ll be sure to let you know when it’s last call,” Drizly wrote in a post Monday. In a prepared statement, Uber’s senior vice president of delivery Pierre Dimitri Gore-Coty said that the company decided to close Drizly's business and “focus on our core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything — from food to groceries to alcohol — all on a single app.” Uber purchased Drizly in a cash-and-stock deal back in 2021. The subsidiary continued to operate as a standalone app, with its marketplace also integrated into the Uber Eats platform. Drizly currently delivers beer, wine and spirits in states where it’s legal, and partners with retailers across North America. Regulators accused the alcohol delivery app of security failures several years ago that exposed personal information of some 2.5 million customers. To resolve these allegations, Drizly later agreed to tighten security and limit data collection. Axios first reported on Uber's decision to shutter Drizly Monday. In a Tuesday email to The Associated Press, Uber said it plans to learn from Drizly's time in the industry as the company continues to grow its own “BevAlc” offerings, which are currently available in 35 U.S. states and 25 countries worldwide. The San Francisco company added that the majority of current Drizly customers also have Uber accounts.

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Westfield Gas & Electric building added to Saturdays Downtown WinterWalk

WESTFIELD — The Westfield Gas & Electric building, at the corner of Arnold and Elm streets, has been added as a display space to Saturday’s Downtown WinterWalk, according to ArtWorks Westfield President Bill Westerlind. There will be three artists displaying their work in the lobby. On Thursday, Westerlind confirmed a final headcount of 51 artists at the event, which combines a downtown art walk with a European-style winter market. Twelve artists will be at the Olver Transit Pavilion, 10 Arnold St., as part of ArtWorks’ “Art in Unusual Places” series. All artists’ displays will be inside the bus station building. Twenty artists will be set up along School Street, which will be closed off to traffic during the event. Westerlind said it will be interesting to see the community reaction to the street being pedestrianized. Some business owners on the street have recommended making it a permanent pedestrian mall.

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Sports Illustrated Thrown Into Chaos With Mass Layoffs

Some Sports Illustrated staff members received emails with immediate layoff notices, while others were told in further Zoom meetings that they would keep their jobs for at least 90 days. (Roughly 100 journalists work for Sports Illustrated.) Arena Group’s executives told Sports Illustrated staff members they planned on continuing to publish the magazine and website, despite having their license to operate the publication revoked. But it was not immediately clear how that would work. It was also unclear whether the magazine’s owner, Authentic Brands Group, would strike a new agreement with the Arena Group or find a new company to operate it. But it seems certain that even if Sports Illustrated survives in some form, it will be severely diminished. The mood among staff members in the wake of the layoff announcement was a mix of anger, frustration and confusion. Journalists at Sports Illustrated texted and messaged one another on Slack, unsure in some cases who had been laid off, and what the ultimate fate of the magazine would be. For decades, Sports Illustrated was a weekly must-read for sports fans and a financial engine for the Time Inc. empire. It once had over three million subscribers, and its writing, reporting and photography were considered the pinnacle of sports journalism. Landing on the cover was the most coveted endorsement an athlete could receive, even well into the television and internet eras. And its annual swimsuit issue was a pop culture phenomenon. “I think it is one of the best magazines to ever exist, with some of the best photographers, writers and editors that have ever been in one building,” said Rick Reilly, who for years wrote the magazine’s popular backpage column. He added, “If it is really dead, it has kind of been dying.”

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Mass. State Lottery winner: $100,000 prize won at sandwich shop on New Years Day

A lottery player who went to a sandwich shop on New Year’s Day won a $100,000 prize, the Massachusetts State Lottery announced. The prize was from the daily “Mass Cash” drawing, and the winning numbers for the drawing were 14, 15, 24, 28 and 33. The lottery player who won $100,000 had bought their winning ticket from a sandwich shop in Raynham called Coletti’s Market. Additionally, a lottery player in Massachusetts won $50,000 during the Powerball drawing on Monday. The winning numbers for the drawing were 12, 21, 42, 44, 49 and Powerball: 1, and the Massachusetts lottery player who won $50,000 bought their winning ticket in Lowell from a store called Country Farms. Overall, there were at least 299 lottery prizes worth $600 or more won or claimed in Massachusetts on Monday, including five in Worcester. The Massachusetts State Lottery releases a full list of all the winning tickets each day. The list only includes winning tickets worth more than $600.

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Will Dunkin be open on Christmas or New Years in 2023?

Worried about having to go without a Pink Velvet Macchiato from Dunkin’ on the merriest days of the year? You’re in luck. Dunkin’ does not close its locations on Christmas, so some may be open, while others may be open for limited hours, the coffee shop chain said in a statement. One Dunkin’ in Boston said over the phone Thursday that they would be closed on Christmas, but open for regular hours on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Read more: How to make a Dunkintini, according to Martha Stewart Anyone wanting to visit a Dunkin’ location on an upcoming holiday should check the Dunkin’ app or the coffee shop chain’s online store locator to check whether and when their local Dunkin’ is open. (And if you do go, be sure to thank and tip the employees who are graciously working a holiday!)

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TGI Fridays abruptly closed these 6 Massachusetts locations on Jan. 2

Nearly half of the TGI Fridays locations in Massachusetts closed permanently on Tuesday with no warning. MassLive confirmed the closure of the Mansfield, North Attleboro, Seekonk, Dedham, Danvers and Marlborough locations with the restaurant chain Wednesday afternoon. TGI Fridays offered no explanation for the abrupt closures until Wednesday afternoon when it issued a press release explaining that it closed 36 “underperforming” locations across the U.S., including the six in Massachusetts. Other affected locations include those in Fresno, California, and in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to local news stations. Paper messages posted on the doors of the Mansfield and North Attleboro TGI Fridays locations had the same message: “We regret to inform you that as of January 2, 2024, this Fridays location has closed. We are extremely grateful to our loyal Guests and to the staff. We invite you to visit our other Fridays locations in Stoughton and Braintree. We look forward to serving you there.” As part of the closures, TGI Fridays is “offering more than 1,000 transfer opportunities, which represents over 80% of total impacted employees,” the restaurant chain said in the press release. It is unclear what percentage of Massachusetts employees have been offered transfer opportunities, or what, if anything, the company is doing for workers who cannot transfer. “Our top priority has always been delivering a superior experience for each and every TGI Fridays guest,” TGI Fridays U.S. President and Chief Operating Officer Ray Risely said in the release. “ ... By strengthening our franchise model and closing underperforming stores, we are creating an unprecedented opportunity for Fridays to drive forward its vision for the future.” TGI Fridays is still operating its Massachusetts locations in Methuen, Millbury, North Dartmouth, Stoughton, Braintree, Boston and Everett.

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Britains Economy Is Not Working. Here Are 2 Key Reasons.

In the countryside of Cambridgeshire, a British semiconductor start-up was ready to expand beyond its lab and open a manufacturing base. But the company’s ambitions came with unexpected costs to bring enough electricity to the new site. The potential bill? One million pounds. The company, Paragraf, makes chips using graphene, an ultrathin carbon. Its devices can be used to check for defects in electric vehicle batteries to prevent fires, or work in quantum computers. After acquiring the site in 2023, Paragraf made plans to ramp up its weekly manufacturing capabilities from tens of thousands of devices to millions. But the cost of increasing the power supply to the location, a result of years of underinvestment in Britain’s electricity grid, is diverting money — and time — from hiring and equipment purchases, said Simon Thomas, Paragraf’s chief executive. “Our biggest kind of advantage when you’re a company like ours is the pace you can move,” he said. Delays are “not just affecting what you can do now, it’s affecting how successful you’re going to be in the future,” he added. “It’s extremely frustrating.”

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The Hot New Market in Crypto? Trading FTXs Carcass.

After the FTX cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy last year, Thomas Braziel, an investor who specializes in collapsed businesses, started brokering an unusual kind of transaction: a market to profit from FTX’s downfall. Mr. Braziel put one of his clients in touch with a large financial firm that had lost nearly $100 million when FTX went under. Last December, the firm agreed to sell its claim in the FTX bankruptcy — essentially an i.o.u. from the collapsed exchange — for 6 cents on the dollar, betting that it was better to collect some fast cash than wait years for the husk of FTX to start paying creditors back. Then the market for FTX claims exploded. Mr. Braziel recently brokered the sale of a $19 million FTX claim for 68 cents on the dollar, collecting a nearly $100,000 commission, he said. Some claims are selling for more than 70 cents, as investors grow optimistic that FTX’s new leadership will recover a sizable portion of the roughly $8 billion that the founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of stealing from customers. “The market is insane,” said Mr. Braziel, a partner at the investment firm 117 Partners. “It’s so hot.”

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Investors snagged 1 in 5 homes for sale in Greater Boston, worsening housing crisis, report finds

The Boston Globe Investors snagged 1 in 5 homes for sale in Greater Boston, worsening housing crisis, report finds Triple-deckers, like this one in Dorchester, are some of Greater Boston's last remaining affordable housing and are being snapped up at high rates by investors, pushing up rent and property prices, a new report by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council found. David L. Ryan / The Boston Globe One in five homes sold in Greater Boston from 2004 to 2018 went to private investors — particularly smaller local operators scooping up two-families and triple-deckers in hopes of making a profit on the region’s soaring housing market — driving up the cost of once relatively affordable housing, a new report found. Investor home purchases have been on a steady rise, accounting for 23 percent of residential sales in 2018, up from 16 percent in 2004, a report released last week by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council found. Investors often bought homes in cash, winning bids over prospective homeowners needing mortgages, and disproportionately driving up rent prices and forcing out tenants in areas such as East Boston with high proportions of low-income families of color, the report found. Advertisement: “A lot of investors are looking at hot markets and saying, ‘I can get a building from an elderly owner, and because the tenants are sometimes paying below market rent, jack up the rent by an enormous amount, slap on a little paint,’ and all of a sudden, they’re renting to a completely different clientele than has usually lived in that neighborhood,” said Marc Draisen, the council’s executive director. “That’s what often fuels displacement in these communities.” The council defined private investors as those who used limited liability corporations, purchased more than three residential properties in five years, spent at least $3.45 million over 23 years, or purchased properties with at least four units. The report revealed that investors play a much bigger role in shaping the region’s housing market than previously known, although Greater Boston has not seen the same level of billion-dollar corporations snatching up cheap single-family homes as other US cities. Investors, who often either flipped homes for much higher prices within two years or jacked up rents by as much as 70 percent, were particularly active in some lower-income areas and gentrifying neighborhoods, the report said. Parts of East Boston and Lynn, for example, saw more than 40 percent of home sales go to investors. Advertisement: The report illuminated a dynamic that tenant and neighborhood advocates have been witnessing on the ground for decades. “The consequences are dire,” said Carolyn Chou, director of Homes for All Massachusetts, a tenant advocacy group. “When people I work with hear their landlord is selling the building, everyone’s stomach drops. Even people with professional jobs. Because they know that pretty soon, they might not have a home anymore.” A real estate brokerage sign stands in front of a house in Norwood on Oct. 6, 2020. There are generally only a few outcomes when a private investor purchases a two- or three-family property, advocates said. In many cases, an investor will “flip” the property, meaning they put money into some simple repairs, then put the property back on the market within two years for significantly more than the purchase price. Some 9 percent of homes purchased in Greater Boston between 2002 and 2022 were flipped. In other cases, investors hold onto the property and raise the rents. Housing has been a hot bed for investment for decades, largely because the nation’s shortage of homes means that properties are likely to steadily increase in value after they’re purchased, particularly in housing-starved urban areas. Most research into the impact of investor buying has focused on the activity of large-scale institutional buyers, such as Invitation Homes, that have taken to buying up single-family homes or apartment buildings in fast-growing regions such as Atlanta and Phoenix. Oftentimes, those investors will fix up deteriorating properties and rent them out at higher rates, or put them back on the market. Advertisement: That sort of investor is not nearly as present in Greater Boston as it is in some other areas, according to the report, largely because single-family homes here are so expensive, and because there are relatively few of them to buy. Instead, the report found, Greater Boston has many more small and midsize investors, people who own between three and five properties, or who purchased between $3.45 million and $10.34 million worth of property in the 23-year period MAPC studied. Combined, those small and midsize investors made roughly 88,000 purchases in that period, accounting for 64 percent of all investor purchases in the region. (Institutional investors accounted for roughly 25 percent of investor purchases.) The report found that, overwhelmingly, investors are eyeing two- and three-family homes, the kind of buildings that represent the region’s last remaining “naturally occurring affordable housing.” That deeply concerns affordable housing advocates. In most cases, two-families and triple-deckers were built decades, sometimes a century, ago. Because of their age, and sometimes their condition, those properties tend to carry cheaper rents and purchase prices. In low-income neighborhoods, areas hit hardest by America’s long history of racist mortgage lending policies and historical disinvestment, these properties tend to be last refuges of affordability in a city and region that is rapidly growing too expensive for people of modest means to stay, housing advocates say. Triple-deckers line a street in Mattapan. Those buildings have long been a bastion for Boston’s working and middle classes, who have often purchased small multifamily properties as homes, and rented out the other units for supplemental income or to relatives. But now, the report said, such opportunities are growing increasingly out of reach as investors snap up the properties with cash offers. Advertisement: “That model of homes and homeownership that the triple-decker represents, which was so important to this region for so long… it’s not evaporating, but people are being out-competed for those things,” said Timothy Reardon, chief of data and research for the state’s new Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. “We’ve seen that the effects of that can be devastating.” In 2018, two-families represented more than 30 percent of investor acquisitions, and three-families nearly 50 percent. Those figures were even higher in low-income neighborhoods and the state’s inner cities, and picked up in the years after the 2008 financial crisis, when home prices dropped and foreclosures were widespread. Investor activity in the housing market has historically been challenging to document, because most purchasers buy property through one or more LLCs, making it difficult to discern who is behind a transaction. The data took MAPC roughly four years to analyze. Even more challenging though will be figuring out how to pump the breaks on the trend, said Draisen. A real estate transfer tax could help, he said, because it could discourage speculators from buying and selling homes in quick succession. And it would provide funding for more affordable housing efforts. The state should also require more transparency around LLCs, he said, because knowing who is behind purchases will make it easier to understand how many buildings private investors are purchasing, and where. “We need policies that will put a stop to this,” Chou, of of Homes for All Massachusetts, said.

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Single family residence in Cohasset sells for $2.9 million

Bad — but not surprising — news if you live in Massachusetts: the Bay State has been ranked one of the worst states to drive in the U.S., according to a new study from WalletHub, the personal finance company. The study compared every U.S. state against four key dimensions: cost of ownership and maintenance, traffic and infrastructure, safety and access to vehicles and maintenance, according to WalletHub. Those dimensions were evaluated through 31 key metrics, some of which were average gas prices, the number of icy days and car theft rate, according to WalletHub. Each metric was rated on a 100-point scale, with 100 being a perfect score. WalletHub said it determines each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its score. The scores are ranked from best to worst driving state. Massachusetts was ranked 45th and had an overall score of 51, according to WalletHub. Massachusetts also ranked poorly in cost of ownership and maintenance, as well as traffic and infrastructure, placing 46th and 49th respectively. But when it came to safety and access to vehicles and maintenance, the Commonwealth rose to the top slots at 4th and 8th place respectively, WalletHub found. The other New England states didn’t do too hot, either, according to WalletHub. Maine came in 32nd with a score of 56.08 Connecticut came in 33rd with a score of 56.05 New Hampshire came in 39th with a score of 52.64 Vermont came in 42nd with a score of 51.71 Rhode Island came in 43rd with a score of 51.52 Iowa was ranked the best state in which to drive with an overall score of 65.8, while Hawaii fell last as the worst with a score of 44.8, WalletHub also found.

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Sale closed in Southborough: $875,000 for a four-bedroom home

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, lay in repose on Monday in the court building where she served for decades, often as the ideological center, making her one of the most powerful women in America. The Supreme Court justices, former law clerks and the public gathered on a blustery morning to remember and celebrate Justice O’Connor, who died of complications from dementia this month at 93. “She never disregarded the realities of our country,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during remarks at a private ceremony. “The nation was well served by the steady hand and intellect of a justice who never lost sight of how the law affected ordinary people.” Justice Sotomayor, the third female justice, added that she thought Justice O’Connor would be “smiling, knowing that four sisters serve” on the nine-member court.

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The A.C.L.U. Has a New Client: The National Rifle Association

The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association agree about very little. They are often on opposite sides in major cases, and they certainly have starkly different views about gun rights. But when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the N.R.A.’s free-speech challenge to what it said were a New York official’s efforts to blacklist it, one of its lawyers had a bold idea. Why not ask the A.C.L.U. to represent it before the justices? “The N.R.A. might be thought of as the 800-pound gorilla on the Second Amendment,” said the lawyer, William A. Brewer III. “Clearly, the A.C.L.U. is the 800-pound gorilla on the First Amendment.” David Cole, the civil liberties group’s national legal director, said the request in one sense posed a hard question.

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NYC facial hotspot Heyday opens new shop in Somervilles Assembly Row

A New York City-based skincare services company whose products have graced the faces of celebrities has expanded its footprint in the Boston area. Heyday, which is known for its 50-minute personalized facials and is a celeb favorite brand with fans such as Scarlett Johansson, has opened its second Massachusetts location at Assembly Row in Somerville. The 2,100-square-foot shop, which officially opened on Dec. 14, is Heyday’s second location in the Boston area, with another shop in the Seaport District. Heyday opens new location at Assembly Row in Somerville.David Cifarelli “Assembly Row has a great draw from Cambridge, Somerville and has easy access from the North and South shore,” said Heyday Massachusetts franchise partners and husband/wife duo Deepak Diwan and Haylee Tallarida. “It is a lifestyle center with a variety of retail, restaurants, and other wellness-focused brands and it continues to grow as a business and technology hub,” the duo continued. “We’re excited to be located where we feel the Heyday customer already works, resides and plays.” A facial at Heyday starts with an expert license esthetician performing a skin analysis to design a handcrafted treatment for clients. The customized treatment is specifically formulated to address each guests’ unique skin needs and can include treatments such as extractions, facial massage, masks or exfoliation. Clients can also choose from one of Heyday’s many specialized enhancements, including Nano Infusion, LED Light Therapy, Gua Sha, Diamond Tip Microdermabrasion and Professional Peels. Read More: Date for 2024 Boston Pride Parade announced If you like what you get, you can sign up for memberships that comes with discounted products, enhancements and facials. For example, facials normally cost $114 for members and $145 for non-members. For a limited time, Heyday is offering discounted facials in honor of the Somerville shop’s recent opening. You can book a facial by clicking here. Customers can also browse skincare products — from brands like Supergoop!, Dr. Loretta, Tata Harper, Image Skincare, Osea Malibu, Ursa Major, Moon Juice — in the store’s lobby. Heyday opens new location at Assembly Row in Somerville.David Cifarelli Heyday’s Assembly Row location will host its official grand opening on Friday, Jan. 18. More information about the facial destination can be found on Heyday’s website or by following Heyday on Instagram.

