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November 2, 2018

Canal District gets $400K for streetscape improvements

Photo/Grant Welker Construction of Harding Green in late September. The project has received a boost by a $500,000 streetscape improvement grant to Worcester by the state.

The mixed-use Harding Green apartments and market in the Canal District have received a boost as the Worcester was granted $400,000 for streetscape improvements in the area around the $21-million development, the state announced Friday.

The MassWorks grant will be used for pedestrian and screetscape infrastructure, according to the state. That work, the state said, will enhance safety and improve the aesthetics outside the development, which is being built at Harding and Green streets.

Renderings of the Harding Green project show a row of new trees and wider sidewalks just outside the building.

Harding Green is a $21-million development featuring 487 market-rate apartments above a food market in a four-story building. The 70,000-square-foot building will add to the Kelley Square and Canal District area at a time when the neighborhood is anticipating a 10,000-seat ballpark by 2021 a few blocks away to host the future Worcester Red Sox.

The MassWorks grant was one of 40 of more than $82 million in state funding this year. The MassWorks program is expected to pay $35 million toward infrastructure improvements around the ballpark and a related proposed mixed-use development off Madison Street.

Harding Green received $500,000 this summer from the state Department of Agricultural Resources to purchase specialized equipment for Worcester Public Market's manufacturing operation to focus primarily on processing Massachusetts-grown and -harvested food products. Developer Allen Fletcher has said the market is planned to include 30 to 40 retail vendors.

Edith Murnane, who has been named the director of the Worcester Public Market, said this summer the market will include an incubator for small food ventures and will work with the Worcester Regional Food Hub, a startup space now based at the Worcester County Food Bank in Shrewsbury.

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