By Amy Thai
Downtown Worcester has received a $75,674 grant for a month-long celebration this upcoming August, announced on Tuesday by the Downtown Worcester Business Improvement, in partnership with The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts and the City of Worcester.
Awarded by the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, this grant will support 59 business and tourist organizations to help enhance and reintroduce the downtown’s local businesses and public spaces.
“We are thankful to have MOTT embrace our exciting recovery plans for downtown Worcester. The grant will allow us to produce a much higher quality marketing campaign and greatly expand our reach beyond Worcester,” said Evelyn Darling, executive director of the Downtown Worcester BID, in the announcement.
By Grant Welker
The Worcester City Council has signed off on a new oversight board for Polar Park after a long struggle between the council and the city administration over exactly how the city-owned $160-million baseball stadium should be managed.
The council approved the new board on Tuesday, exactly two weeks before Polar Park opens for its first Worcester Red Sox game. The body is envisioned by City Manager Edward Augustus, who will appoint its members, as a group of people who would decide on relatively minor matters such as use by other entities or financial updates.
Big-ticket items such as stadium repairs would still go before the City Council. But councilors expressed concern until Tuesday in giving up oversight power of the $160-million ballpark to a board of volunteers whose actions they d be unable to control or influence. Councilor Donna Colorio asked, for example, about potentially removing members who go rogue.
Worcester City Council approves creation of Worcester Ballpark Commission to oversee operations at Polar Park
Updated 9:48 AM;
Today 9:48 AM
Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty speaks outside of Polar Park on Tuesday as official provided a tour of the ballpark to the media on Tuesday.
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The Worcester City Council on Tuesday approved a seven-member commission to oversee operations at Polar Park.
The vote by the council creates a similar commission to that of the Civic Center Commission that oversees the operation of the DCU Center and the Parks Commission.
The commission will consist of a seven-member team that will serve five years. To start, members will serve terms of one, two, three, four or five years.
By Grant Welker
An environmental sustainability plan approved by the Worcester City Council on Tuesday sets a goal of using entirely renewable energy for city buildings by 2030 and a similar goal for transportation by 2045.
The plan is aligned with new state legislation and goals, and sets a target for making Worcester a sustainability leader in Massachusetts and the most sustainable mid-sized city in the country, City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. said in a statement after the vote.
Other aspects of the plan include planting of more trees throughout the city, particularly downtown, where they re less common than in less dense residential areas. The city said the plan also builds upon efforts over the past decade to make city operations more energy efficient, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving water quality in lakes and ponds. A plan is also to be created for eventually reaching a zero-waste goal.
Becker College’s Worcester campus so blends into its neighborhood west of downtown someone could pass through and, if it weren’t for the blue Becker banners on a few dozen buildings, barely notice it’s a campus at all.
But how seamlessly Becker’s roster of late 19th-century and early 20th-century buildings fit amid the blocks of shaded streets just off Elm Park puts pressure on Worcester and Becker to ensure the buildings find new useful life after the school closes after the spring semester.
“They are extremely important properties in the city,” said Deborah Packard, the executive director of Preservation Worcester, an advocacy group for historic preservation.