Herbs
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Posts posted by Herbs
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There will be a final public meeting tomorrow night (June 7th) at the Visitor's Center Theater, from 7-9pm for the Feasibility Study which is being conducted by the cities of Central Falls and Pawtucket, with funding from RIDOT, FTA and FHWA. The presentation will include a summary of the Study's findings and an explanation of the next steps. Hope to see you there.
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Hey Herb,
I have a question for you..
Other than have sandwiches named after you, what is it that you actually do?
I actually don't know what an Economic & Cultural Affairs Officer does..
Are you basically a PR person for Pawtucket?
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The crosswalk at George Bennet and Armistice was just repainted. I wonder if I can credit it to my b{sodEmoji.{sodEmoji.|}}tching?
Probably -- Herb Weiss. Call me if you have anyother concerns 724-5200.
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Herbs, who can I talk to about getting a pedestrian signal put in at an intersection, or a "yield to pedestrians when turning" sign. The intersection of Armistice and George Bennet could really use one, I've almost gotten hit twice now by cars turning from Armistice onto George Bennet while walking west on Armistice. There's no pedestrian signals so the only time you can cross is on the Armistice green. With the train tracks there and the width of George Bennet it's a pain in the ass.
Call Mike Burns, in Traffic, at 728-0500, ext. 215. Tell him your concerns...Herb Weiss
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Pawtucket has a public pool. Call the Recreation department to get info pertaining to location and times opened. Call 728-0500.
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Is there a public pool for Pawtucket residents?
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Herb I've been wondering about this for a while: Why on so many streets around the city (i.e. York Ave), are there so many discontinuous sidewalks? Were developers given an option of putting in sidewalks and just chose not to or something? It's quite odd, they'll be concrete sidewalks in front of one house, none in front of the next, and then something like a strip of asphalt at the next house.
Also, there are two dirt lots on Central Ave that I'm wondering if anything is going up on. One is right next the the Central Ave Bakery/Brazilian Hair Design building (I think its Central and Perrin Ave). The other is right between Pawtucket Credit Union and the Church, just west of Newport Ave. Any idea?
Thanks for your questions -- I do not really know how to answer these questions so I copied your message and emailed it to the Director of my agency and asked him to respond. When he ccs me an answer I will post it for all to see. Keep asking questions. Herb Weiss
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There is a store front church on the small strip of stores abutting the China Inn. Those buildings are owned by the Pawtucket YMCA. -- Herb Weiss
This thread is to answer any question you might have about Pawtucket from the City perspectivie (about initiatives in anydepartment). If I don't know the answer I will find out. Please take advantage of this -- Herb Weiss, Economic and Cultural Affairs Officer
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So it's time for me to write a new article for the Pawtucket Homepage. What's doing in the 'bucket? What should I write about?
Would anyone care to submit a story? If so, it should be something short, 3 to 4 paragraphs, that can be directly connected to a thread in the Pawtucket subforum (a new thread can be created). And a non-copyrighted photo (credit for the photo can be given) should be included, I might have one to add. If anyone wants to submit a story, PM it to me, or email me.
We have finalized the programming for September's Pawtucket Arts Festival. Check out our web site at www.pawtucketartsfestival.org. That can be a story.
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Oh I get it now. They look so similar. Isn't there a church or something in the one next to China Inn?
There is a store front church on the small strip of stores abutting the China Inn. Those buildings are owned by the Pawtucket YMCA. -- Herb Weiss
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So this will be a restaurant too? This is real exciting, more activity downtown! When's it gonna open/get constructed, etc.?
Chef Walter is working on his financing to purchase the building. He will relocate his Federal Hill restaurant to that site -- once he closes on the builidng it will probably take a year to build out the property. It will house a restaurant, an international cooking school, condos, and a gormet food store. Chef Walter has also brought a friend of his to our office -- she is interested in opening up a cafe that will serve cold italian sandwiches and coffee. Italian dishes will be made off site and microwaved at her cafe.
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Providence Monthly reported in the May issue that the following restaurants were opening in Pawtucket: Corrine's, Jap Wrap, and Home Plate. They didn't go into any further details. Also Chef Water's Aqua Viva is moving to Pawtucket to at or near the location of his new cooking school, I'm not sure where that is.