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Mass. AG Campbell reaches $1.8M settlement with student loan servicer Nelnet Inc.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell’s office has reached a $1.8 million settlement with one of the nation’s largest student loan servicers for failing to alert borrowers about affordable repayment options. The settlement with Nelnet Inc. comes months after millions of borrowers nationwide resumed their student loan payments and amid heightened state and federal scrutiny of those companies’ ability to help those borrowers navigate an often confusing bureaucracy. “Student loan servicers play a crucial role in ensuring that borrowers can access more affordable loan payments,” Campbell said in a statement obtained by MassLive. “As we continue to address issues of affordability, we will prioritize student loan debt and hold service providers accountable when they fail to fulfill their notification and information obligations to Massachusetts borrowers.” The settlement resolves allegations that the company, one of four major student-loan servicing firms, didn’t adequately communicate with borrowers about renewing income-driven repayment plans that provide access to affordable payments, Campbell’s office said in its statement. In 2019-2020, 56% of the Bay State’s college graduates had some kind of student loan debt, carrying an average of $33,457 — the eighth-highest tally nationwide, according to data compiled by The Institute for College Access & Success, a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group. All told, about a third of Bay State college graduates, or 31%, were carrying nonfederal debt, which is often costlier and carries fewer consumer protections, according to the advocacy group’s data. About 14% of those carried private student loans, with an average debt of $42,748 among those borrowers, the data show. In its statement, Campbell’s office said loan-servicing firms such as Nelnet are responsible for helping borrowers access more-affordable payments through those income-driven repayment plans. Under such plans, payments are based on a borrower’s income and family size, rather than their loan balance. The plans also “offer the possibility of valuable interest benefits and loan forgiveness after the borrower makes qualifying payments for a certain number of years,” according to Campbell’s office. Campbell’s office said it found that, between 2013 and 2017, Nelnet failed to comply with the battery of regulations governing its communications with borrowers, violating state consumer protection law. The settlement requires the company to pay that $1.8 million to the state; to comply with federal regulations on income-driven repayment plans, and to implement practices that make it easier for borrowers to access that option, Campbell’s office said in its statement. The settlement comes amid a time of heightened scrutiny of the major loan-servicing firms as millions of borrowers struggle to make their payments and navigate an often confusing bureaucracy. Last month, a cadre of Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. Senate again grilled loan servicers on what they’re doing to ease a “painful transition” for millions of Americans. Among the headaches: Miscalculated bills, difficulty reaching servicers, and long wait times when they do, Democratic U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, wrote in a battery of letters to the Big Four servicers. Markey and Warren were joined on the letters to servicers MOHELA, EdFinancial, Nelnet, and Maximus, by fellow Democratic U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, and Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland. The latest volley of correspondence came more than two months after the lawmakers initially wrote to the loan companies, saying they were “deeply worried” about their ability to meet borrowers’ demand for services as payments resumed. In a statement, the lawmakers pointed to a recent report by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau detailing “a flurry of problems and errors with borrowers reporting long hold times, incorrect information about payment amounts and due dates, inaccurate payment histories, and issues accessing loan cancellation programs.” In a letter to the servicing companies EdFinancial and Nelnet, the lawmakers took the firms to task for their “failure to provide robust answers [that] leave us unable to understand the challenges borrowers face as they return to repayment,” MassLive previously reported. In response to the lawmakers’ questions last fall, EdFinancial Services CEO William Anthony “Tony” Hollin previously said the company had been “working very closely” with the federal government to prepare for payments to resume. “Collectively we have done our best to project the inbound call volumes, staffing needs, back-office processing volumes and other components that will allow our borrowers to receive assistance and customer service they deserve despite of the unprecedented nature of the lengthy repayment pause,” Hollin wrote in a sprawling, 11-page missive responding to the lawmakers’ specific queries about the companies’ readiness. On Thursday, Campbell’s office said that borrowers who are struggling make their payments can take advantage of the new SAVE income-driven repayment plan. This chart can help those borrowers estimate their SAVE payments. Borrowers can also visit this website maintained by Campbell’s office to learn more about repayment and debt relief options, “including the U.S. Department of Education’s upcoming payment count adjustment for IDR plans and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF),” Campbell’s office said. With that adjustment “borrowers with loans owned by the U.S. Department of Education will receive credit toward PSLF and IDR forgiveness for past repayment periods, even if they were not in a qualifying repayment plan,” Campbell’s office continued, adding that “borrowers with privately owned federal loans must apply to consolidate into the Direct Loan Program by April 30, 2024 to receive the payment count adjustment.”

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Musks Bombshell Warning to Advertisers, and Other Summit Highlights

But over a 90-minute conversation, Musk touched on much more, including what drives him, his fears about artificial intelligence and more. “Don’t advertise.” Musk accused advertisers of trying to “blackmail” him over his remarks. (Bob Iger, Disney’s C.E.O., had said earlier that being associated with X and Musk was “not a positive” for his company.) After directing expletives at those businesses, Musk then cheekily added, “Hi, Bob, if you’re in the audience.” Linda Yaccarino, X’s C.E.O. whom Musk hired to win back advertisers (and who was at the summit), later posted a more conciliatory message. “Do you want the best car, or do you not want the best car?” Whether people love Musk or hate him, the mogul boasted about the capabilities of Tesla vehicles and SpaceX rockets. “A philosophy of curiosity.” Pressed on what drives him, Musk turned contemplative, speaking at length about a difficult childhood and how he has grappled with an existential crisis he first felt at age 12. His answer: Ensure humanity reaches the stars and settles other planets, hence his work at SpaceX. “If you’re a single-planet civilization,” he said, “something will happen to that planet, and you will die.” “I’m quite concerned that there’s some dangerous element of A.I. that they’ve discovered.” Asked about the recent leadership shake-up at OpenAI, which he co-founded before leaving in 2019, Musk said that he was worried about the speed at which it had been pushing innovation. He predicted that the technology could reach the point of problem-solving like the human brain — so-called artificial general intelligence — in less than three years. (Jensen Huang, the C.E.O. of the A.I. chipmaker Nvidia, reckoned that milestone would take at least a decade.) “I think I would not vote for [President] Biden.” Musk, who has turned politically conservative in recent years, criticized the president for snubbing Tesla in the company’s green-energy initiatives, despite its leadership in electric vehicles. The billionaire also said that liberals tended to embrace censorship now, anathema to the self-described free speech “absolutist.” But when asked if he would then vote for Donald Trump, Biden’s likely Republican opponent, Musk demurred, saying only, “this is definitely a difficult choice.” Watch the whole interview, and all the others, here… and read the full coverage here. Image HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Henry Kissinger dies at 100. One of America’s most powerful diplomats in recent memory, he helped reshape the world order during the Cold War, including by normalizing U.S. relations with China, brokering détente with the Soviet Union and negotiating the end of the Vietnam War. Kissinger was alternately lauded for his accomplishments and castigated for an approach that abandoned American values when deemed necessary. The U.A.W. unveils its plan to organize nonunionized automakers. The United Automobile Workers union said it was courting potential union recruits at more than a dozen companies, including Tesla, Toyota and Volkswagen, which together employ more than 150,000 workers. Separately, G.M. will cut spending at its Cruise subsidiary after pausing operations there amid concerns about the safety of its autonomous vehicles. Disney adds two directors as activist investors circle. James Gorman, the outgoing C.E.O. of Morgan Stanley, and Jeremy Darroch, the former head of the British media company Sky, are joining the Disney board ahead of an expected fight with the financier Nelson Peltz. Disney said that Gorman would help with C.E.O. succession planning, a concern of Peltz’s.

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How Andrew Ross Sorkin Gets Business and World Leaders to Open Up

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Listen and follow DealBook Summit Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music DealBook Summit includes conversations with business and policy leaders at the heart of today’s major stories, recorded live at the annual DealBook Summit event in New York City. Leaders are grappling with a critical moment, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, a U.S. presidential election and disruptive changes from artificial intelligence. That was the theme throughout the DealBook Summit, which featured conversations with heads of state, chief executives and others. Andrew Ross Sorkin of DealBook speaks with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, an audio host with The New York Times Magazine, about his takeaways from the event and how he prepares for his marathon of interviews with individuals shaping the world today.

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How Andrew Ross Sorkin Gets Business and World Leaders to Open Up

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Listen and follow DealBook Summit Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music DealBook Summit includes conversations with business and policy leaders at the heart of today’s major stories, recorded live at the annual DealBook Summit event in New York City. Leaders are grappling with a critical moment, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, a U.S. presidential election and disruptive changes from artificial intelligence. That was the theme throughout the DealBook Summit, which featured conversations with heads of state, chief executives and others. Andrew Ross Sorkin of DealBook speaks with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, an audio host with The New York Times Magazine, about his takeaways from the event and how he prepares for his marathon of interviews with individuals shaping the world today.

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Skyhorse Expands Its Footprint in Conservative Publishing

Skyhorse Publishing, which has built a reputation for taking on books other houses consider too controversial to publish, has signed a deal to buy Regnery Publishing, a conservative press that has published politicians and media personalities including former President Donald J. Trump, Senator Rand Paul and Ann Coulter. Tony Lyons, president and publisher of Skyhorse, said the addition of Regnery bolstered his aim of publishing across the political spectrum. “I’d like Skyhorse to be the pre-eminent free speech publishing company that publishes on all sides, so I think this is a great combination,” he said. “Regnery is the best-known conservative publishing company in America, and I think we can do things for them that they weren’t able to do for themselves.” Skyhorse, though much smaller than the country’s biggest publishing houses, such as Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, is large for an independent publisher, with over 10,000 titles in print. It has garnered attention in recent years for taking on books that have been dropped by other companies because of scandal or public backlash.

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Roma Restaurant in Southwick closing after 47 years of being culinary haven

An Italian restaurant in Western Massachusetts known for its pizza will dish the last of its dough at the end of the year. Roma Restaurant, located at 561 College Highway in Southwick, will close its doors for good on Sunday, Dec. 31, the restaurant said in a Facebook post on Wednesday, Dec. 27. “Victor has dedicated 47 years to creating a culinary haven,” the post said about Roma’s owner Victor Ferrentino. “Wishing him a joyful retirement filled with relaxation and the fulfillment of all his future endeavors. Thank you, Victor, for the legacy you’ve created and the countless moments of joy around your tables.” Read More: The Industry in Dorchester has closed to make way for new Mexican restaurant The restaurant, which opened in 1976, was known for its pizza. However, Roma proved to be more than just a pizza shop over the years, with one Yelp reviewer saying the space earned its stripes as Italian restaurant. “The pizza portion of their menu only takes up a tiny portion of one of the six pages in the menu they have,” wrote Kevin P. He said he lives in Connecticut but had to show his wife what Roma was all about on their way back from visiting Massachusetts one day in October. “I grew up in the 70s thru the late 90s (until I moved away after college) in the Granby/Southwick area and Roma’s pizza was a staple in our house,” Kevin wrote. “As a kid, my parents would buy Roma’s party size pie, which has 32 slices and is about the size of two New Haven large pies and twice as thick.” “Excellent food excellent service the best Franchaises and real expresso martinis,” another reviewer said in February. “Meatball escarole and tortellini soups are a must. This place is a true hidden gem.” Customers saddened by Roma’s closure took the comments section of the restaurant’s Facebook post to share their memories of the restaurant and congratulation Ferrentino on his retirement. Read More: Our Community Food Pantry moves smoothly into newly built Southwick facility “Congratulations on your new chapter,” one person wrote. “Please know that Roma’s presence in our town over the past almost five decades has been a shining star in all of our hearts and stomachs.” “Thank you for creating a place in Southwick to be talked about for generations,” another person commented. “Enjoy your well deserved time of relaxation.”

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Vertex's stock rallies on experimental pain pill trial results

The rally was based on the promise — maybe the dream — of a new class of painkillers that would provide the relief of opioids without the addiction and deliver another blockbuster drug for Vertex and its shareholders. More than 131 million opioid prescriptions were filled in the United States last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite an epidemic of addiction and overdoses. That’s when Vertex reported encouraging results from a clinical trial of an experimental pain pill and its shares soared 13 percent, catapulting the market value of the Boston biotech past $100 billion. The biggest day for Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ stock in the last month wasn’t when it won approval of a revolutionary treatment for sickle cell disease — it came five days later. Advertisement Pain is ubiquitous, but there hasn’t been a significant innovation for treating it in decades. Aspirin dates to the late 19th century, while acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and naproxen sodium were invented generations ago. Opioids date back thousands of years and are highly effective, particularly against severe pain. But they have led to a decades-long public health crisis, fueled in no small part by OxyContin, the opioid tablet made by Purdue Pharma. For years, multiple companies, including Cambridge-based Biogen, the South San Francisco biotech Genentech (which was later acquired by Roche), and the Swiss drug giant Novartis have tried unsuccessfully to develop a new class of painkillers. Just last year, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, of Tarrytown, N.Y., scrapped an experimental drug for osteoarthritis and chronic low back pain that it had long worked on after clinical trials raised safety concerns. Painkillers today fall into two major classes: anti-inflammatory analgesics, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, and opioids. Anti-inflammatories work by reducing swelling at the location of pain. Opioids change the brain’s perception of pain, mimicking the natural pain-relieving chemicals known as endorphins produced in the brain. Advertisement In contrast, Vertex wants to interrupt pain signals before they reach the brain, blocking certain proteins called sodium channels that transmit pain in the peripheral nervous system. Because the non-opioid drug would bypass the central nervous system, it would provide pain relief without the risk of addiction. On Dec. 13, the company reported that its experimental painkiller, known by its lab name VX-548, significantly decreased chronic nerve pain caused by diabetes in a small, mid-stage trial of 192 patients. After 12 weeks, patients who rated pain on a scale of zero (no pain) to 10 (worst pain imaginable) showed reductions in pain levels of more than 2 points — a statistically significant decline. In addition, more than 30 percent of patients reported a 50 percent reduction in pain regardless of whether they had received a low, medium, or high dose. More than 20 percent of patients who received high and middle doses said their pain plunged by at least 70 percent. Early next year, Vertex expects to report the results of three large, late-stage trials of the same drug on acute pain stemming from surgery and a variety of medical conditions, rather than the chronic pain that was the focus of the other trial. “Vertex is well ahead” of any other drugmaker working on a new class of pain pill, said David Risinger, an analyst for the Boston investment bank Leerink Partners, in a note to investors. If regulators approve the drug and other pain pills that the company has in its pipeline, he said, Vertex could eventually boast sales of more than $10 billion a year for pain relief. Advertisement “Pain is a massive prescription drug category,” Risinger wrote. According to an analyst for Leerink Partners, if regulators approve this drug and other pain pills that Vertex has in its pipeline, the drugmaker could eventually boast sales of more than $10 billion a year for pain relief. Vincent Alban For The Boston Globe Vertex’s pain program dates back to 2001, when the company bought a San Diego biotech called Aurora Biosciences for $592 million. Aurora was also working on potential drugs for cystic fibrosis, a rare and deadly genetic disease that causes a buildup of thick, sticky mucus in the lungs of patients. The cystic fibrosis program led to a smashing success for Vertex; from 2012 to 2019, the company would win approval for four blockbuster drugs that are pricey but have transformed treatment of the disease. Vertex has projected annual sales of its cystic fibrosis drugs will reach almost $9.9 billion in 2023. But Vertex was also enticed by Aurora’s work on a new kind of pain medicine. “Everybody knew this was a tremendously promising approach to try to treat pain, but no one had ever succeeded,” said David Altshuler, a founding member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Vertex’s chief scientific officer. Based strictly on its potential to treat diabetic-related nerve pain, the trial results so far suggest Vertex’s pain pill could generate billions in sales if the Food and Drug Administration approves it, Brian Abrahams, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a note to investors. The drug, however, needs further study before he could predict its prospects for commercial success. Advertisement Vertex has also been studying the drug to treat acute pain. The results of two mid-stage trials of VX-548 on acute pain following tummy tuck surgery and bunion removal have been tantalizing, wrote Dr. Mark S. Wallace, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of California, San Diego, in the New England Journal of Medicine in August. But he said it was hard to draw conclusions from the studies so far. He also questioned whether the experimental pill works fast enough to surpass a commonly prescribed pill for post-operative pain that combines an opioid and acetaminophen. Vertex’s trials “represent an early foray into an exciting new class of drugs,” he wrote, but post-operative pain is still best managed by a combination of drugs already on the market. The demand for effective and safe pain medicines, meanwhile, remains robust. More than 100 million American adults suffer from chronic pain, according to the National Academy of Medicine. As for acute pain, 80 percent of patients undergoing surgery report postoperative pain, and nearly 90 percent of them describe it as moderate to severe. Altshuler, who served on Vertex’s board from 2012 to 2014, said he understood that other drug companies have tried and failed to develop new types of pain drugs. But, he said, he remains optimistic about Vertex’s chances. “It feels to me that pain is now where cystic fibrosis was when I joined the board in 2012,” he said. “In the next decade, we have the potential to really transform the treatment of pain.” Advertisement Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.

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Servicio de mascotas busca ayudar a los animales puertorriqueos

Vanessa Henriquez and Kassandra Perez launched a fundraising event at the View Street Tavern Sunday to raise money to feed abandoned dogs and cats on Puerto Rico. (Dave Canton /The Republican)Dave Canton

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October Jobs Report U.S. Job Growth Shows Signs of Slowdown

Pinned Employers added 150,000 jobs in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said on Friday. The increase was slightly below what economists had forecast, but not too different from the sort of monthly jobs growth the U.S. economy was experiencing prepandemic. The unemployment rate, based on a survey of households, ticked up to 3.9 percent from 3.8 percent in September. It has been below 4 percent for nearly two years, a stretch not achieved since the late 1960s. Figures for August and September were revised downward by a total of more than 100,000 from earlier reports. Still, October was the 34th consecutive month of job growth. Average hourly earnings were up 0.2 percent from the previous month, slightly less than expected, and were 4.1 percent higher than a year earlier, slightly exceeding forecasts. The October numbers may have been held down because the survey was taken during major work stoppages — notably the strikes by the United Automobile Workers and related layoffs. Since then, the U.A.W. has reached tentative contract agreements with the three major U.S. automakers and told striking members to return to their jobs.

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Layoffs hit Mass. biotech sector after years of hype

Dwight Morrow was let go by Rubius Therapeutics five months before it shut down in February. But the veteran scientist quickly moved to a small startup and then got a high-ranking job at Moderna, one of the state’s biggest biotechs, all without leaving Cambridge. Gina Calvanese got laid off from Jounce Therapeutics, a struggling Cambridge biotech, in April but landed a higher-paying, six-figure administrative job at a Boston drug maker within days. Robert Janoschek hasn’t fared as well. He lost his job at Sunovion Pharmaceuticals in Marlborough after its Japanese parent restructured its US subsidiaries. He has applied for hundreds of jobs at other drug companies since April, he said, but can’t find anything he wants. Advertisement “It’s stunning to see how many other people are applying for the same job,” said Janoschek, who once counted 917 aspirants for an opening on LinkedIn. “This is like playing the lottery.” Calvanese, Morrow, and Janoschek are among thousands of Massachusetts biopharmaceutical workers laid off in the past two years in what experts describe as one of the industry’s biggest shakeouts in decades. Their experiences provide a snapshot of a sector settling down after years of hope and hype. The state’s biotech scene exploded in the mid-2010s and early in the pandemic as exuberant investors disregarded the high failure rate in drug development and bet on buzzy technologies such as gene editing and messenger RNA vaccines. When the inevitable setbacks occurred — roughly 90 percent of experimental drugs fizzle out in clinical trials — investments plunged and firms shut down or shed workers. To be sure, the life sciences sector remains robust, a major pillar of the economy, and companies are generally happy to pick up talent cast aside. But the drumbeat of layoffs in 2022 has only grown louder this year. Advertisement At least 56 drug firms based in Massachusetts (or with operations here) have made layoffs or closed in 2023 through September, according to Dan Gold, president of Fairway Consulting Group, a life sciences recruiting firm. He estimated US biopharma firms cut about 6,000 jobs in 2022 and 11,000 so far this year. Roughly one-third of the layoffs have been in Massachusetts, he said. Many factors play a role in how quickly laid-off workers find new positions, industry observers say, including their areas of expertise, the salaries they are seeking, and their reputations in the state’s tight-knit drug-making sector. Scientists who develop drugs to treat cancers, neurological conditions, and rare diseases are especially in demand, Gold said, as are people with expertise in creating vaccines. Workers with experience in dealing with the Food and Drug Administration are also a hot commodity. And although many companies are making layoffs, others are expanding. Overall employment in Massachusetts biopharma increased 6.9 percent to about 114,000 in 2022, compared to nearly 107,000 the year before, according to a report released Sept. 6 by industry association MassBio. Because the job totals were reported as of Dec. 31, the trade group’s snapshot didn’t reflect layoffs this year. Morrow, the scientist who ended up at vaccine maker Moderna, had already survived at least one round of layoffs at Rubius when he learned in September 2022 that he would lose his job as a vice president. Moderna, which makes messenger RNA vaccines for COVID, is now the biggest Massachusetts-based biopharma employer. Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg He had worked at drug companies since the late 1990s, including nearly 16 years at British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, and had never been laid off before. Advertisement “I was bummed,” said Morrow, 62, who oversaw drug development technologies at Rubius, which wanted to turn red blood cells into potent new medicines. “But I was confident I was going to find something else.” He was contacted by several executive-level headhunters before he left Rubius and landed a similar job as a vice president at Parallel Bio, a small startup. He left Parallel in June to become executive director of biological sciences at Moderna, which makes messenger RNA vaccines for COVID and is now the biggest Massachusetts-based biopharma employer. It has nearly 4,200 workers in the state, according to MassBio. A long list of other biotechs have shuttered this year or plan to, including Jounce; Frequency Therapeutics, and Cyteir Therapeutics, both of Lexington; and Magenta Therapeutics and Intergalactic Therapeutics, both of Cambridge. “I’ve never seen this many companies fold in such a short period of time,” said Kara Coluccio, managing partner of Perspective Group, a Cambridge company that recruits executives for life sciences firms. “There are a lot of companies folding that probably shouldn’t have been formed in the first place.” Other companies are still in business but have shed workers because of FDA decisions. In August, Sage Therapeutics said it will lay off about 40 percent of its workforce, roughly 275 employees, after regulators approved the Cambridge biotech’s new drug for postpartum depression but not for major depressive disorder, a far bigger market. (Sage had developed the drug with Biogen.) Advertisement Around town, workers’ experiences finding new jobs have varied widely. Calvanese, 31, said she was “very shocked” when Jounce laid her off in April from her job as an executive assistant to the chief executive and chief financial officer. “I wasn’t even there fully a year, so I was still trying to wrap my brain around what we did scientifically,” said Calvanese, who lives in South Boston. Jounce had made a round of layoffs several weeks earlier, she said, but she was among 40 employees retained as the startup sought a buyer. Not long afterward, Jounce chief executive Rich Murray held a company meeting to say that another firm had agreed to acquire the startup but was laying everyone off. Calvanese immediately contacted a recruiter and got interviews with four companies. She took a job with Tango Therapeutics, which is developing cancer treatments. She is now manager of administration and executive assistant to the chief executive, Barbara Weber. And it didn’t hurt that Calvanese’s six-figure salary exceeds what she was earning at Jounce, she said. But other workers, like Janoschek, have struggled to find a job they want. Janoschek, 56, had worked for Sunovion and a predecessor firm for 22 years and lost his job in March in a restructuring that shed hundreds of workers. The big blow to Sunovion, he said, was the loss of patent protection for Latuda, its best-selling schizophrenia drug, which led to competition from cheaper generic medicines. Advertisement As associate director of manufacturing sciences and technology, Janoschek acted as a liaison between Sunovion and companies that made its medicines in the United States and overseas. He said he has applied for similar positions at other drug firms at a pay range of $180,000 to $210,000 a year, less than what he was earning at Sunovion. He has had several interviews but received only one offer, from a biotech startup. He wasn’t interested. “Having done the startup thing before [in the early 1990s], where it’s a lot of 80-hour work weeks, I’m not sure I wanted to do that,” he said. He wonders whether being in his mid-50s is hurting his chances. But, he said, he’s not worried about money at this point. “The severance package that I received from Sunovion was very generous and will tide me over until December,” he said. “That said, would I rather have a position? Absolutely.” Robert Janoschek with his dogs, Skippy and Remy. Janoschek had worked for Sunovion Pharmaceuticals in Marlborough and a predecessor firm for 22 years and lost his job in March in a restructuring that shed hundreds of workers. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.

