The Springfield Business Improvement District is proud to announce a contest with a prize of a full night out in Downtown Springfield
For Immediate Release
Contact: Kenn W. Delude, President/CEO(413) 593-6421 k.delude@westmassdevelopment.comLudlow—The Westmass Area Development Corporation has announced that it is seeking bids for phase one of the Riverwalk project, part of the approved Ludlow Mills Preservation and Redevelopment Master Plan, and has advertised a solicitation for bids from contractors. Bids will be opened on August 21st with construction expected to begin in the fall.
AIM will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2015 by developing The Blueprint for the Next Century, a plan to create jobs, prosperity and economic growth in the coming decades. Please become part of The Blueprint for the Next Century by sharing your opinions through our brief online Blueprint survey.
We are excited to announce that the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission has just launched a new, improved website especially designed to make it easier and more engaging for different categories of users-citizens, planners, and media members alike-to search, explore, and connect with PVPC staff and the commission's diverse areas of work.
The June 26 Western MA Developers Conference at the Basketball Hall of Fame is your chance to learn about and visit shovel -ready development opportunities in the region, and hear from CEOs and industry experts about the value proposition of doing business Western MA. The conference will feature MassMutual CEO Roger Crandall as the keynote speaker, tours, exhibits and exciting announcements of developments in our region. Register today at www.westernmassedc.com. We look forward to seeing you in Springfield!
I was hired by the EDC almost eight years ago to organize and manage its new Business Development Department. I believed strongly in the EDC’s mission then and I believe in it equally strongly today. Our goals are to encourage private capital investment and public infrastructure investment in the region and to stimulate more and better jobs for the workers in our communities.
There are reasons to see the glass as half full and equally compelling reasons to see the glass as half empty. Charlie D’Amour, COO of Big Y, among others, noted that the recovery has been uneven across regions in Massachusetts, with western Mass being behind Boston. Rick acknowledged that, but noted that our region falls in the middle of Mass regions, not as good as Boston or Worcester, but ahead of the South Coast, North Central and the Cape.
At the EDC Board meeting yesterday morning, I announced my plan to retire from my position as President and CEO of the EDC on December 31, 2014. I have often said that leading the EDC is the best job in Western Massachusetts for someone committed to economic development.
The EDC is always appreciative of the support that we receive from the western Mass business and hospitality community when we entertain guests from outside the region and sometimes from outside the country. We expect more visits from the 20+ companies we met at Medica
For 110 years the Oxford Pickle Factory operated in the center of South Deerfield MA until it closed in 2006. The Town purchased the land and prepared it for reuse by clearing the site and adopting zoning and expedited permitting to encourage its development.
With the Troubles behind them, Donegal is now cooperating
with Derry and its businesses are looking to Northern Ireland, Europe and even
the US for growth opportunities. Yesterday we made the case why western Mass
should be considered for that growth.
This event was a continuation of the EDC’s efforts to use
our international connections to bring opportunities to western Mass companies
and entrepreneurs.
The Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) and the Beyond the Border (BTB) initiatives, which are aimed making cross border trade and travel secure, easier, more efficient as well as preserving and extending the benefits our close relationship has helped bring to Canadians and Americans alike. In an effort to advance these initiatives here in our region, representatives from Canada’s Privy Council Office and the United States’ Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (White House) and Customs and Border Protection, as well as representatives from several companies including General Electric, Philips Healthcare and Deringer, will be in Boston, on Tuesday, October ...
Data and anecdotal evidence support the fact that Health
IT is a growing sector in the region. Many firms are adding employees and we
have some exciting new initiatives, highlighted by the recently funded Baystate
Health IT Center of Excellence.
Promoting our regional aerospace cluster is a high priority
for the EDC this year. Enhancing Western Mass – Canada trade is a significant
tactic in our initiative. US – Canada trade tends to be north-south. Canada’s
aerospace firms predominate in Quebec, so our region is well positioned to pick
up future business opportunities.
Bay Path College, which is launching a new Master of Science in Cybersecurity Management in October, the first of its kind in New England, will be hosting a Cybersecurity Summit: The Human Side of Cybersecurity Management on Friday, October 11, 2013 from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the Blake Student Commons on the College’s Longmeadow Campus. Robert Milton, retired commander of the London Metropolitan Police Service, New Scotland Yard; Managing Director, Milton Tezelin Ltd. that provides international antiterrorism security training, will offer the keynote address at the conference.
Join AIM, McGladrey and KLR (Kahn, Litwin, Renza & Co. Ltd.) for a fast-paced, one-hour Webinar on developments in Massachusetts tax laws. Catch up on key policy discussions within the Massachusetts Legislature and ongoing administrative developments with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
Farmers, foresters, researchers, Biochar producers, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists will convene in Amherst, Mass. on October 13-16, 2013 to learn more about Biochar and share the latest research and application techniques with their peers. The 2013 USBI North American Biochar Symposium, titled “Harvesting Hope: The Science and Synergies of Biochar,” will take place on the UMass Amherst campus and include farm tours and a “carbon negative” banquet of delicious foods grown with the help of Biochar. The conference is sponsored by the U.S. Biochar initiative (USBI).
The first is the
visit of “Systematic”, the Parisian IT cluster composed of several hundred
companies, one of the premier clusters in France. Systematic organizes a
mission to Massachusetts every year. This year’s visit is focused on Big Data,
but the cluster encompasses many areas of IT, including Health IT where we have
already established connections to the Springfield Health IT sector.
Western Mass Business Forum
Environmental Compliance: Beyond the Basics. Be Proactive. Improve Your Bottom Line. Businesses operating today are often overwhelmed by state and federal environmental, health and safety requirements. It’s especially tough for small and mid-size businesses to keep up to date.
On June 6, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced two
grants made by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center to the University of
Massachusetts (“UMass”) and Baystate Health that total over $100 million.
The UMass grant will fit out a new science building with
three research centers:
The EDC made a conscious decision to prioritize our region’s
aerospace cluster during 2013. Western Massachusetts is a key link along the
aerospace supply chain that follows I-91 from Connecticut through Massachusetts
and Vermont and continues north to Montreal. We call the Hartford CT –
Springfield MA section of that corridor New England’s Knowledge Corridor©, but
the entire corridor is legitimately Aerospace Corridor.
One of our tactics was to organize a presence for
Massachusetts companies at the Paris Air Show. The EDC organized meetings with
global OEM’s and B2B opportunities with international aerospace clusters for
the three Western ...
The EDC hosted a roundtable discussion in June featuring
Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki. We
invited several New York site selectors as well as other state and regional economic
development officials to join us for an engaging conversation about shared
service center opportunities in our region for companies in the financial and
professional services and IT sectors. We had hosted a similar roundtable in Boston
in March. Secretary Bialecki has set an ambitious goal to speak to 50 companies
who might be interested in opening a facility about the advantages of western
Massachusetts during 2013. Based ...
The Workforce Group had many questions for Dan, particularly
about the schools’ interaction with the business community. Many members offered
support and Dan’s team shared this list of ways that business people could help
our kids – http://www.westernmassedc.com/springfieldpublicschools/