State To Help Fund Gardner Project
The state will provide several hundred thousand dollars for infrastructure improvements to support the construction of a commercial office building in downtown Gardner, according to state officials speaking at an economic summit in Leominster this morning.
Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray will officially announce the MORE Jobs grant at a press conference in Gardner at 3 p.m. today.
Kofi Jones, communications director for the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, said the grant will pay for the construction of a parking lot and retaining wall near Gardner's Main Street. Those improvements will support the demolition of an industrial building and the construction of a new commercial office building in its place.
MORE Jobs grants, distributed through the Massachusetts Opportunity Relocation and Expansion Jobs Capital Program, pay for public infrastructure improvements designed to stimulate economic growth and create jobs.
Officials at the summit also announced a new feature to give riders on the state's MBTA commuter rail lines better real-time information about arrival times. Jones said the new system, poised to debut on the Fitchburg-Boston commuter line, would allow riders to stay in their cars at the line's larger parking lots and get updates on arrival times by tuning their radios to a particular station.
The summit, held at the Four Points Sheraton in Leominster, brought together business, education and government leaders, as well as public policy experts, to discuss ways to promote economic recovery and job growth in North Central Massachusetts. It is the first of a series of such summits being held around the state.
The event featured reports from Northeastern University economist Barry Bluestone and Robert Pontbriand, director of economic development at the North Central Massachusetts Development Corp., discussing job growth in the state and region.
Bluestone said that while Massachusetts job creation lagged the rest of the country between 2000 and 2009, it is now doing better than the country as a whole. In particular, he said, the manufacturing industry has declined less in the state than across the United States.
Pontbriand noted that manufacturing is a particularly important sector in North Central Massachusetts, representing 23 percent of the region's total payroll. He said the area is the most affordable in New England but must overcome barriers for businesses, including high utility costs and a lack of broadband Internet connectivity in some areas.
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