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Pioneer of Googles Data Centers Dies at 58

Luiz André Barroso, who was an engineer at Google for more than 20 years, is credited with designing the company’s warehouse-size data centers.

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Nuevos EMT obtenan ingresos mientras aprendan

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New robots help Mansfield distribution center workers become more productive, less fatigued

New robots help Mansfield distribution center workers become more productive, less fatigued New robots help Mansfield distribution center workers become more productive, less fatigued New robots help Mansfield distribution center workers become more productive, less fatigued MANSFIELD -- At a time when businesses are struggling to find workers, a Mansfield distribution warehouse just brought on eight new ones. But these are robots giving current employees a big boost. Warehouse workers at "Top Notch" used to spend hours walking the warehouse floor, lifting heavy boxes, and pushing carts. That's all changed with the addition of new autonomous robots from fulfillment solutions company 6 River Systems. The robots that zoom around the warehouse, tell employees how many of each item is needed, where the items can be found, and how to organize them. Fallout from the pandemic has left many businesses with a labor crunch and this collaboration between Top Notch and 6 River Systems allows them to make jobs less stressful, both physically and mentally. "From a fatigue perspective, you don't want your pickers walking any more than they need to," said Gillan Hawkes, the Vice President of Product and Analytics at 6 River Systems. "So, benefit to both the associate and a benefit to the operation." Top Notch warehouse manager Bob Wallace said productivity has more than doubled with pickers going from 300 items a day to 700. Time and energy are also saved by an algorithm grouping items together to be picked and sending the robots to specific zones. "Operators can do more with the same number of associates," says Hawkes. "Because those associates are happier. They're satisfied, less fatigued." And employees we spoke to agree it has been a game-changer. "Instead of pushing a cart along with heavy stuff on it and then you have to go up and lift the boxes," said worker Joey. "With these robots, it's the greatest thing that ever happened." 6 River Systems said employees training to work with the robots is simple and only takes a few minutes. The Top Notch warehouse plans to add more robots to its fleet in the coming months.

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Toy for Joy 2023: Holyoke, Springfield businesses help deliver joy

Anne Cistoldi is grateful that the people at FLN-MAR Rubber & Plastics continue to make generosity possible. “The program directors do such a good job. We need them to do a good job,” Cistoldi said as the Holyoke company continued its annual tradition of donating to the Toy for Joy campaign. “Toy for Joy benefits so many people,” said Cistoldi, who coordinates the campaign for her company. Her comments come with an excitement in her voice that reflects the company’s desire to give back to the community. FLN-MAR has been supporting Toy for Joy for as long as Cistoldi can remember. According to Cistoldi, “It’s probably been close to 20 years, certainly in the teens, that we’ve been proud to be a part of it.” This year’s $1,000 donation will help make many children and families happier this Christmas. That’s the purpose of the Toy for Joy campaign, which continues until Christmas Eve. Now in its 101st year, Toy for Joy benefits families in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties. Toy for Joy is sponsored collaboratively by the Salvation Army, The Republican, Reminders Publishing, El Pueblo Latino and MassLive. Gift distribution will be conducted in mid-December. Hampden County Sheriff Nicholas J. Cocchi leads the list of community partners; volunteers from the Sheriff’s Department this week helped prepare a delivery of toys for distribution later this month. Youths 16 and younger each receive a gift and also a book. Promoting literacy among children has been an integral part of the campaign for 15 years. “I love the focus on a book for each child,” Cistoldi said. She also noted the number of people who make donations in memory of deceased family, friends and loved ones. Major Paula Spencer of the Salvation Army's Springfield Citadel Corps helps volunteers from the Hampden County Sheriff's Department organize books and toys for the Toy for Joy campaign. Each child receives a book among the gifts. (Don Treeger / The Republican) The Republican “So many people get to express their condolences and memories of those who have passed,” she said. If anything, that form of expression has increased in recent years. This year is no exception as many Toy for Joy contributions honor those who have passed in a meaningful way that helps and lifts the spirits of children. Any donation of any size goes directly to the campaign and those children. Individual contributions are crucial, as are the generous gifts from companies that believe in giving back to the community. FLN-MAR on Cabot Street in Holyoke, which manufactures industrial equipment, is one such company. Another is Harry Grodsky & Co., which is responsible for the design and installation of advanced mechanical solutions. Harry Grodsky & Co., a Springfield firm, helped push Toy for Joy toward its $150,000 campaign goal with a $500 donation. The coupon published with this story may be used to submit a contribution by mail to The Republican, 1860 Main St., Springfield, MA 01103. Donors can also make online contributions at SalvationArmyma.org/toyforjoydonation. Here is a list of recent contributions: From Kenn and Kathy $100 Barbara $25 In memory of Michael S. and Marion Judd $100 The Robert F. Miller family of Hatfield $25 In loving memory of Lani from Rick and Jo $20 Merry Christmas, with love from Patrick, Erin, Grace and Aiden $20 Merry Christmas from Phyllis $20 In loving memory of our grandpa Bob Wheeler, Ryan, Nicole, Brandon and Bobby $50 Be respectful and be kind $25 In memory of Ma. Love, Debbie, Paul, Danielle and Michael $20 Luke and Caleigh wish you all a merry Christmas $100 In loving memory of Grandad and Lala $50 In memory of Anna, Sophie and Viola $100 Peace on earth and merry Christmas from Caden, Rowyn, Mason and Aiden $100 In loving memory of Nora Marie Martin, by her sons $50 In loving memory of Timothy Martin, by his two sons $50 In loving memory of Rich. I miss you more each day. Love forever,Maureen $300 In memory of Pierre, Finnegan, Melvin, Kelsey, Milton and Moses $150 In memory of Fawn and Monk, two precious pets $150 Our lucky Mikie $25 In loving memory of my mother Barbara Kupec $25 Judianne $25 Merry Christmas from Ella, Emmie and Gabe $200 Merry Christmas to our two wonderful grandchildren Audrey and Connor from Nana and Grampa $25 In loving memory of Joseph Bilodeau from Mom, Dad and Mike $50 For the needy children $100 Anonymous $25 In memory of Grandma Jo $25 In loving memory of my husband Richard Burrage $25 In loving memory of my husband Harold from Pat $50 In memory of ruth Batson Weston $100 In loving memory of my parents George and May Burgess $25 In loving memory of Charlene “Sheree” Reidy $15 In loving memory of Hank and Ann Prunckun, Lester and Enis MacLeod $40 In loving memory of my husband Frank Orszulak. Love, Shirley $25 In memory of our parents, Dot and Mario and Dot and Jack. Love, Donna and Bill $50 Deb $50 In memory of Big H and John $50 Merry Christmas $25 Merry Christmas from G and G $350 In celebration of our grandchildren, Moira, Collin, Elijah, Joshua and Liliana. Peace to all $50 In loving memory of family and friends who have passed from Lori and Joe $30 Thank you St. Jude for favors granted, Joni Smith $25 In memory of my mom, Blanche E. Roberts, Jan. 25, 1907 - Sept. 9, 2001. So dearly loved, so sadly missed $40 In memory of my precious son Tim Smith, Oct. 18 1960 - Nov. 3, 1980. All my love, Mom $43 In memory of my dad, Michael A. Roberts, May 22, 1907 - June 6, 1985 $40 In memory of Tiger, Tasha, Bandit, Candy, Nero, Gypsy, Buffy, Buford, Smitty, Missy and Skeeter $40 Thank you St. Anthony for favors granted $25 In memory of Freddie Facchini $40 In memory of my brother Mike Roberts $40 In memory of William “Billy” O’Connell $40 In memory of Genevieve Vaz $20 Our thanks and wishes for a joyous holiday season to all our loyal customers from FLN-MAR Rubber and Plastics Inc. $1,000 Anonymous $200 Harry Grodsky & Co. Inc. $500 Anonymous $300 In memory of my husband, “Albert” Carl Moses, loved by wife Bev $25 In loving memory of Annmarie and Jimmy $100 In memory of John Mathews $100 In gratitude and celebration of our grandchildren - Emma, Logan, Grace and Henry $100 In memory of Boppy. Love, Gavin, Ethan, Kieran and Lachlan $20 In memory of Geraldine Riley $150 In memory of Gloria and Robert Kemple who so loved Christmas and always made it special $100 David $100 Received $5,888 Total to date $21,463 Still needed $128,537

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8 pop-up restaurants worth checking out in RI in January 2024

If you’ve ever wanted a celebrity in your home, then keep dreaming. But you can get the next best thing if you adopt a loving stray cat from the Dakin Humane Society. While she may not have the same musical skills as the rapper Doja Cat, Doja the cat does have enough “pet material” to make your home truly special, the animal shelter said. Doja was a stray who showed up in a feral colony one day. After she decided to stick around, Dakin volunteers soon realized that Doja was not a feral cat. “She was shy but friendly and affectionate,” her adoption page reads. “If you’re looking to adopt a sweet kitty and don’t mind that she doesn’t have celebrity status as the singer, she might be the purrfect match for you.” Read More: Creating hope together at Dakin Humane Society Those interested in meeting Doja can visit Dakin Humane Society during open adoption hours from Tuesday through Saturday from 12:30-3 p.m. More information can be found online.

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Interim commuter rail station opens in Lynn, Massachusetts after lengthy shutdown

Commuter Rail service returns to Lynn, Massachusetts on Monday, more than a year after the station was shut down.The Lynn Interim Station opened to passengers as work continues on a permanent improvement project. Lynn Station, which is on the Newburyport/Rockport line, was closed on Oct, 1, 2022, due to safety issues. Since then, bus service has connected passengers to Swampscott Station. The MBTA and commuter rail operator Keolis said they worked together on an interim platform design and expedited construction timeline.Monday’s reopening is nine months ahead of schedule. The train schedule shows service will run between Lynn Station and North Station about every 30 minutes on weekdays and hourly on weekends. Commuter Rail service returns to Lynn, Massachusetts on Monday, more than a year after the station was shut down. The Lynn Interim Station opened to passengers as work continues on a permanent improvement project. Advertisement Lynn Station, which is on the Newburyport/Rockport line, was closed on Oct, 1, 2022, due to safety issues. Since then, bus service has connected passengers to Swampscott Station. The MBTA and commuter rail operator Keolis said they worked together on an interim platform design and expedited construction timeline. Monday’s reopening is nine months ahead of schedule. The train schedule shows service will run between Lynn Station and North Station about every 30 minutes on weekdays and hourly on weekends.

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Downtown Boston Holiday Market

Get your holiday shopping done right in the heart of Downtown Crossing! We have curated a fantastic lineup of artisan vendors to offer their handcrafted products outside on Summer Street. You can expect a rotation of diverse vendors and a fantastic selection of gifts for friends, family, coworkers, and more! The market is held each Friday & Saturday from 11 am to 4 pm from November 24th to December 23th. Please note this event is weather dependent.

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Thanksgiving Travel Days Expected to Be Busiest in Nearly 20 Years

More holiday travelers will pack airports and highways this Thanksgiving as a drop in airfare and gas prices stokes the nation’s busiest travel time of the year. Even as travel demand holds strong, a severe weather forecast threatens to cause flight delays and traffic jams across swaths of the country. Transportation experts are urging people to be patient and to expect delays. “For many Americans, Thanksgiving and travel go hand in hand, and this holiday, we expect more people on the roads, skies and seas compared to 2022,” Paula Twidale, senior vice president of AAA Travel, said in a statement. “Travel demand has been strong all year.” AAA, the automobile owners’ group that also tracks air travel, expects that 4.7 million people will fly between Wednesday and Sunday. That is an increase of 6.6 percent compared with last year, and the highest number of Thanksgiving air travelers in nearly two decades.

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Greater Boston homes increasingly bought by investors, per report

Investor home purchases have been on a steady rise, accounting for 23 percent of residential sales in 2018, up from 16 percent in 2004, a report released last week by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council found. Investors often bought homes in cash, winning bids over prospective homeowners needing mortgages, and disproportionately driving up rent prices and forcing out tenants in areas such as East Boston with high proportions of low-income families of color, the report found. One in five homes sold in Greater Boston from 2004 to 2018 went to private investors — particularly smaller local operators scooping up two-families and triple-deckers in hopes of making a profit on the region’s soaring housing market — driving up the cost of once relatively affordable housing, a new report found. Advertisement “A lot of investors are looking at hot markets and saying, ‘I can get a building from an elderly owner, and because the tenants are sometimes paying below market rent, jack up the rent by an enormous amount, slap on a little paint,’ and all of a sudden, they’re renting to a completely different clientele than has usually lived in that neighborhood,” said Marc Draisen, the council’s executive director. “That’s what often fuels displacement in these communities.” The council defined private investors as those who used limited liability corporations, purchased more than three residential properties in five years, spent at least $3.45 million over 23 years, or purchased properties with at least four units. The report revealed that investors play a much bigger role in shaping the region’s housing market than previously known, although Greater Boston has not seen the same level of billion-dollar corporations snatching up cheap single-family homes as other US cities. Investors, who often either flipped homes for much higher prices within two years or jacked up rents by as much as 70 percent, were particularly active in some lower-income areas and gentrifying neighborhoods, the report said. Parts of East Boston and Lynn, for example, saw more than 40 percent of home sales go to investors. Advertisement The report illuminated a dynamic that tenant and neighborhood advocates have been witnessing on the ground for decades. “The consequences are dire,” said Carolyn Chou, director of Homes for All Massachusetts, a tenant advocacy group. “When people I work with hear their landlord is selling the building, everyone’s stomach drops. Even people with professional jobs. Because they know that pretty soon, they might not have a home anymore.” A real estate brokerage sign stands in front of a house in Norwood on Oct. 6, 2020. Steven Senne/Associated Press There are generally only a few outcomes when a private investor purchases a two- or three-family property, advocates said. In many cases, an investor will “flip” the property, meaning they put money into some simple repairs, then put the property back on the market within two years for significantly more than the purchase price. Some 9 percent of homes purchased in Greater Boston between 2002 and 2022 were flipped. In other cases, investors hold onto the property and raise the rents. Housing has been a hot bed for investment for decades, largely because the nation’s shortage of homes means that properties are likely to steadily increase in value after they’re purchased, particularly in housing-starved urban areas. Most research into the impact of investor buying has focused on the activity of large-scale institutional buyers, such as Invitation Homes, that have taken to buying up single-family homes or apartment buildings in fast-growing regions such as Atlanta and Phoenix. Oftentimes, those investors will fix up deteriorating properties and rent them out at higher rates, or put them back on the market. Advertisement That sort of investor is not nearly as present in Greater Boston as it is in some other areas, according to the report, largely because single-family homes here are so expensive, and because there are relatively few of them to buy. Instead, the report found, Greater Boston has many more small and midsize investors, people who own between three and five properties, or who purchased between $3.45 million and $10.34 million worth of property in the 23-year period MAPC studied. Combined, those small and midsize investors made roughly 88,000 purchases in that period, accounting for 64 percent of all investor purchases in the region. (Institutional investors accounted for roughly 25 percent of investor purchases.) The report found that, overwhelmingly, investors are eyeing two- and three-family homes, the kind of buildings that represent the region’s last remaining “naturally occurring affordable housing.” That deeply concerns affordable housing advocates. In most cases, two-families and triple-deckers were built decades, sometimes a century, ago. Because of their age, and sometimes their condition, those properties tend to carry cheaper rents and purchase prices. In low-income neighborhoods, areas hit hardest by America’s long history of racist mortgage lending policies and historical disinvestment, these properties tend to be last refuges of affordability in a city and region that is rapidly growing too expensive for people of modest means to stay, housing advocates say. Advertisement Triple-deckers line a street in Mattapan. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Those buildings have long been a bastion for Boston’s working and middle classes, who have often purchased small multifamily properties as homes, and rented out the other units for supplemental income or to relatives. But now, the report said, such opportunities are growing increasingly out of reach as investors snap up the properties with cash offers. “That model of homes and homeownership that the triple-decker represents, which was so important to this region for so long... it’s not evaporating, but people are being out-competed for those things,” said Timothy Reardon, chief of data and research for the state’s new Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. “We’ve seen that the effects of that can be devastating.” In 2018, two-families represented more than 30 percent of investor acquisitions, and three-families nearly 50 percent. Those figures were even higher in low-income neighborhoods and the state’s inner cities, and picked up in the years after the 2008 financial crisis, when home prices dropped and foreclosures were widespread. Investor activity in the housing market has historically been challenging to document, because most purchasers buy property through one or more LLCs, making it difficult to discern who is behind a transaction. The data took MAPC roughly four years to analyze. Even more challenging though will be figuring out how to pump the brakes on the trend, said Draisen. A real estate transfer tax could help, he said, because it could discourage speculators from buying and selling homes in quick succession. And it would provide funding for more affordable housing efforts. Advertisement The state should also require more transparency around LLCs, he said, because knowing who is behind purchases will make it easier to understand how many buildings private investors are purchasing, and where. “We need policies that will put a stop to this,” Chou, of of Homes for All Massachusetts, said. Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.

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Is Dunkin open on New Years Day 2024?

It may be a holiday, but don’t worry, you can score your first (or second, or third) coffee of the year at Dunkin’. Dunkin’ stores will be open on New Year’s Day 2024. While you can still grab a coffee on Monday, Jan. 1, Dunkin’ encourages guests to check with their local Dunkin’ to see when stores will open, as hours vary by location because of the holiday. Customers can also use the Dunkin’ app or the online store locator to check holiday hours at their local Dunkin’. So ring in the New Year with a Dunkin’ run because, as they say, America runs on it.

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Single-family house sells in Northborough for $1.2 million

The spacious property located at 17 Thayer Street in Northborough was sold on Oct. 31, 2023 for $1,234,000, or $303 per square foot. The house, built in 2002, has an interior space of 4,074 square feet. This two-story home offers a spacious layout with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. On the exterior, the house is characterized by a gable roof design, featuring roofing made of asphalt. Inside, a fireplace enhances the ambiance of the living area. The property is equipped with forced air heating and a cooling system. In addition, the house is equipped with an attached one-car garage, offering a designated parking space and extra storage capacity. Additional houses that have recently been purchased close by include: On Davis Street, Northborough, in May 2022, a 1,688-square-foot home was sold for $918,000, a price per square foot of $544. The home has 5 bedrooms 1 bathroom. In August 2022, a 5,196-square-foot home on Harrington Lane in Northborough sold for $1,850,000, a price per square foot of $356. A 1,050-square-foot home at 62 Hamilton Road in Northborough sold in June 2023, for $550,000, a price per square foot of $524. The home has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News

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Boston-based Drizly shutting down its alcohol delivery service

BOSTON — Last call is nearing for Drizly. The Boston-based company confirmed in a post on X that it’s “slowly” shutting down its alcohol delivery service. “All good things must come to an end,” Drizly wrote in a statement. “Orders are still open until the end of March. We’ll be sure to let you know when it’s last call.” Drizly was founded in a Boston College dorm room more than a decade ago when one friend texted another: “Why can’t you get alcohol delivered?” Uber acquired Drizly in October 2021 for about $1.1 billion. At the time Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, “Uber Eats and Drizly are truly the perfect pairing.” Drizly recommended that customers order beverages on the Uber Eats app when business ultimately shuts down. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ©2024 Cox Media Group

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Springfield Pharmacy responde a la escasez de viviendas en el North End de la ciudad

Tobias Billups, owner of Springfield Pharmacy in Springfield's North End, stocks a shelf in his store. He has purchased an empty lot at Main and Waverly Streets in Springfield and will be building a new pharmacy with apartments above. (Don Treeger / The Republican)( 1/12/2024The Republican

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Westfield superintendent backs comprehensive high school to replace 2 buildings

WESTFIELD — At the Jan. 9 School Committee meeting, Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski reported that he, business manager Shannon Barry and director of operations Christopher Rogers will be attending an MSBA superintendent roundtable next week about the new procedures in place for submitting a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for new projects. The Westfield administrative team will then meet with the School Committee facilities subcommittee to discuss seeking state reimbursement to build a new high school. It could be the start of a multi-year application process, the superintendent said.

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See all homes sold in Suffolk County, Nov. 19 to Nov. 25

The following is a listing of all home transfers in Suffolk County reported from Nov. 19 to Nov. 25. There were 3 transactions posted during this time. During this period, the median sale for the area was a 1,964-square-foot home on May Street in Jamaica Plain that sold for $1,200,000. Dorchester 99 Adams Street, Dorchester, $989,000, 4,161 square feet, $238 per square-foot, nine bedrooms and three bathrooms. Jamaica Plain 6 May Street, Jamaica Plain, $1,200,000, 1,964 square feet, $611 per square-foot, six bedrooms and three bathrooms. Revere 169 Campbell Ave., Revere, $1,295,000, eight bedrooms and four bathrooms. Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News

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Boston Properties Inc. stock underperforms Friday when compared to competitors

Shares of Boston Properties Inc. BXP, -1.16% slipped 1.16% to $64.01 Friday, on what proved to be an all-around great trading session for the stock market, with the S&P 500 Index SPX, +0.67% rising 0.67% to 4,405.71 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.73% rising 0.73% to 34,346.90. The stock's fall snapped a two-day winning streak. Boston Properties Inc. closed $23.60 short of its 52-week high ($87.61), which the company reached on September 12th. The stock underperformed when compared to some of its competitors Friday, as W. P. Carey Inc. WPC, -0.36% fell 0.36% to $64.35, Highwoods Properties Inc. HIW, -0.39% fell 0.39% to $22.84, and Kilroy Realty Corp. KRC, -0.91% fell 0.91% to $34.93. Trading volume (928,995) remained 726,985 below its 50-day average volume of 1.7 M. Editor's Note: This story was auto-generated by Automated Insights, an automation technology provider, using data from Dow Jones and FactSet. See our market data terms of use.

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Plans for revamped White Stadium include a restaurant with a bar

The group working to bring a women's professional soccer team to Boston will soon file detailed renovation plans for turning the dilapidated White Stadium into a state-of-the-art soccer arena to be shared with Boston Public Schools and the general public - to be opened in time for the start of the 2026 National Women's Soccer League season. In a "letter of intent" filed with the BPDA this week, Boston Unity Soccer Partners says part of its plans will include new 14,000-square-foot structures in the "Grove area" next to the stadium that will include a restaurant and bar, along with an area to sell souvenirs and related items and an area for "open space community activities." The new Grove-area facilities will be open year round, the group says, in part for use in public events. Under an agreement with the city, which owns the stadium, the group and the city will split renovations to the stadium itself. Boston Unity says it will extensively renovate and remodel the grandstand on the west side of the stadium to include not just seating areas but player locker rooms, food preparation and sales areas, a concourse and an area for the media. In addition to the restaurant, the Grove area will also get a video scoreboard. The city Public Facilities Department: Will be providing the soccer playing field and the athletic track and field areas; re-constructing the East Grandstand (and its spectator viewing areas; concourse; lavatories; locker-rooms; office/administrative areas; storage and other related facilities); and rehabilitating certain other areas and facilities on the White Stadium Parcel on behalf of the City. White Stadium filings and meeting schedule. Earlier: Roxbury, Jamaica Plain residents want assurances their streets won't be clogged by suburbanites driving into town to see women's soccer at White Stadium

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Menu signed by Mao Zedong brings a quarter million dollars at auction

Local News Menu signed by Mao Zedong brings a quarter million dollars at auction The menu was signed in fountain pen by six influential Chinese statesmen, including Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai. This photo provided by RR Auction shows an official menu for a state banquet signed by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong that has been auctioned for $275,000. (RR Auction via AP) BOSTON (AP) — An official menu for a state banquet that bears the signature of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong has been auctioned for $275,000. Boston-based RR Auction said the menu auctioned Wednesday was for a banquet held in Beijing on October 19, 1956, and commemorated the first state visit to China by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. The menu was signed in fountain pen by six influential Chinese statesmen, including Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai. The banquet featured foods from both nations and included delicacies such as “Consommé of Swallow Nest and White Agaric,” “Shark’s Fin in Brown Sauce,” and “Roast Peking Duck.” Advertisement: “To hold a menu signed by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai is to hold a piece of the past — a piece that tells a story of diplomatic engagement, cultural exchange, and the forging of friendships that have endured through the decades,” Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, said in a statement. Other items auctioned off included a fully operational World War II-era Enigma coding machine for $206,253, a Thomas Edison-signed document for a light bulb patent for $22,154, and a check signed by Steve Jobs to Radio Shack was sold for $46,063. This photo provided by RR Auction shows a check signed by Steve Jobs to Radio Shack in 1976. The check has been auctioned off for $46,063. (RR Auction via AP) The check, dated July 23, 1976, is payable to RadioShack for a whopping $4.01, and was signed by Jobs the same year he and Steve Wozniak launched Apple in a Silicon Valley garage.

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Is Starbucks open on New Years Day 2024?

Bleary-eyed and slow-moving from a night of New Year’s Eve celebrations? Coffee lovers can head to their neighborhood Starbucks for the first caffeine fix of 2024 to perk themselves right up. Starbucks will be open on New Year’s Day, Monday, Jan. 1, but stores will run on the company’s holiday hours. “This holiday season, Starbucks store hours vary by location and stores may occasionally adjust their hours based on business and customer needs,” the chain’s website reads. “We recommend customers look for specific store hours using the Starbucks app or by visiting our website store locator.” People can check if their local Starbucks is open by clicking here. Just be sure that if you grace your baristas with your presence, you wish them a happy and healthy new year.

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Flat Top Johnnys, a neighborhood favorite, reopens in Cambridge

“We’ve missed you!” the company wrote on social media this week, announcing its reopening in a “fresh space” at 238 Main St. “We’ve worked hard to get back and we think you’ll love the new space.” Flat Top Johnny’s, the “hip, sprawling pool hall with a retro vibe” that for decades appealed to those looking to kick back and enjoy billiards with friends, will reopen its doors in a new location beginning Friday, Jan. 5. CAMBRIDGE — After nearly three years without the clacking sound of pool balls, the dings of its pinball machines, and its pub-style food and cold beers on tap, a longtime staple of Kendall Square is making its triumphant return to the area. Advertisement The original Flat Top Johnny’s closed down three years ago, due to challenges brought on by the pandemic. Fans of the spot, which serves up burgers, sandwiches, nachos, beer, and cocktails, have been waiting patiently for its possible return ever since. Get Camberville & beyond A Boston Globe newsletter about Cambridge, Somerville, and communities beyond. Enter Email Sign Up John “Johnny” Adams, 61, the company’s owner and namesake, first opened the Cambridge staple 27 years ago. The original establishment was located at 1 Kendall Square, and remained there until its closure in August 2020. Adams said he’s excited to be back in the area, a place that he’s called home for decades. Flat Top Johnny’s new post sits only a few blocks down the street from its original location. “It’s an absolutely gorgeous new space,” Adams said. Adams grew up in the restaurant industry, and began his career working as a dishwasher at a Chinese food restaurant in Malden when he was 14. He went on to attend Suffolk University and worked other restaurant jobs throughout college. Later, he worked at Cambridge Brewing Company, where he and a coworker eventually came up with the idea to open their own place. Advertisement Inspiration for the restaurant’s name came from a nickname given to Adams by a friend, due to the hairstyle he sported at the time. In 2012, Adams and his business partner amicably split, he said, and Adams has run the business ever since. Friday’s reopening isn’t the first time Adams has prepared for a comeback. Prior to the pandemic, Flat Top Johnny’s was temporarily closed in 2015, after a ventilation system fire in the Kendall Square building where it was located caused extensive damage to the property. Four other businesses in the building were also damaged. Although Adams said the fire was frightening, he had an “amazing team of staff who alerted the fire department quickly.” “There was no question that we would rebuild,” Adams said. “There was no question at all.” After only a nine-month break, Johnny’s was back up and running. Adams has been a fixture not only to customers who have come in for a game of pool and a drink over the years, but also to the employees who stayed loyal to the business during both of its closures. That includes Kevin Conway, who started going to Flat Top Johnny’s as a customer long before he landed a job there as a bartender. (Conway jokingly asked for the job one night, and Adams took him up on the offer. The rest is history.) While Conway has been working at Little Donkey in Cambridge for the past six years, he always hoped that he would one day return to Johnny’s in some capacity. When Adams called him up two years ago to propose the idea of bringing back the company, Conway eagerly accepted the offer. Advertisement “I feel so incredibly supported,” said Conway. “I can’t say enough great things about John.” Flat Top Johnny's new location is at 238 Main St. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff Conway said the 2020 closure was extremely difficult for him. But he’s eager to begin again, and welcome back some familiar faces thanks to Adams’s devotion to their team. “The overwhelming majority of our new front of house staff are returning hires, and if that doesn’t speak volumes about the kind of guy John is, I don’t know what does,” Conway said. Conway said the reopening stages picked up during the past year, with Adams and Conway developing a concept menu while the building underwent heavy construction in June. “Johnny’s 3.0,” as Adams calls it, will host 10 pool tables, 10 pinball machines, and feature “standard pub fare.” In addition to the games and food, Johnny’s will have 20 craft beers, either on tap or in cans and bottles. Adams’ favorite item on the menu is the “Lilith Burger,” named after one of his daughters. He also says the Cambridge Brewing Company amber ale, which has been served at Johnny’s since 1993, is a must-order. Adams said one of his main hopes for the new establishment after so many challenges is to continue — and increase — the amount of collaboration he has with charity organizations, including Bikes Not Bombs and Best Buddies. Advertisement He also hopes the new location will live up to the “same vibe” of its previous location, with casual background music and a place for everyone to come together and have a good time. In its first two weeks, Johnny’s will be open Sunday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., and Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Dedicated customers were thrilled this week when they learned about the restaurant’s return, with many expressing their excitement on social media. For Sylvainson Gelin, the reopening is a homecoming of sorts. Gelin, a Cambridge native, made it a ritual to meet with friends at Johnny’s weekly over the years. Now, he’s eager to begin that tradition again. “I’m all about the pool culture, and I’m most excited to play on Johnny’s tables again,” Gelin said. Flat Top Johnny's, a pool hall, bar, and restaurant is reopening this Friday after it closed during the pandemic. Its new location is at 238 Main St. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff Alexa Coultoff can be reached at alexa.coultoff@globe.com. Follow her @alexacoultoff.

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New head of JCC has eye on expansion

With the help of chief development officer Jillian Kohl , Rabinoff-Goldman got to work. Many donors stepped up, led by three seven-figure gifts from developer Arthur Winn and his family, the Paul & Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation (cofounded by former Reebok CEO Paul Fireman ), and the Chleck Family Foundation . That was in the summer of 2022, and Rabinoff-Goldman was recruited from her administrative job at the Gann Academy to take over for the Newton-based organization following the retirement of longtime chief executive Mark Sokoll . One of the first items on her to-do list: raise $5 million to renovate and update the lobby areas of the JCC’s complex in Newton. Lily Rabinoff-Goldman had barely settled into her then-new job as CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Boston when she had to start raising money. Such is the life of a nonprofit executive. Advertisement They pulled it off, and construction finally is set to begin this week on the 11,000-square-foot project. The remodeling of the 1980s-era lobby includes a new “J-Cafe” and teen lounge as well as new communal seating areas. Rabinoff-Goldman hopes contractor Elaine Construction Co. will have the bulk of the work done in time for a gala honoring former JCC chair Lou Grossman in April. The project represents the last phase of a series of upgrades to the facility that began in 2015 but were put on hold early in the COVID-19 pandemic. “It has felt really exciting that people wanted to be part of the next phase,” Rabinoff-Goldman said. “It gives people a sense of community. That’s the thing that we emerged from COVID wanting filled. ... Essentially, we are creating new ways to gather for informal and more formal programming within the building.” She also has had to help the JCC navigate a much larger project next door, the construction of a 174-unit senior living complex by 2Life Communities, a project that required the JCC to use its emergency back entrance as its main front gate. Advertisement Remodeling aside, it’s been “an amazing learning curve” getting up to speed on the organization and its various services, including its fitness center and summer camps, she said. The JCC employs about 450 people year-round (and many more in the summer), brings in about $26 million a year in revenue, and has about 2,500 members. “This is a JCC that’s not afraid to try new things,” Rabinoff-Goldman said. “This is a super-creative and innovative organization.” Jim Rooney, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s chief executive. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Chamber chief has an eye on crime During her State of the City speech last Tuesday, Mayor Michelle Wu highlighted the drop in gun violence under her watch. But she didn’t mention another crime stat that Jim Rooney, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s chief executive, brought up two days later in a video address to chamber members, in which he conveyed “growing concerns” about personal safety in downtown Boston, among many of the issues he cited that the chamber will be watching in 2024. “Shootings are down,” Rooney noted, “but overall crime in the city increased 2 percent from the year before.” Rooney also cited a busted-up transit system and lack of affordable child care as obstacles to bringing more workers back downtown after the office towers emptied out early in the pandemic. In a subsequent interview, Rooney said he regularly hears from people who live or work downtown and feel it has become less safe since before the pandemic. Yes, Boston is safe when compared to many other cities of its size, Rooney said, but he doesn’t want civic leaders to be lulled into complacency. Rooney says he has expressed these concerns to Wu, and believes she takes them seriously. Advertisement “It’s tricky for a chamber president and for a mayor to say things out loud that might dissuade people from coming downtown,” Rooney said. “I don’t want to be the person painting the picture that downtown isn’t a safe place. It is. [But] I don’t want to be the Amityville sheriff either, [saying] ‘go in the water while the shark swims by.’” Marketing maven Colette Phillips, pictured on April 5, 2021. Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff With new book, Phillips highlights allies who promote diversity In 2014, marketing maven Colette Phillips did something unexpected for a Black woman known for highlighting people of color: She shone the spotlight on white guys instead. Phillips came up with a list of diversity supporters, dubbed “White Men Who Could Jump,” to highlight white executives who are working to make their companies more inclusive. Now, Phillips has taken it a big step further, by writing a book about the topic, called “The Includers.” She’s scheduled to talk about the book on Tuesday, its publication date, at the ‘Quin House, alongside one of her “includers,” Eastern Bank chief executive Bob Rivers. Other prominent local executives who get shout-outs in her book include State Street’s Ron O’Hanley, Liberty Mutual’s Tim Sweeney, and Tim Ryan at PwC. The book is jam-packed with strategies for improving an organization’s diversity, examples of how it’s done, and descriptions of the tangible benefits. Advertisement The book arrives at a time when corporate diversity efforts, known collectively as “DEI,” are under fire. The new wave of criticism — Phillips calls it “anti-woke rhetoric” — makes her book, published by BenBella Books, even more timely. “I got pushback from people of color: ‘You’re Miss Diversity in Boston, I can’t believe you’re going to honor all white men,’” Phillips said. “My contention is, you have to amplify and spotlight the white guys who get it ... so that others will emulate them.” North Carolina-based Honeywell has hired Interise to run its “StreetWise MBA” program for potential city contractors, to help diversify Honeywell’s Boston-area roster of suppliers as it proceeds with various upgrades to city buildings. Justin Sullivan/Getty Honeywell teams up to boost minority contracting While the city of Boston has been criticized for awarding relatively few city contracts to Black- or Latino-led businesses, a partnership between a giant industrial conglomerate and a Boston-based nonprofit is trying out a new approach to change that. North Carolina-based Honeywell has hired Interise to run the nonprofit’s “StreetWise MBA” program for potential city contractors, to help diversify Honeywell’s Boston-area roster of suppliers as it proceeds with various upgrades to city buildings. The StreetWise MBA program, usually taught over the course of a dozen or so classes, teaches management, procurement, and business development skills. “They want to bid on more city contracts, and retain the one they have when it comes up for renewal,” Interise chief executive Darrell Byers said, in reference to Honeywell. Representatives from 15 contractors are set to begin Interise classes at UMass Boston on Jan. 25. If this pilot program proves successful, Byers said, Honeywell may try it in other cities, and it could be a model for other Boston companies to replicate. He added: “We’re taking away that stigma that we can’t find minority businesses.” Advertisement In November, Kate Haranis left her role as a senior manager in corporate public relations at Boston Scientific to launch Haranis & Co., which aims to help local life sciences tell their unique stories. The Boston Globe/Boston Globe Haranis pursues a dream she didn’t know she had When she was young, Kate Haranis didn’t dream about becoming a med-tech PR consultant. But then, as she would be quick to point out, what kid does? However, as her career progressed, at PR shops Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications and Denterlein, and then as a senior manager in corporate public relations at Boston Scientific, Haranis realized she did have that dream, after all. In November, she left Boston Scientific to pursue it. She is launching Haranis & Co. to help local life sciences companies tell their unique stories. For now, she’ll work out of her Southborough home, which may or may not come in handy while raising two young children. Haranis got her start at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, with the help of Levi Garraway, now chief medical officer at Roche, and also learned from mentors such as Geri Denterlein and the late Larry Rasky. While Haranis doesn’t have an M.D. or Ph.D. after her name, she does have something important to offer the region’s med-tech cluster. “I’m not scientifically gifted [but] what I am good at is storytelling,” Haranis said. “Better storytelling isn’t just helpful to a company’s reputation and bottom line. It can actually make connections that accelerate innovation.” Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.

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business

Let Flannery Associates Try to Build a Bay Area City - The New York Times

Building in the Bay Area will enable America to continue its history of allowing people to relocate to more productive places. In the early decades of the 19th century, farmers left the rocky soil of the East for better farmland in the Midwest. A century later, millions of people left agriculture behind in favor of even more fertile economic ground: cities. This huge transition was possible only because cities built vast quantities of housing. In the 1920s alone, New York City added 700,000 units. In recent decades American growth has moved to the Sun Belt, and people are going there not just for the nice weather. As Southern cities like Houston and Atlanta build enough housing to keep prices low, they are siphoning population away from the booming metros of yesteryear. Today, California is one of the most productive places in the country, but it doesn’t let people in because homeowners figured out how to block new construction, which pushes prices up and productivity down. Work by Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti found that limited access to America’s most productive places “lowered aggregate U.S. growth by 36 percent from 1964 to 2009.” Even though opponents to development in coastal California often base their arguments on environmental grounds, building there is one of the best things that America could be doing to counter global warming. One of us, Professor Glaeser, and a University of Southern California environmental economist, Matthew Kahn, calculated that coastal California was easily the least carbon-intensive part of the country because of its mild climate. The Flannery Associates effort to build in Solano County, about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco, faces major obstacles that have been compounded by the group’s arrogance. The more than 50,000 acres of land the venture has obtained is not zoned for residential use. Securing governmental approval to get the project off the ground will require far more expertise in the workings of democracy than is typically found in Silicon Valley. As the company engages in fierce legal battles with local landowners, who accuse it of strong-arming them and turning family members against one another in the name of rapid land acquisition, it appears that the project is alienating itself from the very allies it would need to succeed. City building has usually been a collaborative affair that requires openness and thrives on a hive of talent. Without assembling a wide and supportive community, Flannery Associates is on the way to suffering the same fate as Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company that failed to build a futuristic city in Toronto.

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Mass. State Lottery winner: Stop & Shop sells $100,000 prize

Someone who stopped by the grocery store and picked up a Massachusetts State Lottery ticket claimed a $100,000 prize on Thursday, the same day a $1 million lottery prize was claimed. The winning $100,000 ticket was from the “300X” scratch ticket game, which still has 69 prizes valued at $100,000 remaining as of Dec. 22. The winning ticket was sold at a Stop & Shop in Brookline by Coolidge Corner. The $1 million prize claimed on Thursday was from the lottery’s crossword-style scratch ticket game called “$2,000,000 50X Cashword,” and was sold at a convenience shop called Girlies Variety Store in Taunton. Overall, there were at least 511 lottery prizes worth $600 or more won or claimed in Massachusetts on Thursday, including 17 in Springfield and 20 in Worcester. The Massachusetts State Lottery releases a full list of all the winning tickets each day. The list only includes winning tickets worth more than $600. The two largest lottery prizes won in the state of Massachusetts so far in 2023 were $33 million and $31 million Mega Millions jackpot prizes. The tickets were each sold a week apart. The $33 million ticket for the Tuesday, Jan. 24 drawing was purchased from a Stop & Shop in Belchertown. The winner came forward to claim the prize on March 1 through the Skylark Group Trust. The $31 million Mega Millions jackpot ticket was won on Jan. 31. The winning ticket was bought in Woburn from a Gibbs gas station, and the winner claimed the prize on March 8 through S & L Trust.

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Heres which Northampton businesses might soon get all-alcohol liquor licenses

After much anticipation, Northampton is one step closer to receiving seven new all-alcohol liquor licenses. A piece of legislation which would allow for the additional licenses, also known as H.3952, was passed by the state Senate and House last week but is still awaiting authorization from Gov. Maura Healey.

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Is Starbucks open on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2024?

You can still get your morning coffee from Starbucks if you have Martin Luther King Jr. Day off from work on Monday, Jan. 15. The company does observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday, but stores hours may stores run on adjusted hours. The best way to know when your store will be open is by using the Starbucks app or by visiting our website store locator. People can check if their local Starbucks is open by clicking here.

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Single family residence sells in Longmeadow for $788,000

A spacious house located at 17 Park Drive in Longmeadow has a new owner. The 3,443-square-foot property, built in 1979, was sold on Nov. 13, 2023. The $788,000 purchase price works out to $229 per square foot. This two-story house provides a generous living space with its four bedrooms and four baths. The home's outer structure has a gable roof frame, composed of asphalt. Inside, a fireplace enhances the ambiance of the living area. The property is equipped with forced air heating and a cooling system. In addition, the house is equipped with a garage. The property's backyard also boasts both a spa and a pool. Additional houses have recently changed hands nearby: A 3,588-square-foot home at 299 Concord Road in Longmeadow sold in February 2022, for $830,000, a price per square foot of $231. The home has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. In May 2023, a 2,514-square-foot home on Converse Street in Longmeadow sold for $400,000, a price per square foot of $159. The home has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. On Brittany Road, Longmeadow, in May 2022, a 3,232-square-foot home was sold for $760,000, a price per square foot of $235. The home has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News

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Opinion | Why Are Nonprofit Hospitals Focused More on Dollars Than Patients?

Calling these hospitals nonprofits can be confusing. It doesn’t mean they can’t make money. What it means is that they are considered charities by the Internal Revenue Service (as opposed to being owned by investors, like for-profit hospitals). And in return for their tax exemptions, these institutions are supposed to invest the money that would have gone to taxes into their communities by lowering health care costs, providing community health services and free care to those unable to afford it and conducting research. These hospitals proliferated after federal tax rules about 50 years ago made it easier to qualify for tax exemptions. They now make up more than half of the nation’s hospitals. So why are nonprofit hospitals behaving in ways that seem to focus more on dollars than patients? Hospitals are undergoing a reckoning about their role in the national health system. The United States will require fewer hospital beds in the future if current trends continue. This looming likelihood — plus financial challenges from the pandemic, a severe worker shortage, rising inflation and stock market volatility — has put nonprofit hospitals in survival mode. Accordingly, they have prioritized protecting their finances, focusing on scale and market power. Unfortunately, these actions too often come at the expense of their mission to serve their communities. This has meant less charity care for patients who cannot afford expensive surgeries or emergency room visits and higher prices for those who can. How do we get hospitals to refocus on their communities rather than on profits? Through their boards of directors. Their role is to tell hospital executives what to focus on and prioritize. And you would think that focusing on the mission would be the top priority, though boards aren’t doing this consistently. The key is getting boards to act in service of the mission. They need greater accountability. And that’s where lawmakers and policymakers can help, by finding ways to encourage or require boards to resist the growth interests common to organizations. Hospital systems, like living organisms, tend to put survival and proliferation above all else.

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Vacant Storefront Program aims to bring business back to downtown Westfield

WESTFIELD — Vacant storefronts on Elm Street and Main Street are the target of an economic development program from the state and the city of Westfield. Under the Vacant Storefront Program, the Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council will authorize $10,000 in state tax credits for businesses looking to fill certain properties in the district, according to Westfield Community Development Director Peter Miller.

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Mass. State Lottery winner: Mobil gas station in Mass. sells $100,000 ticket

Two $100,000 lottery prizes were won or claimed on Friday by Massachusetts State Lottery players across the state. One of the $100,000 prizes from the lottery’s “$15,000,000 Money Maker” and was sold in Waltham at a Mobil gas station. The other was from a “300X” game. That winning ticket was sold from Andy’s Variety Package in Tewksbury. Each ticket costs $30 to play. Overall, there were at least 696 lottery prizes worth $600 or more won or claimed in Massachusetts on Friday, including 11 in Springfield and 14 in Worcester. The Massachusetts State Lottery releases a full list of all the winning tickets each day. The list only includes winning tickets worth more than $600.

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Raw Oysters May Have Sickened 200 in Southern California, Officials Say

Gastrointestinal illnesses potentially linked to raw oysters sickened nearly 200 people, according to health officials in Southern California, who urged residents to take extra precautions with shellfish. The illnesses, recorded in Los Angeles County and San Diego, may be associated with oysters imported from a specific harvest in northwest Mexico. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said in a statement on Wednesday that there were “more than 150 suspected local cases of gastrointestinal illness linked to the consumption of raw oysters, likely caused by norovirus.” Officials there warned people to ask restaurants about where they sourced their oysters from, and to avoid eating oysters from Laguna De Guerrero Negro and Laguna Manuela in Baja California, Mexico, and from Bahia Salina in Sonora, Mexico. The department said it was still working to confirm the source of the illness.

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Need a Home for 80,000 Puzzles? Try an Italian Castle.

Meet the Millers, George and Roxanne, proprietors of the world’s largest collection of mechanical puzzles: physical objects that a puzzler holds and manipulates while seeking a solution. In total, the Miller collection — an accumulation of collections, and collections of collections — amounts to more than 80,000 puzzles. It comprises some five thousand Rubik’s Cubes, including a 2-by-2-by-2 rendering of Darth Vader’s head. And there are more than 7,000 wooden burr puzzles, such as the interlocking, polyhedral creations by Stewart Coffin, a Massachusetts puzzle maker; they evoke a hybrid of a pine cone and a snowflake and are Mr. Miller’s favorites. Mrs. Miller is fond of their 140 brass, bronze and gold puzzle sculptures by the Spanish artist Miguel Berrocal; Goliath, a male torso in 79 pieces, is “a puzzle that all puzzlers lust after,” she said. Until recently, the Miller collection resided at Puzzle Palace in Boca Raton, Fla., filling their mansion and a museum (a smaller house) next door. Puzzles occupied even the bathrooms. Then last year, on a whim, the Millers bought a 15th-century, 52-room castle in Panicale, a hamlet in central Italy. They packed their puzzle collection into five 40-foot shipping containers and, for their own transit, booked a cruise from Miami to Rome. Before sailing away in April, the Millers went on a two-month road trip — “a last hurrah,” Mr. Miller called it — visiting puzzler friends from coast to coast. Along the way they accumulated more puzzles. In Garden Grove, Calif., they loaded up a cargo van with 58 boxes from Marti Reis, who donated her collection of folksy punning puzzles by the designer RGee Watkins, such as Diamond Ring, a dime with a metal ring passing through the coin’s center. The puzzle maker Lee Krasnow, who has production facilities in Portland, Ore., and Grand Rapids, Mich., met the Millers at a puzzle party on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, and hand-delivered his famed Clutch Box. Made from exotic hardwoods and precision machined metals, it opens with a subtle unlocking mechanism; the goal is simply “the thrill of having opened it,” Mrs. Miller said. And then, “if you’re daring,” Mr. Krasnow added in an email, the goal is “to fully disassemble it into about 40 individual pieces.”

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Hybrid Cars Enjoy a Renaissance as All-Electric Sales Slow

As Teslas and other electric vehicles dazzled car buyers with futuristic technology and dreams of a gasoline-free future, hybrid cars began to seem like yesterday’s news. Sales of the Toyota Prius, the standard-bearer for hybrids, fell 85 percent over a decade. Now, a slowdown in the growth of electric car sales has led General Motors, Ford Motor and Volkswagen to walk back ambitious targets for those vehicles. And sales of hybrids are robust, underscoring what may be the enduring reality check of 2023: Many Americans are hugely receptive to electrification, but they’re not ready for a fully electric car. “Consumers want the same experience they’ve had” with a combustion engine car, said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights for Cox Automotive. “And we are not there yet. Price is still the top barrier for most consumers.” Americans bought a record 1.2 million electric vehicles last year, a gain of about 46 percent and a 7.6 percent share of all new car sales, according to Cox. But hybrid sales rose even faster, up 65 percent to more than 1.2 million, lifting their market share to 8 percent from 5.5 percent, according to Edmunds. Throw in plug-in hybrids, and nearly one in 10 new cars pairs a gasoline engine with electric motors to save fuel and boost performance.

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Single family residence sells for $1.2 million in Boylston

A spacious house located at 5 Juniper Hill Road in Boylston has a new owner. The 3,523-square-foot property, built in 2006, was sold on Nov. 9, 2023. The $1,185,000 purchase price works out to $336 per square foot. This two-story house offers a roomy layout with four bedrooms and four baths. On the exterior, the house is characterized by a gable roof design, featuring roofing made of asphalt. The property is equipped with forced air heating and a cooling system. Additional houses have recently been purchased nearby: In July 2022, a 3,369-square-foot home on Ridgefield Circle in Boylston sold for $1,000,000, a price per square foot of $297. The home has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. A 3,356-square-foot home at 24 Sylvan Lane in Boylston sold in August 2022, for $839,900, a price per square foot of $250. The home has 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. On Twin Spring Drive, Boylston, in January 2022, a 3,029-square-foot home was sold for $790,000, a price per square foot of $261. The home has 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News

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Popular restaurant chain bringing 4 locations to Massachusetts for 1st time

DEDHAM, Mass. — A popular restaurant chain that specializes in Korean food is opening four locations in Massachusetts for the first time. KPOT, known for all-you-can-eat Asian hot pot and Korean barbecue, is bringing restaurants to Dedham, Malden, Methuen, and West Springfield. The Dedham location is listed at 300 Providence Highway, which is the Dedham Mall. The Malden location is coming to 7 Highland Avenue, the former home of John Brewer’s Tavern. The Methuen restaurant is opening at The Loop Shopping Mall at 90 Pleasant Street. The West Springfield spot will welcome diners at 935 Riverdale Street. According to the eatery’s website, those four locations are “coming soon.” “KPOT is a unique, hands-on, all-you-can-eat experience that merges traditional Asian hot pot with Korean BBQ flavors,” a post on the chain’s website states. “KPOT is for both the food adventurers and the social eaters. It’s about tasting the global spices and seasonings all while feeling a sense of community.” KPOT currently operates dozens of locations across the United States. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ©2023 Cox Media Group

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Bondis Island workers say theyre doing public works construction, deserve more money under prevailing wage law

When the Celtics were looking to extend the game against the Hornets on Monday, there appeared to be a critical call in the final moments of overtime. Jayson Tatum strolled to the line with a chance to tie the game with 5.2 seconds left. They were down three points, but Tatum had three free throws. But Tatum missed the final game-tying free throw, which was rebounded by Miles Bridges. Jrue Holiday immediately fouled him, but the officials didn’t recognize the call until there was 1.7 seconds left on the clock. So there appeared to be some valuable time that came off the clock for the C’s. BET ANYTHING GET $250 BONUS ESPN BET CLAIM OFFER MASS 21+ and present in MA, NJ, PA, VA, MD, WV, TN, LA, KS, KY, CO, AZ, IL, IA, IN, OH, MI. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. That was indeed the case, according to the NBA’s Last 2 Minute report. While the call was correct in calling Holiday for the take foul, the report noted the foul occurred at the 3.2-second mark and not 1.7, so the Celtics lost out on a 1.5 seconds there. The report also shows that Holiday fouled Brandon Miller going for the initial rebound at 5.2 seconds left, but the officials missed that call, as well. At the time of the foul, it was a one-point game with 1.7 seconds left. The Hornets got to inbound the ball again, which led to Gordon Hayward getting two free throws but taking the clock down to 0.8 seconds left. After Hayward stretched it to a three-point game, the C’s took timeout to advance the ball and looking for the tie. As the report noted, the C’s should’ve had 2.3 seconds left instead of 0.8 seconds. The Hornets went on to beat the Celtics 121-118 on Monday. Regardless of the clock malfunction, the Celtics had multiple chances to win Monday’s game in crunch time. They were just unable to do so. Holiday had a chance to ice the game with free throws at the end of regulation, but he missed both shots, allowing the Hornets to force overtime. Jaylen Brown had a few tough decisions down the stretch. There were other miscues from the Celtics in the loss. The defeat snapped the Celtics’ six-game losing streak as they fell to 11-3 on the season. The clock issue was tough, but the C’s had their opportunity put away the pesky home team. Now, the Celtics will host the Bucks in a marquee East showdown at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at TD Garden.

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Shipping packages before Christmas heres what USPS wants you to know

The Celtics will be back in Boston on Tuesday, heading home after being soundly beaten in crunch time by the Pacers in a 122-112 loss in the quarterfinals of the NBA in-season tournament Monday night. There were some familiar areas of concern for Boston after the loss, which dropped the Celtics to 6-5 on the road this year. The visitors surrendered a 9-0 run in crunch time to a Pacers squad as the defense suffered from miscommunications and the offense delivered uninspiring possessions. Boston’s road offense (19th in the NBA) continues to be a problem as it stumbled late against one of the NBA’s worst defenses. Ultimately, the Celtics are still in a great position in the standings at the quarterpole of the season with an East-best 15-5 record through 20 games. That mark comes despite playing one of the toughest schedules in the league. The Celtics will now have three days of rest before facing off against the loser of the Knicks-Bucks matchup at TD Garden on Friday night. That consolation prize is quite the silver lining for the Celtics in the big picture on several fronts. Boston winning the in-season tournament would have made for a fun story and provided some eye-opening cash for the Boston bench and coaching staff. However, from a 10,000-foot view, bowing out in the quarterfinals may be a more appealing development for the Celtics goals this year. $200 INSTANT BONUS DRAFTKINGS MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $5, GET $200 BONUS BET FANDUEL MASS CLAIM OFFER BET $50, GET $250 BONUS CAESARS MASS CLAIM OFFER $1,000 FIRST-BET BONUS BETMGM MASS CLAIM OFFER MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. MA only. 21+. Gambling Problem? If you or a loved one is experiencing problems with gambling, please call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org for 24/7 support. LiveChat with a GameSense Advisor at GameSenseMA.com or call 1-800-GAM-1234 MA Gambling Helpline. First, consider the schedule. With the loss, the Celtics will play just one game in the next seven days (on Friday night) and will play five games in the next two weeks total, all coming at TD Garden. After a brutal road schedule to begin the year in November, avoiding an extra trip to the west coast could do wonders for the team from a rest perspective. Boston is already set to play a four-game road trip in two weeks starting against the Warriors and finishing up with a tilt against the Lakers on Christmas. Going back and forth across the country twice in three weeks would have been a tough ask for this group from a fatigue standpoint, particularly with the raised stakes of the in-season tournament for the Vegas games. An elimination now for the in-season tournament also reduces the stakes in the present for a couple of potentially hobbled veterans. Kristaps Porzingis is still working his way back from a strained calf and would certainly be itching to get back on the floor if Boston had advanced to the semifinals. Instead, he gets an added extra day of rest until the Celtics’ next game along with some lower stakes in that matchup. If Boston’s training staff wants to play it safe, they could give him three more days off after Friday since the Celtics won’t play again until Tuesday night against the Cavs. There’s also the issue of Jrue Holiday who came up hobbling in the final minute of Monday’s loss before being subbed out of the game. The 34-year-old would have plenty of incentive to play through any lingering pain in Las Vegas. Now? The Celtics can play it safe with him, if needed, without any kind of financial remorse or added pressure to compete. Any risk of complacency also can fade into the background in the wake of how the Celtics lost to a mediocre Pacers squad on the road. Haliburton was great but the Celtics struggled in a few key areas yet again in crunch time while also letting go of the rope on both ends in an ugly third quarter. Boston has been an average team all year on the road and that was highlighted yet again in Indiana. Working through those issues at home in the next week while getting some added rest could pay dividends for this team in the big picture. A trip to Vegas may have made for a fun story but this team has far more important goals this year. Avoiding an extra busy week in what will likely be a 100-plus game grind may end up helping more over the long haul than some extra cash in everyone’s pockets.

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business

Lottery's $177,752 chief marketing officer placed on paid leave

The Chief Marketing Officer at the Massachusetts State Lottery has been suspended with pay and without a cause offered. Lottery CMO Edward Farley has been out of the office since early November, according to an agency spokesperson. No reason was given for Farley’s temporary ouster from his $177,752 per year position, nor was an end date for his leave provided. “He is currently on paid administrative leave, effective November 8,” a lottery spokesman told the Herald when asked to respond to rumors of Farley’s removal. “As a matter of policy, the Lottery does not discuss personnel matters.” A spokesperson for State Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who oversees the state lottery, referred questions on the matter to lottery staff. Farley has been with the lottery since at least 2015, serving as both assistant executive director and chief administrative officer before taking the role as the head of the agency’s marketing efforts in the summer of 2022. At the end of October, the lottery’s marketing department was recognized for its efforts by the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries as an award finalist at their annual conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Massachusetts State Lottery won a Boston New England Regional Emmy Award in 2022 for a composite of marketing videos made by Keith Macri and Geoff Filleti under Farley’s leadership. Farley could not be reached for comment.

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business

Report: Mass. 5th highest for tax collections nationwide, as biz leaders sound warning bells

The Bay State ranks fifth nationwide in per-capita tax collections, according to a new report, prompting criticism that Beacon Hill lawmakers still aren’t doing enough to ease the burden at a time when the cost of housing, health care and other expenses remain barely manageable. Massachusetts taxpayers ponied up $8,101 to cover state and local levies in fiscal 2021, according to the analysis released this week by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. New York, which collected $10,266 per-capita during the same time period, finished first among all states, the data showed. The top five states were rounded out by Connecticut ($9,458), California ($9,175), and New Jersey ($8,303). Washington D.C. finished atop the overall heap, logging $13,278 in per-capita collections in fiscal 2021, the most recent, full year for which state-by-state data was available. Tax Foundation analysts were quick to point out that while collection bumps seen during the pandemic have not persisted into calendar year 2023, tax revenues nonetheless “remain robust in most states and well above pre-pandemic levels even after accounting for inflation.” The 2021 collection data also does not include Massachusetts’ new, 4% “millionaires’ tax” approved in November 2022. Read More: Senate and House bump heads over emergency shelter cap with budget bill In a statement, the conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance accused state policymakers of only paying “lip service to our current predicament,” while keeping the levy on the books. “When State House politicians wonder why so many taxpayers are leaving Massachusetts, it’s because 45 other states have a lower tax burden per capita than Massachusetts,” Paul D. Craney, a spokesperson for the Boston-based group, said. Last month, joined by lawmakers of both parties, Gov. Maura Healey signed a $1 billion tax relief package into law that delivers breaks to renters, seniors, businesses and others. “Tax cuts are here in Massachusetts. They are here for everyone. And they are going to save you money,” the Democratic governor said during the signing ceremony in the State Library. The tightly scripted event capped a months-long journey that, legislative leaders acknowledged more than once, was marked by fits and starts, and the kind of intense horse-trading that complex legislation so often demands. House Ways Committee Chairperson Aaron Michlewitz, D-Suffolk, and his Senate counterpart, Sen. Michael J. Rodrigues, D-Bristol/Plymouth, both alluded to the legislative push-pull that resulted in the bill’s final approval. “The final product that we’re signing into law ... represents a responsiveness to today’s economy and compassion to the needs of our residents,” Michelewitz said But even with the bill’s signing, larger and more structural challenges remain. Data released by the state Department of Revenue shows that the commonwealth collected $2.55 billion in tax revenue in October, which was $196 million, or 8.3% more than was collected in October 2022. But that was still $186 million, or 6.8% below benchmarks, officials noted. Fiscal year-to-date collections totaled $11.84 billion, which was $276 million or 2.4% more than collections during the same time during the last fiscal year. But it was still $355 million, or 2.9% less, than the year-to-date benchmark, the agency said in a statement. State officials added that October “is among the lower months for revenue collection, because neither individual nor business taxpayers make significant estimated payments during the month,” and that “historically, roughly 6.5% of annual revenue, on average, has been received during October.” On Tuesday, a coalition of business leaders from across Massachusetts released a statement urging policymakers to rein in spending and called on them to follow their lead by “[prioritizing] public policies that will advance the competitiveness of our local businesses and workforce. “State spending in Massachusetts, buoyed in large part by economic growth and tax revenues, grew at a breakneck speed over the last five fiscal years, dramatically outpacing inflation,” the Massachusetts Chambers Policy Network, which represents 10 chambers of commerce statewide, said in a statement. In their statement, the business leaders observed that total general fund spending in the four budget years between 2018 and 2022 rose by 26.7%, while inflation in the greater Boston area grew by 14.7% during the same time period. “The drastic increase in government spending over the past five years is a growing concern for our future competitiveness and may detrimentally impact the long-term fiscal health of Massachusetts,” the chamber leaders said. “The large gap between spending and CPI increases, even over a period with exceptionally high inflation, suggests that state spending is not limited to increased costs for employee salaries or goods and services. Instead, it is expanding each year and often on a large scale,” they added. Even as lawmakers struggle to reach an accord on a year-end, closeout budget, the business leaders urged them to “take a balanced approach” to developing next year’s state budget, and to “keep spending increases at no more than the rate of inflation. “If the consensus revenue determines that tax and other revenues will allow for greater-than-inflation growth, then we strongly urge you to adopt the additional tax reforms that were proposed but not enacted this year,” they said. Meanwhile, Bay State residents continue to leave for more tax-friendly environs, the Fiscal Alliance said. Massachusetts saw its population shrink by 0.20% between 2020-2022, according to Axios, which cited U.S. Census data. “Of the two top destinations for people leaving the Commonwealth, New Hampshire comes in at 25th and Florida is the 3rd lowest at 47th,” the Fiscal Alliance noted in its statement.

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business

City Council grants special permit for new location for J.L. Raymaakers & Sons

WESTFIELD - On a vote of 10 to 1 with one abstention, the City Council voted on Jan. 4 to approve a special permit, site plan and stormwater permit for J. L. Raymaakers & Sons for a contractor’s yard and administrative offices on four acres on the corner of Falcon Drive and Progress Avenue in the water resource district. At an earlier public hearing on the proposal, Rob Levesque of R. Levesque Assoc., speaking for John Raymaakers, described the project as consisting of an office component and service facility. He said Raymaakers runs a number of large excavation-type equipment currently located on East Mountain Road and has a significant administrative operation out of Lockhouse Road, both of which will be housed at the new location. Zoning, Planning and Development chair Ralph Figy said at Thursday’s meeting that after due consideration, the committee voted 2 to 1 to recommend approval of the permits. He said the committee found that the location was appropriate for the business, that it would not adversely affect the neighborhood, conformed to all regulations, and would not interfere with the water resource district or negatively impact water quality.

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business

As Office Workers Make Their Return, So Does the Lowly Cubicle

Among office designers and architects, cubicles are rarely mentioned. The once-ubiquitous fixture, so popular in the 1980s and ’90s, has become vilified as a sign of the dehumanization of the work force. Design experts today say cubicles are a “hard no.” And yet cubicles, like scrunchies, are back, spurred by demand from employers and employees alike. “I frankly thought the cube market was dying,” said Brian Silverberg, who sells refurbished and used office furniture with his brother, Mark, in their store, the Furniture X-Change in North Brunswick, N.J. “We have sold more cubes in the last three years than in the five years before,” he said, adding that 2024 would be “bigger than this year.” Covid-19 was an amplifier of a trend that preceded the pandemic. But as workers returned to the office after months of working at home, quiet spaces became more important, said Janet Pogue McLaurin of Gensler. “We had seen a drop in effectiveness because of noise interruptions, disruptions and a general lack of privacy,” she said. Global demand has pushed cubicles and partitions to a $6.3 billion market, which is expected to grow over the next five years to $8.3 billion, according to a 2022 report from Business Research Insights, a market analysis firm.

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business

Milford construction firm, Boston developer sued over $5M Waltham contract

Subscribe Worcester Business Journal provides the top coverage of news, trends, data, politics and personalities of the Central Mass business community. Get the news and information you need from the award-winning writers at WBJ. Don’t miss out - subscribe today.

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Condominium sells for $1.1 million in Reading

The property located at 8 Sanborn Street in Reading was sold on Nov. 16, 2023 for $1,050,000, or $850 per square foot. The condominium, built in 2019, has an interior space of 1,235 square feet. This apartment features two bedrooms and two bathrooms. On the exterior, the house is characterized by a flat roof design. The property is equipped with forced air heating and a cooling system. Additional units have recently been sold nearby: In June 2023, a 1,197-square-foot unit on Woburn Street in Reading sold for $615,000, a price per square foot of $514. The unit has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. A 1,768-square-foot unit at 1 Charles Street in Reading sold in August 2023, for $588,000, a price per square foot of $333. The unit has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. On Charles Street, Reading, in November 2023, a 1,838-square-foot unit was sold for $602,000, a price per square foot of $328. The unit has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News

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Heres how you can win free coffee for a year from Massachusetts marketplace

This year could be your most caffeinated yet. In honor of its five year anniversary, local kitchen and marketplace Alltown Fresh is giving customers a chance to win free hot or iced coffee for the next year. Given the fact that 2024 is a Leap Year, you will get an extra day of being caffeinated. Any time you buy a coffee at one of Alltown Fresh’s locations using your loyalty account, you will automatically be entered to win. All you have to do is enter your registered phone number when checking out, pay with the Fresh with Benefits mobile app, or place an online order between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31. Those who are not loyalty members can become one by clicking here. Even if you aren’t chosen by Alltown Fresh, you will still earn points on coffee, food, fuel and more by becoming a member. Alltown Fresh will choose 16 winners, one from each store, on Monday, Feb. 5. Alltown Fresh has locations in the following Massachusetts towns: Ayer: 28 Harvard Road Easton: 491 Foundry St. Hopkinton: 92 W. Main St. Hudson: 240 Washington St. Marlborough: 656 Boston Post Road Plymouth: 22 Long Pond Road Alltown Fresh also has several locations in New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York. You can go online for more information about the contest.

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business

Luna Luna: A Fantasy That Comes With a Price Tag

What happened to fun? In the clinical white of the gallery, art can be forbidding, aggrieved, elite, academic. Shouldn’t it also, sometimes, be joyous? The collaborators behind Luna Luna thought so. This was the amusement park staged in Hamburg, Germany, in 1987, where nearly 30 professional artists including Basquiat, Hockney and Dalí designed the rides. About 250,000 people attended that summer — families, children, students, hipsters seeking reprieve. But shoestring funding and a thwarted tour let the production sit, disassembled and forgotten in storage, for 35 years. Now, at a staggering cost nearing nine figures, about half the attractions have been restored, beautifully, and arranged for the public in a new show in Los Angeles titled “Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy.”

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Boston Scientifics cryoablation granted FDA approval

Boston Scientific has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its cryoablation system. This system is used to treat patients with abnormal heart rhythm conditions, known as cardiac arrhythmias. Cryoablation is a minimally invasive procedure that uses extreme cold to destroy the tissue responsible for causing the abnormal heart rhythm. The FDA approval was based on data from the STOP AF First clinical trial, which demonstrated the safety and efficacy of Boston Scientific’s cryoablation system in treating patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. This approval provides an alternative treatment option for patients who do not respond well to medication or other therapies. It also expands the treatment options available for healthcare providers in managing cardiac arrhythmias. ReWalk Robotics acquires anti-gravity technology developer ReWalk Robotics has acquired a technology developer specializing in anti-gravity systems. This acquisition aims to enhance ReWalk Robotics’ portfolio of exoskeleton technology used in rehabilitation and mobility assistance. The anti-gravity technology developed by the acquired company allows users to experience a near-weightless environment. This technology can be integrated into ReWalk Robotics’ exoskeletons to provide additional support and assistance to individuals with mobility impairments. With this acquisition, ReWalk Robotics aims to further improve the functionality and performance of its exoskeletons, enabling a greater range of motion and improved overall mobility for users. This acquisition also strengthens ReWalk Robotics’ position as a leading provider of exoskeleton technology for both medical and non-medical applications. It demonstrates the company’s commitment to innovation and advancing the field of rehabilitation robotics.

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Where to buy lululemons We Made Too Much specials, new Lunar New Year collection

Need some new threads from lululemon to fuel your New Year’s resolutions to get back on the gym or studio and to stay there consistently? One of the world’s leading lifestyle and exercise brands based out of Vancouver, Lululemon apparel can be spotted everywhere, from the weight room to the golf course -- but is it in your wardrobe? Could you use a little more? The “We Made Too Much” specials are a hit for those looking to add some comfortable threads without breaking the bank. Lululemon also dropped a special line of apparel for those trying to shed some pounds or just look fabulous in the early goings of the new year, with its new Lunar New Year collection. Check out some of our favorite We Made Too Much and Lunar New Year picks below. We Made Too Much - Women: lululemon We Made Too Much - women'slululemon We Made Too Much - women's lululemon We Made Too Much - women'slululemon We Made Too Much - women's lululemon We Made Too Much - women'slululemon We Made Too Much - women's Lunar New Year - Men: Lunar New Year - Women:

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After 2022 fire, Northamptons Smith Voc seeks help funding $6 million upgrade to horticulture building

NORTHAMPTON — The horticulture building at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School, a barn that had been extended over the years, was inadequate even before a 2022 fire. Now, the public high school with nearly 600 students has a plan — and an estimated price tag of about $6.8 million — to replace the building. But the plan along with a fundraising goal of about $760,000 to close an expected funding gap, said Richard Aquadro, a former local building contractor and member of the school’s board of trustees now working as a resident engineer on building projects at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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business

Interim Harvard president Alan Garber's corporate compensation stands out among peers

For this, Garber was paid about $946,000 in salary from the university for the 2021-2022 academic year alone, recent Harvard tax filings show. But in roughly the same period, the physician and health economist earned more money as a board member for two major drug companies, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and California-based Exelixis Inc. Those two part-time roles netted Garber at least $963,000 in the 2022 fiscal year, records show. Before being named interim president at Harvard University this week, provost Dr. Alan M. Garber already had one of the most wide-ranging and powerful roles at the university — he was in the room for many of the institution’s most pivotal moments. Advertisement Garber remains listed on both companies’ websites as a member of their boards. Harvard spokesman Jonathan Swain declined to provide details on Garber’s board membership status, and spokespeople for Exelixis and Vertex Pharmaceuticals did not respond to requests for comment. Following Claudine Gay’s abrupt resignation and amid nationwide squalls of controversy regarding the work of Ivy League presidents, Garber’s sudden ascension to Harvard’s top post has put a spotlight on his corporate earnings and side jobs. The practice of university leaders serving on the boards of private and public for-profit companies — and earning significant compensation for it — is increasingly widespread. But experts on university governance and critics say it can raise a host of conflicts of interest, especially in health care industries where academia and industry are often deeply enmeshed. “To put someone in as president, even in the interim, who has some major conflicts of interest that take him away from his all-encompassing role — they need his full attention focused on the job at hand,” said Carolyn Becker, a retired associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who with other medical professionals has pushed a petition to ban hospital presidents from serving on boards. Advertisement Becker noted that board members at for-profit companies often have a fiduciary responsibility to those entities and their shareholders, which could collide with their duties at their primary institutions. “It’s such an obvious conflict, especially for people in the medical field,” Becker added. Swain declined to say if Garber plans to continue serving on the two boards in his new role, or if Garber would release more information about his financial interest in those companies. Garber, through Swain, also declined to be interviewed. The university has not outlined its plan for a presidential search or said whether Garber would be considered for a permanent role. Garber’s outside, corporate compensation is on the higher end of what other university administrative peers earn, according to a Globe review of current Ivy League presidents and provosts and publicly filed financial documents. The most comparable example is Martha Pollack, the president at Cornell, who joined the board of directors at IBM in late 2018 and has earned at least $1.4 million to date, filings show. Because Harvard is a private institution, many of its financial arrangements and relationships are cloaked in secrecy. But a person’s board membership or affiliation, as well as their payouts, are often detailed by public-facing companies or nonprofits in tax filings, as is in Garber’s case. Harvard does require faculty and those with teaching appointments to file annually conflict of financial interest forms that detail their or their family members’ significant financial interests “in any related outside entity.” Advertisement Garber, 68, is a noted scholar in health economics, and received a PhD from Harvard before moving to Stanford University — where he had simultaneously earned a medical degree — to teach for 25 years. He left Stanford in 2011 to become provost at Harvard. As provost, Garber’s main task was managing the university’s internal educational functions such as student affairs and faculty relations, and acting as the university’s chief administrator on academic matters. The role also includes other administrative responsibilities depending on the president’s needs. As interim president, Garber will be the public face of the institution — and decision-maker — for all matters. His ties to those pharmaceutical companies are longstanding. He joined the board of Exelixis, which makes anticancer medications, in 2005 while he was still teaching medicine at Stanford University. He began serving on Boston biotech company Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ board in 2017 after he had moved to Cambridge. Since starting at Harvard, those roles have netted him more than $6.6 million, with most of that value conveyed through stocks and options, according to SEC filings. His board roles have also allowed him to expense food or lodging costs associated with his board responsibilities, according to data from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services. Top-tier university presidents are increasingly augmenting their administrative salaries with compensation for corporate board service, said Michael Harris, a professor of higher education at Southern Methodist University who has studied university governance. “Presidents will tell you the benefits of this are making more connections for the institutions, or bringing in grants,” he said. “The critics would say it’s much more about lining their personal pocketbooks.” Advertisement Recent studies indicate about a third of such top-tier university presidents sit on boards for publicly traded companies, with an average compensation around $148,000 per year for each corporate board seat, said James Finkelstein, a George Mason University professor who has studied the issue since 1998. Not all private companies are required to share salary information, making it difficult to ascertain how much is paid out. Dartmouth president Sian Beilock currently sits on the board of directors for Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, and the nature and breadth of compensation is not publicly available. A Dartmouth spokeswoman declined to answer questions about Beilock’s board salary, and a Bridgewater spokesman declined to comment on the record. A president’s holding a board membership is not new to Harvard. Former president Drew Faust in 2012 joined the board of directors for Staples, the office supplies giant, partway through her tenure. The decision drew public criticism from some corners, including the postal workers’ union. Lawrence S. Bacow, Gay’s predecessor, was also on the boards of Loews Corporation and health care supplies distributor Henry Schein Inc., but resigned from all his corporate board seats before becoming Harvard president in July 2018. Finkelstein, the George Mason professor, said school administrators will often say such board roles help them build relationships or get better insight into leadership or corporate jobs. But Finkelstein said research has failed to turn up data proving such board service yields tangible benefits for the university involved. Advertisement “If these companies become donors to the universities, we don’t see any evidence of that. If they enter into major research agreements with the universities, we don’t see any evidence of that,” he said. “If they employ more graduates of these institutions, we don’t see any evidence of that.” Boards, however, earn some legitimacy and prestige from having university presidents in such oversight or advisory capacity, he added. “At the end of the day, we know what the personal benefits are for these presidents,” said Finkelstein. “We can literally take it to the bank.” The prevalence of school presidents on corporate boards coincides with a trend of rising salaries for university administrators, experts say. And at some top-ranked universities, leaders also get additional perks, like housing on campus. Garber, for example, lives in a 6,400-square-foot, three-story home paid for by the university. This arrangement has an estimated annual value of roughly $148,000, according to the school’s most recent nonprofit tax forms filed in 2023. Harvard has several other connections to the drug company Vertex. The company’s founder, Joshua Boger, received his doctorate in chemistry from the school and currently serves on Harvard Medical School’s board of fellows. In 2022, Douglas Melton, the co-director of Harvard Stem Cell Institute, left Harvard to develop diabetes treatments for the drug maker. Elizabeth Koh can be reached at elizabeth.koh@globe.com. Follow her @elizabethrkoh.

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business

The restaurants Barbara Lynch is closing meant something to Boston

It wasn’t, therefore, a staggering surprise when the Barbara Lynch Collective announced in a press release Friday that it would close the high-end Menton and Lynch’s other Congress Street properties, Sportello and Drink. The company said the Butcher Shop and Stir in the South End were under agreement for sale, while No. 9 Park, B&G Oysters, and the Rudder in Gloucester remained in business. The last years have been troubled ones for Barbara Lynch, one of Boston’s most acclaimed chefs. Many of her difficulties — as with her successes — have been self-made. The Globe and The New York Times reported on accusations of workplace abuse and harassment by employees. Kitchen staff at Menton walked off the job. Two former workers sued Lynch, alleging she shorted them on tips earlier in the pandemic. The Butcher Shop closed for summer break, then remained dark. All of this played out against a backdrop of challenges across the board for the hospitality industry: high rents, high food costs, a crushing labor shortage, a downtown altered by a pandemic. Advertisement It was sad, though. Get The Big To-Do Your guide to staying entertained, from live shows and outdoor fun to the newest in museums, movies, TV, books, dining, and more. Enter Email Sign Up It is bad if people are bad to their employees. Full stop. It is bad if leaders are bad at leading, and if managers are bad at managing. It is bad if powerful people and institutions don’t take accountability for their mistakes. (And I didn’t even have to go to Harvard to learn this.) Lynch’s press release is an exercise in deflection, blaming the closures on landlords, middle management, Boston itself — everyone but the boss, whom it praises for handing out toilet paper to staff during the pandemic. Now let’s hold some complicated realities together at the same time. Because people are complicated realities. Lynch is one of the most talented restaurateurs Boston has produced. She can cook incredibly delicious food. She can envision a concept that’s just right at just the right moment, and make it look like she invented it, though there may be no new thing under the heat lamp. Many years ago, when I was scraping by as a temp, I convinced my visiting mother to take me to dinner at Galleria Italiana, where Lynch was the up-and-coming executive chef. It was the best meal I’d ever had in Boston. Two years later, Lynch opened No. 9 Park. She was part of a wave of chefs — Jody Adams, Todd English, Gordon Hamersley, Lydia Shire, Jasper White, et al. — who put the city on the culinary map for something beyond chowdah. Advertisement Barbara Lynch was profiled in Maryanne Galvin's 2002 film "Amuse Bouche: A Chef's Tale." handout Although No. 9 and Menton feature Lynch in high-end ambition mode, it is the middle-ground properties that show her at her actual best. The Butcher Shop, a multifunction restaurant/butchery/wine bar/market, was ahead of its time. Likewise B&G, predating a groundswell of modern, upscale oyster bars and the general all-around eating of raw things from the sea. Drink, a bespoke cocktail bar where guests ordered by flavor profile, was a game-changer right when the craft cocktail scene was taking off. Sportello, a stylish diner putting out craveable Italian-inspired food, would fit in in any city (but Lynch never looks anywhere but homeward). These places changed the tenor of the local dining scene, remade it into something better — more interesting, forward-looking, and fun. Each had a sensibility all its own. Advertisement Lynch is a painter. Her work, too, has a distinct sensibility. As much as she is a chef, she is an artist. For her, food is a medium; the spaces in which we consume it are a medium. Artists aren’t known for being good at keeping businesses profitable, or managing staff, or maintaining relationships, or hacking their way to health and productivity via apps, diet, exercise, and immaculate self-care. Good art, or good work, doesn’t and shouldn’t earn problematic behavior a pass. But whether we are obliged to throw the good into the oubliette in the face of problematic behavior — well, that is a question we get to wrestle with as individuals and as a culture until the end of days. Menton, a French restaurant owned by Barbara Lynch. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff I gave Menton the maximum of four stars in a 2010 review, but I’m not sure I would have bet on its still being open more than a decade later. It was ambitious, expensive, off the beaten path, and demanding of the kind of consistency that’s hard to maintain in the best circumstances. But I will truly miss Sportello, which I recommended to so many people over the years and where the staff was unfailingly warm. I loved the Butcher Shop, where one could cozily gnaw a bone-in ribeye while drinking a generous pour of red. I hadn’t been to Drink in a dog’s age, and perhaps that exemplifies the problem, but there was a time when I was there frequently, soaking in its underground, Tokyo-esque aesthetic. I appreciated the coterie of excellent bartenders who trained there, then dispersed to make drinks and train others at bars all over the area. Advertisement “Boston is no longer the same place where I opened seven restaurants over the last 25 years. Properties have been flipped and flipped and the landlords just want the rents that only national chains can sustain,” Lynch said in the press release announcing the closures. There is some basic truth in this, and it extends to other cities as well. We shouldn’t expect or want Boston to be the place it was 25 years ago. But we can miss the fertile climate that allowed so many independent restaurants to take root and thrive. Devra First can be reached at devra.first@globe.com. Follow her @devrafirst.

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Owners of Kenmore Diner in Worcester to retire as restaurant reaches 50 years

The owners of a landmark diner in Worcester are retiring as the restaurant is on track to celebrate its 50th anniversary this month, but the diner has plans to stay open. James Yantsides, owner of Kenmore Diner on Franklin Street, confirmed to MassLive Monday that he and his wife will be retiring from the restaurant. As the couple plans to visit family in Greece and Cyprus, the diner will stay open, but under new ownership, Spectrum News reported. “We’ve had some really great customers,” Pauline Yantsides told the news outlet. “It’s like family. It’s emotional, it’s mixed feelings. We are happy and sad, but we’ll be visiting and see the people again.” James and Pauline Yantsides have been delighting diners ever since they took over Kenmore Diner in 1974, according to Spectrum News. Kenmore earned its stripes as the quintessential classic diner from customers near and far. “The food is freshly-prepared and everything is consistently well made. The chocolate chip pancake for my kid was one of the best we’ve tried anywhere, and when you consider that it is less than $4, it is in a class by itself,” a Yelp reviewer from Wallingford, Connecticut said in March. Read More: The Industry in Dorchester has closed to make way for new Mexican restaurant “I had a ham, cheese, and onion omelette that was also wonderful, came with tasty home fries and buttery toast,” he continued. “The sausages come in quantity and they’re very tasty.” “Mid-mod decor makes a neat change from the (awesome) standard train car,” another reviewer said referencing the diner’s signature layout. “Great service, food on par with the VERY high standard in Worcester.” Spectrum News said the couple’s last day at Kenmore Diner will be on Jan. 15.

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Are Market Basket, Shaws or Big Y grocery stores open in Mass. on New Years Day?

If you’re struggling to fulfill your New Year’s resolution of not procrastinating, then you’re in good hands. Those who forgot to pick up snacks or decorations for their New Year’s Day celebration will still have time for a last-minute trip as some, but not all, grocery stores will be open on Jan. 1. So before you can fully toast to 2024, see below for grocery store information. Aldi Aldi is closed on New Year’s Day. Big Y Big Y will be open with regular hours on New Year’s Day. Costco Costco is closed New Year’s Day. Market Basket Market Basket is open New Year’s Day from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., the store’s website reads. Price Chopper Price Chopper stores are open New Year’s Day. You can check your local store for exact holiday hours. Price Rite Price Rite stores will be open at 8 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Shaws Most Shaws stores are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on New Year’s Day, according to HolidayShoppingHours.com. You can check your local store for exact hours. Star Market Most Star Market are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on New Year’s Day, according to HolidayShoppingHours.com. You can check your local store for exact hours. Stop and Shop Stop and Shop stores and fuel stations will be open for normal hours on New Year’s Day, according to The Pioneer Woman. Pharmacies may have limited hours. Target Target is open for regular hours on New Year’s Day. You can check your local store for exact hours. Trader Joe’s Trader Joe’s is closed on New Year’s Day. Walmart All Walmart stores are open with normal business hours on New Year’s Day, according to Good House Keeping. Wegmans Wegmans stores in Massachusetts opened at 6 a.m. on New Year’s Day. You can check your local store for exact hours. Whole Foods Whole Foods stores in Massachusetts are open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on New Year’s Day. You can check your local store for exact hours.

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Ciao! Pizza and Pasta in Chelsea opening restaurant in Somerville

An award-winning pizza shop in Chelsea is expanding to Somerville. Edson Coimbra, co-owner of Ciao! Pizza and Pasta at 59 Williams St. in Chelsea, told MassLive via email Thursday that his business partner Marvin Posada is venturing out solo to Somerville. Coimbra did not specify when the restaurant will be opening. An Instagram story from Posada on Jan. 4 showed a video of the “first fire” in the charcoal oven at the new location. The restaurant is reportedly opening at 688 Broadway in Ball Square, according to Boston Restaurant Talk. MassLive has reached out to Posada for more details and confirmation. Read More: Kenmore Diner owner in Worcester embraces retirement Ciao! Pizza and Pasta opened in Chelsea in 2015, bringing some of the best Neapolitan pizza to Boston, according to the restaurant’s website. “The response from both our Chelsea neighborhood and the wider food community of Greater Boston was beyond expectations. We had reached our first goal of serving an under served community,” the website reads. Read More: Owner of Lock 50 in Worcester sells restaurant to new owners after 8 years Ciao! was placed second on Yelp’s list of top pizza spots in the U.S. and Canada in 2023, named to Food Network’s 2018 list of Best Pizzas in America’s Biggest Cities and voted the best pizza in Boston by Boston Magazine in 2017.

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Whats open and closed on Christmas Eve 2023 in Massachusetts

With Christmas Eve falling on a Sunday in 2023, many businesses may already be closed — but what about grocery stores and public transportation? Here’s what you can expect to be open and closed. Government City and town offices: Closed State offices: Closed Registry of Motor Vehicles: Closed State and local courts: Closed Federal courts: Closed Finance Banks: Closed. Most ATMs will remain open. Stock market: Both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are closed. Alcohol Massachusetts liquor stores: Open Connecticut liquor stores: Open Shopping Auburn Mall: Open until 6 p.m. Holyoke Mall: Open until 5 p.m. Hadley Mall: Open until 5 p.m. Natick Mall: Open until 6 p.m. Big Y: Open until 6 p.m. Stop & Shop: Open until 6 p.m. Market Basket: Open until 5 p.m. Price Rite: Open until 6 p.m. Star Market: Open until 6 p.m. Walmart: Open until 6 p.m. Target: Open until 8 p.m. Wegmans: Open until 6 p.m. Safeway: Open until 7 p.m. Costco: Open until 5 p.m. CVS: Open, hours vary Walgreens: Open; pharmacy hours may vary Aldi: Open, hours vary Whole Foods: Open, hours vary Trader Joe’s: Open, hours vary Parcel services Post offices: Closed FedEx: Open; offices with modified hours UPS: Closed; Priority Mail Express will be delivered Transportation Pioneer Valley Transit Authority: Northampton and Springfield Service ends early. UMass Transit: Service ends by 6 p.m. for Routes 30, 31 and 33; no service for 34, 35, 36, 38, 45, 46. MBTA:

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Springfield, Worcester among the hottest places to buy a home in 2024

Springfield and Worcester are among the top 10 housing markets for 2024, according to Realtor.com. The website listed the real estate markets where home sales prices are anticipated to grow as numbers dip nationally. The number of existing home sales in these places is also expected to surge, Realtor.com said. The top 10 markets in 2024 “have been more steady,” said Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “They haven’t seen the big price and sales booms we’ve seen in other parts of the country, which helps them to stand out now.” Half of the cities listed were on the West Coast but two were in Massachusetts. Springfield was listed at No. 7 on the list. “Springfield might be an unusual pick for a national top markets list. But this city, the birthplace of beloved author Dr. Seuss, is luring homebuyers with its affordable home prices and low unemployment,” Realtor.com wrote. About 90 minutes west of Boston, it has homes with less than half the cost. A three-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom brick house with an in-ground pool is $375,000. Overall, its median home price for November was about $350,000. But Worcester, which is listed at No. 8 on the list, is even closer to Boston — a continued selling point of the website’s. “Similar to Springfield, Worcester has long been a cheaper alternative to Boston. The larger city is only about an hour’s drive to the east,” Realtor.com wrote. The median home list prices in Worcester have increased 42% in four years. Still, the website wrote, that’s a “major bargain” compared to Boston prices. But that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. The buyers in the Worcester market include Bostonians, investors and locals who can afford the more-expensive prices and mortgage rates, real estate broker Nick McNeil, of McNeil Real Estate, told Realtor.com. The reason people are willing to move out of Boston, the website explained, is due to continued remote work. “As people have more remote work, they are willing to live farther away from the office,” said Hale.

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Boston developer to make largest investment in Lynns history

LYNN — For decades, the South Harbor site has sat vacant. A key piece of waterfront real estate in the city, developers tried over the years to woo city officials with plans for the parcel, but nothing clicked. Now, officials say the right proposal has come forward at the right time, providing Lynn a true gateway to the rest of the city, and an opportunity to reclaim the waterfront. That proposal — an 850-unit, mixed-income apartment complex with a first-floor commercial space — was hammered out over the course of four years between Boston-based developer Samuels & Associates and city leadership. Next-door neighbor Revere had already seen a glut of apartment buildings spring up along the MBTA’s Blue Line and Revere Beach. Lynn, just up the road from Wonderland and home to a Commuter Rail station, was the logical next place to turn, Samuels President Joel Sklar said. Perhaps because of what took place in Revere, the city had been preparing for a developer like Samuels to come along — revamping its zoning to embrace, not shun, new developments. It’s no surprise then that the company and the city were able to come to an agreement on the massive, $450 million proposal for the long-vacant site — fittingly just across the bridge from Revere. For Lynn, turning an empty property into a gateway to the rest of the city, complete with an 8-acre public park, 26,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and affordable units, delivered the “wow” it long sought for the waterfront. For Samuels, the project arrived at the right time in the right place. “We love Lynn because of its proximity to the city, connectivity to the MBTA… and we just think it’s an evolving area that is a great growth opportunity,” Sklar said in an interview. “We like investing in markets that are on the rise… and we like investing and becoming part of a community.” Well before it set its sights on Lynn, Samuels had a track record of developing projects akin to what it is now undertaking at the South Harbor. In Boston, the company can be credited with a large portion of the redevelopment of the Fenway — with a variety of mixed-use projects in the area, combining both retail and residential, as it will do in Lynn, and office and lab space with retail. Sklar also pointed to the Hingham Shipyard project, which closely resembles the plans for South Harbor on the commercial and open-space fronts. “We’re taking elements of work we’ve done before and combining them into this more integrated project,” he said. For Economic Development & Industrial Corporation of Lynn (EDIC/Lynn) Director Jim Cowdell, Samuels’ experience in undertaking projects similar in size and scope to South Harbor made it the obvious choice when selecting a developer for the site. “When you look at their reputation, every project has improved the neighborhood they’ve done projects in,” Cowdell said in an interview. “There’s not a city in the state that wouldn’t want Samuels in their community.” Mayor Jared Nicholson also praised the company’s “really impressive track record,” particularly on the sorts of mixed-use projects eyed for the South Harbor. “If you’ve seen Fenway over the last 20 years, it’s totally transformed and Samuels was a big part of that,” he said. The South Harbor site itself was a draw for Samuels, and Sklar echoed comments made by both Cowdell and Nicholson in calling it a gateway to the rest of the city. Other developments along the Lynnway had created what Sklar called a “thriving community” there, leaving Samuels with the opportunity to tap into a growing area of the city. Even beyond the South Harbor project, the city has poured resources into transforming the Lynnway, between the revival of the ferry connecting Boston and Lynn, and the extension of Blossom Street. That investment has stretched into the city’s downtown, which is increasingly becoming a vibrant destination, a fact Sklar pointed to in explaining Samuels’ interest in Lynn. Though the Lynnway is not walkable in the same way as Boston’s Boylston Street, where many of Samuels’ Fenway projects are located, Sklar said the company seeks to create a community in and of itself at South Harbor, with a commercial corridor and events at the park — an effort it has had success with in the Fenway. “We’ve always been retail developers, and retail placemaking is something that we really focus on,” he said. “We have a team… who all work together… to create a vibrant district that will attract the community.” Cowdell lauded Samuels for its ability to garner community support for projects. Though Samuels’ track record would indicate that it will have no trouble drawing residents to South Harbor once the project is completed — construction is slated to stretch into the next decade — Sklar acknowledged the challenge before the company. “It has to be an intentional effort to curate and merchandise a mix of uses that will draw people down there,” he said. “This is not something that we do because it’s a big moneymaker, this is something that really needs to be subsidized by the rest of the project.” The project has already received site-plan approval from the city, and a City Council vote on the proposed tax incentive for Samuels is expected this month. Most councilors appeared supportive of the project when Cowdell and Nicholson first presented it last month. Cowdell, himself a former councilor, acknowledged the difficulty of voting for a tax incentive but noted that a third-party economic consultant hired by the city verified an incentive was warranted. Sklar noted that any project of this size, particularly on the waterfront, has a steep economic cost. But, he said the company and the city were able to establish a productive public-private partnership from the beginning. “We’ve been working together with the city on an open-book basis to understand the economics of the project, the economic impacts and costs, and the amenities that we’re creating, and structured ways to share those burdens and benefits for the best outcome for the community in a way that still allows the project to go forward,” he said. “We can all have great ideas about what we’d love to create for the community, but they have to be economically viable.” “It’s been a two-way street and a great partnership,” Sklar continued. It’s that partnership that produced what Cowdell called the single largest private investment in the city’s history. “We deserve this,” he said.

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business

People in Business: Jan. 15, 2024

At a recent Westfield Gas & Electric Municipal Light Board meeting, commissioners said goodbye to Fran Liptak, a member of the board who represented Ward 4. In attendance were Westfield Mayor Michael McCabe, state Sen. John Velis, and State Rep. Kelly Pease, who presented proclamations in honor of his years of service. Liptak has served on the board for 24 years. He helped with many of Westfield Gas & Electric’s milestones, including the Southwick Pipeline Lateral project, approval and launch of Whip City Fiber, increased funding for the Westfield Warm Program and more proactive reinvestment. He has also been a supporter of the arts through his love for music and performances in the community, as well as being an assistant coach to the Westfield High School Bombers hockey team for many years. The Ward 4 position will be filled by Bill Parks, who was elected in an uncontested race in November. **************************************************** Florence Bank recently announced that Ashley Swett, of Ware, has been named manager of the bank’s Customer Service Center at the main office in Florence. She will oversee the staff responsible for assisting Florence Bank customers who contact the bank via telephone or email. Swett has 16 years of industry experience and is a graduate of the New England School of Financial Studies. She holds a certificate in supervision from the Center for Financial Training. Swett is currently a member of the Holiday Flair in Ware, an annual festival and parade. ***************************************************** The Loomis Communities, a provider of senior living in the Pioneer Valley, has announced a new executive director for its Applewood Retirement Community in Amherst, Kristen Lamoureux. Lamoureux has over 15 years of experience in nonprofit leadership and management, most recently serving as Vice President of Recovery Environments at Community Healthlink/UMass Memorial Health where she oversaw residential programs and housing for adults with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Prior to Community Healthlink, Lamoureux served as vice president at The Arc of Opportunity, where she oversaw programming and support for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Lamoureux began her career as a mental health clinician, working with people of all ages. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Assumption University and her Master of Arts in forensic psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Lamoureux is also a certified executive and leadership coach. ******************************************************** The Board of Directors of PeoplesBank voted to approve the following leadership changes: Tom Senecal is now chairman of the board and chief executive officer while Brian Canina has been promoted to president and chief operating officer and Hayes Murray has been promoted to executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer. The Board of Directors have also approved plans to open banking centers in Glastonbury and Avon, Connecticut, in addition to seeking other opportunities for future expansion. Senecal joined PeoplesBank in 1995 and has since held positions in finance and commercial lending before being elected as president, CEO and chairman in 2016. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Isenberg School of Management and attended the Tuck Executive Program at Dartmouth College. Senecal serves on the Massachusetts Bankers Association Board of Directors and is also a corporator for The Loomis Communities and The Horace Smith Fund. He resides in Granby. Canina joined PeoplesBank in 2009 and served as executive vice president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer prior to being appointed to his current position. He is a graduate of Bryant University and formerly served as a certified public accountant. Canina is also a graduate of the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking and is a recipient of the Wharton Leadership Certificate. Canina is president of the Finance and Accounting Society of New England. He serves on the board of directors for Helix Human Services. He resides in Longmeadow. Murray has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. He is a graduate of Gordon College and earned a Master of Science in accounting from Western New England University. Murray also is a certified public accountant. Prior to joining PeoplesBank in 2021, he served as the CFO of a de novo bank in western Massachusetts and spent over a decade in public accounting. Murray is a member of a Finance and Accounting Society of New England. He resides in East Longmeadow.

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business

Flush With Investment, New U.S. Factories Face a Familiar Challenge

The Biden administration has begun pumping more than $2 trillion into U.S. factories and infrastructure, investing huge sums to try to strengthen American industry and fight climate change. But the effort is facing a familiar threat: a surge of low-priced products from China. That is drawing the attention of President Biden and his aides, who are considering new protectionist measures to make sure American industry can compete against Beijing. As U.S. factories spin up to produce electric vehicles, semiconductors and solar panels, China is flooding the market with similar goods, often at significantly lower prices than American competitors. A similar influx is also hitting the European market. American executives and officials argue that China’s actions violate global trade rules. The concerns are spurring new calls in America and Europe for higher tariffs on Chinese imports, potentially escalating what is already a contentious economic relationship between China and the West.

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Historic Josiah Smith building in Weston to house new restaurant

New restaurant planned for historic waypoint on road to Boston, first with a liquor license in Weston Advertisement New restaurant planned for historic waypoint on road to Boston, first with a liquor license in Weston Renovations are planned to begin early this year Share Copy Link Copy Plans are in place to develop a new restaurant inside a pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts building that was once a stopping point for horsedrawn carriages on the road to Boston.Once open, the proprietor believes it will be the first standalone restaurant with a license to serve alcohol in Weston in more than a century. Weston's Josiah Smith Tavern Barn, located along Boston Post Road, was built in 1757 and is registered with the state's database of historic buildings. Records show it is the oldest building on Weston Town Green and was "one of the most important buildings" in the town. A marker out front notes, "Washington passed this place on his way to Cambridge to take command of the Patriot Army."One of the handwritten notes from the historical records indicates that, during the American Revolution, Josiah Smith "was an ardent Liberty man," who sent Sgt. John Howe, the British spy, to another tavern. A 1972 preservation document states, "Throughout 210 years, the Jones House has served the people of Weston with hospitality and amusements during the tavern days, and with meeting rooms and a small museum in our time." For much of the last two decades, however, large portions of the historic building have sat empty. Starting early this year, renovations will update the building so it can become The Woods, a new venture led by area restaurateur Brian Piccini.Piccini's other restaurants are Boston Chops South End, Boston Chops Downtown, Deuxave in Back Bay, and dbar in Dorchester. Piccini, a Weston resident, plans to be ready to open The Woods by fall, a spokesperson announced. They said it will feature decor inspired by nature with a "cozy and casual" barn-turned-bar and "airy and bright" restaurant seating. The Woods will also have three private dining rooms and two outdoor dining options. "The menu will focus on local and seasonal ingredients, featuring a sensational wood fire grill," a statement said. Piccini's team said the menu will also feature cocktails, an extensive wine list, local beers and non-alcoholic alternatives. They said a liquor license was already approved. Two country clubs in the town have on-site liquor licenses, but Piccini's organization said The Woods will become the only public business in Weston with the license to pour drinks. Piccini's team believes it is the community's first standalone restaurant with on-site alcohol since prohibition.Efforts to restore the building and its role in the community are being led by The Friends of Josiah Smith Tavern. Other tenants include the Weston Community League and Weston Forest and Trail. The Weston Historical Society, a long-time resident of the property, temporarily moved its collections out in 2019 to make way for the renovation effort.

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Sale closed in Boston: $3.6 million for a condominium

The spacious historic property located at 326 A Street in Boston was sold on Oct. 31, 2023 for $3,600,000, or $821 per square foot. The condominium, built in 1893, has an interior space of 4,383 square feet. This apartment has one bedroom and one bath. The home's outer structure has a flat roof frame. Additionally, the condo provides a one-car garage, offering a dedicated parking spot and storage area. Additional units that have recently been sold close by include: In June 2023, a 1,214-square-foot unit on Congress Street in Boston sold for $1,319,000, a price per square foot of $1,086. The unit has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. A 1,027-square-foot unit at 346 Congress Street in Boston sold in March 2023, for $1,075,000, a price per square foot of $1,047. The unit has 1 bedroom and 2 bathrooms. On Congress Street, Boston, in April 2023, a 683-square-foot unit was sold for $788,000, a price per square foot of $1,154. The unit has 1 bedroom 1 bathroom. Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News

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Gender parity on corporate boards in Mass. could take until 2044

That means each of the census’s 100 companies had at least one woman director, a modest achievement at best. The goal is now gender parity — having the same number of women on corporate boards as men. And that might not happen until 2044 based on the pace of change, according to the Boston Club , a group that tracks the number of women in boardrooms and corner offices. Advertisement You read that right: 2044. We can do better. We must when women make up half of the workforce in Massachusetts. Only five out of the 100 companies in this year’s census have reached gender parity on their boards: life sciences company Azenta Inc.,childcare provider Bright Horizons Family Solutions, medical device firm Insulet Corp., technology firm Novanta Inc., and retailer The TJX Companies. Remember their names. It’s no easy feat. Get Trendlines A business newsletter from Globe Columnist Larry Edelman covering the trends shaping business and the economy in Boston and beyond. Enter Email Sign Up The upshot from this year’s census, released on Tuesday, is that progress has been made once again. But if we want to go further, we must go much faster. Think of it this way: The Boston Club, a group that advances women leaders, has been crunching the data with Bentley University since 2003, drawing from public securities filings under the philosophy of what gets measured gets done. Only in the last couple of years has the all-male board been excised from the list — albeit momentarily, depending on which companies make up the 100 biggest public companies in Massachusetts that year. Lest you think the all-male board is out of vogue, think again. Just a couple of weeks ago, OpenAI — the San Francisco artificial intelligence company that is supposed to lead humanity into the future — had the audacity to install a preliminary board of all white men as if no one would notice. Advertisement Moving the needle considerably means companies need to promote more women into executive roles because that’s a significant part of the pool of future female directors. On that front, companies also have a long way to go. Women are woefully under-represented in senior leadership, accounting for only 21.9 percent of executive officer positions among census companies. Twenty of the companies have no women executive officers! To rev up diversity on boards, companies could also expand their board membership and implement age and/or term limits. Consider this other eye-opening statistic from the census: Among the 109 male independent directors, more than half are over 75 years old. “If the pace continues, it’s just going to be same-old, same-old,” said Ann LaFrance, who along with Renee Knilans are members of the Boston Club’s Corporate Board Committee that worked on the census with Bentley professors Cynthia Clark and Laura Jackson Young. Here are other highlights: Women hold 30.7 percent of board seats among the census companies: That surpassed last year’s record of 29.6 percent. Critical masses matter: More than half (58) of the census companies have at least three women directors, the same as last year, and 17 of the companies have four or more women on their boards. Zero “zero-zero” companies: That’s the ignominious label of having no women on the board and no women in senior leadership. This is the third consecutive year of zero zero-zero’s. Advertisement Racial diversity lags: Fifty-four companies have at least one director who is a woman of color. But overall, women of color account for just 7.2 percent of all directors among the census companies. Technology sector is still stuck in the past: Technology and software companies account for the largest number of companies, but as a group, they have the lowest percentage of women directors. Shirley Leung is a Business columnist and host of the Globe Opinion podcast “Say More with Shirley Leung.” Find the podcast on Apple, Spotify, and globe.com/saymore. Follow her on Threads @shirley02186 Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.

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business

People in Business: Dec. 25, 2023

Conval, a global manufacturer of high-performance severe service valves in Enfield, Conn., recently announced the appointment of Mike Mikaelian as inside sales engineer. A resident of Florence, Mikaelian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering from Western New England University in Springfield and earned a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. He previously served as design engineer at Judd Wire in Turners Falls, senior sales engineer and production manager at Dipwell Techware in Northampton, route service representative at Quest Diagnostics in Marlborough and in various engineering and sales positions at BETE Fog Nozzle in Greenfield. ************************************************************* Market Mentors LLC, a marketing, advertising and public relations agency, announces the addition of two Enfield, Conn. residents to its account services team. Chelsea Shelander is as an account executive and Kaitlyn Smith is an account coordinator. Prior to joining Market Mentors, Shelander worked in public relations and brand management at BioSafe Systems and as a service and retention consultant for The Aspire Group at UConn Athletics. She earned her earned her Master of Business Administration degree at the University of Dayton in Ohio after receiving two Bachelor of Science degrees — one in business administration with a concentration in marketing and one in sports management — from Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to Market Mentors, Smith spent several years as an account manager for ADESA Boston as well as social media manager for the DiGrigoli Companies. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in media arts and analysis from Westfield State University. ************************************************************** HCC Foundation Inc., the nonprofit fundraising arm of Holyoke Community College, has added nine new members to its Board of Directors, including six alumni, and also voted in a new slate of officers. The new board members are: Jasarah Burgos of Springfield, program director of New North Citizens Council; Steven Clement ‘11, of West Springfield, a certified public accountant and former controller for ServiceNet; Kate Douglas, of South Hadley, president emerita of SUNY Corning Community College; Luindy Espinal ‘19, of Granby, senior accountant at Colony Hills Capital; Dean Gallagher, of Florence, retired; Johnnie McKnight ‘10, founder and president of Massachusetts Scholars With A Goal; Matt McMahon ‘06, of Franklin, senior technical advisor with Booz Allen; Ryan Rege ‘08, of Belchertown, director of vocational programs for Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School in Fitchburg; and Jim Shevlin ‘80, of Alpharetta, Georgia, division president of ESIS, a Chubb Company. The foundation board approved the appointment of the new directors at its annual meeting on Dec. 5 while also welcoming a new slate of officers. Susan Goldsmith, of Longmeadow, president of Marcus Printing in Holyoke, will serve as chair; Lynn Starr ‘95, of Southampton, executive vice president and chief information officer at bankESB as vice chair; and Tiffany Madru, of West Hartford, Conn., founder of Analytics Labs in Holyoke, as secretary. ************************************************************* Gov. Maura T. Healey has appointed Chicopee resident Shavon Prophet to serve on the Advisory Board for the Massachusetts Center for Employee Ownership for a four-year term. The 19 seat multi-stakeholder board will advise MassCEO and the MA Office of Business Development on policies to strengthen employee ownership. Prophet is the former program director of MassCEO and a “business advisor for the greater good” specializing in shared ownership models and impact investing. During her tenure at MassCEO, she was one of only two people of color in the United States in a role of its kind and helped to secure additional grant funding to offer expanded technical assistance and capital resources for Massachusetts worker cooperatives — The Gateway City Legacy Business Program and the Capital for Cooperatives Program. She has helped hundreds of business owners explore succession planning and employee-led buyouts, with a special focus in worker cooperatives. The MassCEO Advisory Board was established by the passage of the MassCEO Enabling Act in November 2022, which fortified the office as a permanent part of the state government. o Prophet now leads portfolio development for Obran Cooperative, the first and only cooperative conglomerate in the US, and also independently advises business owners and economic development professionals on employee ownership transitions. ************************************************************* The Boys & Girls Club of Chicopee selected its 2024 Executive Committee and welcomed two new members to its board. Michael Vogel, of Westfield Bank, will serve another year as president. Tracy Hebda, of iSolved Benefits Solutions will serve as vice president. Dr. Jacqueline Pleet will serve as clerk. Roberto Nieves, of CommonCapital, will serve as treasurer. Jason Levine, of Jason L. Levine Law, P.C. will serve as the at-large member. Welcomed at the meeting, to begin three-year terms on the board, were Julia Marrero of Bacon\Wilson, P.C and Ann Dargie Gladd, of Family Law of Western Massachusetts, P.C. They will be joining the following current members: Alayna Anderson — Bacon\Wilson, P.C.; Benjamin Garvey — HUB International New England LLC; Angela Gotay-Cheverez — Freedom Credit Union; Robert Houle — Unity Financial & Insurance Group; Sarah Mailhott; Malar Patel — Google; Danielle Rosario — PeoplesBank. ************************************************************ Monson Savings Bank recently announced the hiring of Michelle Beaudette as assistant vice president, residential operations officer. Beaudette resides in Charlton. Beaudette has 18 years of experience in banking and finance. She is a graduate of The New Seminary and holds a Financial Management Certification from the U.S. Army Reserve Command. Prior to joining Monson Savings Bank, she worked at Millbury National Bank.

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business

Broadcom closes downtown Boston office after VMware acquisition

Broadcom informed the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development on Nov. 27 that it will close its entire VMware office at 2 Avenue de Lafayette (the Lafayette City Center). The first wave of layoffs will start on Jan. 26. Tech trade publication Channel Futures reported that nearly 3,000 job cuts at Broadcom have been disclosed among several states so far as part of the VMware integration, and many more are expected. California-based tech giant Broadcom is closing an office in Downtown Crossing and axing 150 jobs there as part of a much broader cost-cutting effort following the completion of its VMware acquisition . Advertisement Executives at Broadcom didn’t waste any time: The company, which specializes in hardware and software for the computing and telecom sectors, only just completed its acquisition of VMware on Nov. 22, following regulatory approval of the deal in China. Broadcom initially struck the deal to buy VMware in May 2022 for $61 billion, along with taking on about $8 billion in debt. At the time, Broadcom said it would combine VMware with its existing software group, and keep the VMware name for that group. Get Trendlines A business newsletter from Globe Columnist Larry Edelman covering the trends shaping business and the economy in Boston and beyond. Enter Email Sign Up VMware specializes in virtualization software, which essentially uses software for functions that would normally need additional hardware to perform, to significantly increase server efficiency. VMware has long been based in Silicon Valley, but it has ties to the Massachusetts tech world in large part through EMC, which acquired VMware in 2004 for $625 million, and then through Dell Technologies, which bought EMC in 2016. In 2021, Dell spun off VMware as a separate publicly traded company. However, Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, a major financial backer of Dell’s namesake computer company, maintained large stakes in VMware while Dell continued to chair VMware’s board through the sale to Broadcom. Advertisement Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.

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business

Boston-based State Street Corp. to lay off 1,500 employees, company says

BOSTON — State Street Corp. is laying off 1,500 employees, the Boston-based financial services company confirmed on Monday. It was unclear Monday at which company locations the layoffs would occur, and how many of the eliminated positions would be based in Massachusetts or New Hampshire. The global financial services and bank holding company has several locations in the Bay State, including in Boston, North Quincy, Burlington and Cambridge, and also in Nashua, New Hampshire. The layoffs were announced on Dec. 6 by State Street Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Eric Aboaf during the Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference, State Street spokesman Brendan Paul said in a statement on Monday. As a result, the company will take a “repositioning charge” of approximately $175-200 million, which includes an expense primarily related to this reduction in workforce, Paul said. In announcing the layoffs, Aboaf discussed “State Street’s key focus areas aimed at propelling our strategy forward, building market share and positioning the company for long-term success,” Paul said. “This strategy also includes executing on our multi-year transformation journey to drive increased productivity and create efficiencies,” Paul said. “While we have added employees in distinct areas and business functions, we must now position ourselves for long-term success and take difficult but necessary steps to further streamline our organization,” Paul said. “To limit the impact of these reductions, we will continue our focus on internal mobility and redeployment of roles to help match talent with the areas of critical need within the company,” Paul said. “Over the past several years, through our Talent Marketplace, we have significantly enhanced our ability to facilitate internal mobility and increase employee readiness for future roles." State Street will also “reinvest in growing areas of the business or where there are opportunities to further expand our market share or product offerings, such as our Alpha platform, building out our private markets capabilities and investing in our core custody capabilities, Paul said. State Street, which is headquartered at One Congress Street in Boston, has operations worldwide. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW ©2023 Cox Media Group

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business

Hotel Owners Push Back on Merger of National Brands

When Patrick Pacious, the chief executive of a large portfolio of hotel brands, promoted a blockbuster attempt to acquire a competitor in October, he said the proposed merger would lower costs and attract more customers for the families and small businesses that own most of the company’s locations. “Our franchisees instantly grasped the strategic benefit this would bring to their hotels,” Mr. Pacious, who leads Choice Hotels, said on CNBC. As the weeks have passed, however, the reaction has not been positive. Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, the target of the proposed deal, rejected the offer from Choice, which is now pursuing a hostile takeover. And in early December, an association representing the majority of hoteliers who own Choice and Wyndham-branded properties came out strongly against it. “We all don’t know what’s driving this merger. Many of us feel it’s not needed,” said Bharat Patel, the chairman of the organization, the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. The group surveyed its 20,000 members and found that about 77 percent of respondents who own hotels under either brand or both thought a merger would hurt their business.

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business

Davis Closes $73M Deal For One Of Boston Areas Largest Development Sites

An aerial view of the 100-acre ExxonMobil site in Everett that The Davis Cos. purchased. In a highly anticipated deal, a 100-acre fuel tank farm has sold to a real estate firm with plans for a massive redevelopment along Everett's waterfront. The Davis Cos. purchased a former ExxonMobil site for $72.5M, according to public records. The property is one of the biggest pieces of developable land near Boston, and Davis previously said it was interested in building a major mixed-use project. “We have been attracted to the tremendous potential of this site for quite some time,” Davis Chief Development Officer Michael Cantalupa said in a statement. “The size and configuration of the tank farm parcels can accommodate a wide mix of uses, including critically needed housing, clean energy uses, advanced research facilities, and high-tech manufacturing.” Davis had backed out of an agreement to acquire the Exxon site in September 2022, a lawsuit from Conservation Law Foundation against Exxon revealed at the time. The suit claimed the gas company's practices on the site led to pollution risks exacerbated by climate change. But Davis later resumed talks to acquire the site, and the CLF suit was settled along with the acquisition closing, the foundation announced Tuesday. As part of the settlement, CLF said it has obtained an “enforceable prohibition on the property” that won't allow it to be used to store fossil fuels. “Closure of the facility will protect the community and eliminate a major pollution threat to Boston Harbor and its tributaries,” CLF President Brad Campbell said in a statement. “Forever prohibiting a similar facility on the site further reduces fossil fuel’s chokehold on Everett and the broader region’s energy system, landscape, and economy.” As part of the acquisition, the site will need to go through an estimated $100M in remediation and cleanup, which could take up to four years to complete, the Boston Globe reported. Davis applied to the Massachusetts Brownfields Covenant Not to Sue program, which would protect the firm from any lawsuits brought by neighboring communities due to potential pollution from the site. The acquisition marks a step closer to the resurgence of Everett's waterfront from an industrial port into a mixed-use hub. The city's Commercial Triangle has already begun to be reshaped, with thousands of housing units set to deliver, but its waterfront hasn't seen the same fate — until recently. In October, Wynn Resorts won city approval to move forward with the expansion of its Encore Boston Harbor casino and hotel. In August, Boston-based V10 Development proposed a 591-unit residential development along the Malden River in Everett. “Now, with the possibility of a full-scale redevelopment of the site, we are excited to discuss ways to transform this parcel into a community asset from its presently decrepit state,” Everett Planning Director Matt Lattanzi wrote in an email to Bisnow last month.

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business

Boston Scientifics pulsed field ablation device matches standard of care in AFib trial

Dive Brief: A closely watched clinical trial of Boston Scientific’s pulsed field ablation (PFA) device has met its primary endpoint . Boston Scientific published the data in The New England Journal of Medicine . The ADVENT study found Boston Scientific’s Farapulse is as safe and effective as the standard of care in atrial fibrillation, although BTIG analysts said a death in the PFA arm may “distract from overall safety.” Despite that concern, analysts at BTIG and other companies were enthusiastic about the results, with the team at RBC Capital Markets forecasting “conversion of 80%-90% of the market over a 2-3 year period.” Dive Insight: PFA is a minimally invasive procedure that uses electrical pulses to scar heart tissue, preventing atrial fibrillation. Boston Scientific has subjected Farapulse to a more rigorous clinical development program than its main PFA rivals Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic, who ran single-arm studies, according to BTIG analysts. Unlike its rivals, Boston Scientific compared its device to standard of care radiofrequency or cryoballoon ablation. The approach has delivered data that show PFA is at least a match for existing AFib treatments and could drive the transformation of electrophysiology. “With PFA offering a faster ablation approach that is at least as effective and safe as the standard of care even though operators had little experience with the new technology, we expect U.S. electrophysiologists will adopt PFA as enthusiastically as their peers in Europe,” the BTIG analysts wrote in a note to investors. Investigators randomized more than 600 people to undergo PFA or thermal ablation. Off-drug treatment success after 12 months was 73% in the PFA arm and 71% in the thermal arm, showing Farapulse is non-inferior, but not statistically superior, to the standard of care. The hit on the non-inferiority primary endpoint and miss on the superiority secondary endpoint largely matched analyst expectations, although the team at J.P. Morgan highlighted the numerical advantage of the PFA arm as a positive surprise. The study also found PFA procedure times were significantly shorter and less variable than thermal ablation procedures. On the safety front, investigators reported six adverse events in the PFA cohort and four adverse events in the control group. That topline safety finding hides a mix of positives and negatives for Farapulse. The main negative is that one patient in the Farapulse arm died. Analysts at Truist spoke to two key opinion leaders about the death. Neither expert was concerned because the event was “not device related/specific.” The experts also cited the “extensive experience with Farapulse in Europe” as evidence of the safety of the device. The main positive in the safety data is the rate of post-ablation narrowing of the pulmonary veins at three months. The rate in the PFA arm was 0.9%, compared to 12% in the thermal ablation cohort. Analysts at RBC and Stifel noted the potential for the results to get better as operators gain more experience with the technology. Boston Scientific is analyzing whether outcomes improved as physicians gained experience using Farapulse throughout the course of the trial, according to the Stifel analysts. Even without improvements, analysts think PFA is capable of disrupting the electrophysiology market. Abbott, which is lagging behind the PFA front-runners, may have the most to lose. The analysts at Truist think Boston Scientific has the most to gain, especially in the near- to intermediate-term, “given its early mover advantage with Farapulse and limited existing EP share position, and we think this data supports share gains from existing ablation modalities,” they wrote in a note to investors. ADVENT data should support approval by the second half of 2024, they added.

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business

Family Split at LG, a South Korean Giant, Tests Corporate Succession

When Koo Bon-moo, chairman of South Korean conglomerate LG, died in 2018, there wasn’t much question, at least publicly, of who would next preside over the company. LG, a $10 billion corporate empire, is governed by the principle of male primogeniture. Succession was effectively settled 14 years earlier when Mr. Koo and his wife adopted their eldest nephew, Koo Kwang-mo. The adoption was necessitated by tragedy and tradition after the couple’s teenage son died in 1994, and their efforts for another male heir resulted in a second daughter. The Koo family has controlled LG since it was founded in 1947, and the transition that elevated Kwang-mo to the helm seemed seamless, burnishing the family’s reputation for harmony. It wasn’t. The former chairman died, at age 73, without a will. What followed was a power struggle within the Koo family and LG over the inheritance of his estimated $1.5 billion fortune — including his 11 percent stake in the company. Now, five years later, the former chairman’s widow and two daughters are suing Koo Kwang-mo, accusing him and other LG executives of deception to steal their rightful inheritance to bolster his claim to the company.

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business

These Boston area grocery stores will be open on Thanksgiving

Food These Boston area grocery stores will be open on Thanksgiving When you're searching for an item in a pinch, look to these supermarkets. Pick up your last minute Thanksgiving ingredients at these stores. Photo via Pexels, Greta Hoffman It can be a challenge to pick up last minute items the day of Thanksgiving, when you’re missing an ingredient or are in a bind. Maybe you forgot the cranberries, or you’re realizing that there aren’t enough green beans. When you need to run to the supermarket, it’s helpful to know which ones in Greater Boston will still be open on the holiday. Massachusetts Blue Laws control operating hours for certain retail establishments on Sundays and some holidays, and so many major grocery stores will be closed on Thanksgiving. Local branches of chains like Stop and Shop and Whole Foods will not be operating, nor will any Trader Joe’s, but a few other markets and retailers will remain open. We’ve rounded up their hours below. Advertisement: Boston Convenience You can pick up simple items that you may need for the holiday at Boston Convenience locations, ranging from brown sugar to fresh fruit and sour cream. The Cambridge spot will be open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., the Boston location will be open for 24 hours, and the Somerville spot will welcome customers from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. (1 Leighton St., Cambridge; 1912 Beacon St., Boston; 6 Broadway, Somerville; 7 a.m.–11 p.m.; 24 hours; 6 a.m.-9 p.m.) Broadway Marketplace A family-owned grocery store in Cambridge, Broadway Marketplace will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, supplying customers with fruits and vegetables, fresh cuts of meat, a selection of ice cream, and baked goods. The market also has Thanksgiving staples, like cooked turkey breast, spiral ham, mashed potatoes, and homemade stuffing. (468 Broadway Terrace, Cambridge; 9 a.m.-3 p.m.) City Feed & Supply City Feed & Supply on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain will be open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving, but you will find that its smaller Boylston Street location will be closed. Pick up cheese, local produce, fresh fish, bread from artisan bakeries, and Equal Exchange coffee. (672 Centre St., Boston; 8 a.m.-2 p.m.) Advertisement: DeLuca’s Market DeLuca’s Market’s Charles Street location will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., while their Newbury Street spot will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Stop in for cheeses, cured meats, produce, fresh bread, and deli items. (11 Charles St., Boston; 239 Newbury St., Boston; 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.; 9 a.m.-3 p.m.) Golden Goose Market This North End, boutique grocery store offers hand cut and trimmed meats, specialty cheeses and spreads, pumpkin and apple pies, and party supplies. Be sure to grab a bottle from their wine selection for your holiday meal. The market will be open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. (179 Commercial St., Boston; 6 a.m.-11 p.m.) H Mart At this Asian supermarket with locations in Cambridge, Burlington, Quincy, and Brookline, there’s plenty of produce to go around, as well as fresh meats and liquor. The Cambridge store is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. hours on Thursday, while the Burlington and Quincy stores will be operating from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The Brookline spot is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (581 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge; 3 Old Concord Rd., Burlington; 101 Falls Blvd, Quincy; 1028 Beacon St., Brookline; 8 a.m.–10 p.m.; 8 a.m.-9 p.m.; 8 a.m.-9 p.m.; 9 a.m.-9 p.m.) Advertisement: Reliable Market This large market in Somerville, specializing in fresh Asian foods, is available for you if you need produce or any packaged groceries that could enhance your Thanksgiving meal. During the holiday, they will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. (45 Union Square, Somerville; 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m.) South End Food Emporium A variety of pastas, Boar’s Head meats and cheeses, nuts, and chips can be purchased at South End Food Emporium, along with selections of fruits and vegetables, if you decide to make a tray of roasted sweet potatoes. They’ll be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., so you’ll have ample time to pick up any last minute groceries. (469 Columbus Ave., Boston; 7 a.m.–7 p.m.) Walgreens Most Walgreens locations will be closed, except for 24-hour spots like the ones in East Boston and Revere. Depending on where you shop, you might be able to find baking flour, boxes of pasta, cranberry sauce, as well as the cinnamon you’ll need to top off your pumpkin pie. (Various locations)