Chef Walter's restaurant will be at the old Colonial Bank building next to the old registry and across the parking lot from Baily Lofts.
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Just curious. Are you aware of any restaurant chains or coffee shops moving into Pawtucket- -or significant retail establishments? A Starbucks would be nice, ha, ha.
Sorry for the delay in responding. We may have a deli and dessert restaurant and an Italian restaurant moving to the area. We are in discussions with a person who wants to open up a small coffee cafe with outside tables, too. Anything else that you might want to know, call me at 724-5200. Herb Weiss, Economic and Cultural Affairs Office, City of Pawtucket.
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*sigh*
Like many things that are funny in this state, I'd like to rant about something right now. I have put in numerous bids for various things that come across my desk, some I get, some I dont. A state/city contract, though, I never ever ever get. You know why? They go to the lowest bidder by default... no matter the qualifications or portfolio of the applicant. So the city gets crap.
Case in point:
Lost this one to the lowest bidder... you think Hollywood takes this seriously?
I also applied for and lost (2 yrs in a row) for the Pawtucket Arts Festival website, and the Pawtucket City calendar. Haven't seen the new Pawt. Arts Fest. site yet.
I guess I need to lower my prices.
We are required to seek bids and yes, its the lowest bid that will usually get chosen. We have purchasing policies that must be followed. Sorry, that's what we have to do in the public sector. In the private sector you can choose any vendor even those that get you the highest price. Herb Weiss
Herb,Does Pawtucket have a tree planting program like Providence? I could use a couple around my house and would be perfectly willing to care for them.
Wehave a 50/50 tree program. The City picks up half the tab, you pay half the tab. I believe we are budgeted for 50 trees a year. Call me at 724-5200 and I will get you to the right department overseeing the program. Herb Weiss
Does anyone have a good map that shows the Pawtucket neighbourhoods, or would anyone want to draw one?Contact Mike Wilcox in the planning department at 724-5200. He can probably email you a map of the neighborhoods. Barry Heath of this office has a report the profiles all the neighborhoods and gives the demographics, etc. He can probably get you a copy to post. Herb Weiss
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Does anyone have a good map that shows the Pawtucket neighbourhoods, or would anyone want to draw one?
Contact Mike Wilcox at the Pawtucket's Department of Planning and Redevelopment. He can be reached at 401/724-5200. He can get email you a map of the neighborhoods. -- Herb Weiss, Economic and Cultural Affairs Officer, City of Pawtucket
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Thanks br, I will check it out!
Pawtucket does have a 50/50 tree program where the resident pays half the cost of the tree and planting costs. The City will plant the tree. Residents in all parts of the City are eligible. However, there is a certain limit of trees availa ble for planting each year. To be placed on the list call Jack Carney at 728-0500, ext. 236. He'll get you to the right place to sign up. Herb Weiss
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OK, we have a Pawtucket subforum. Now I need all you Bucketeers out there to post information about your community. I know there's lots going on up there, so let us all know about it.
Glad you got a Bucket Section...I am happy to provide any information about Pawtucket to any person who is interested in my City. Herb Weiss, Economic and Cultural Affairs Officer, City of Pawtucket.
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I am pleased that people are looking at Pawtucket as a great location to move to -- so for those who need a REALLY good relator, call Aqueda Del Borgo at 728-1962; or Teresa Level at 475-5874. Both live in Pawtucket. For those looking to purchase a commercial building or mill, call Len Lavoie at 954-0951.
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I am glad you are living in Pawtucket! Crazy Burger, to be called Mad House Cafe, will hopefully get off the ground by June. The City will give them a loan of $100,000. The owners are seeking a liquor license and this request is working its way through City Hall.
Hope you will get active in Pawtucket community activities. We are a smaller community than Providence and being in Pawtucket is almost a small town like experience. Would like to see you get involved in the arts festival -- call me at 724-5200 and introduce yourself. I will tell you about other activities that you might be interested in volunteering for. Also, I'll be your advocate within City Government too.
Finally, another restaturant that you can check out is Cafe Neva located on Benefit Street in Pawtucket. Right on the corner of Benefit Street and Newport Avenue. This is like an eastside restaurant but in Pawtucket with more affordable entrees. It has received good reviews in the projo, providence Phoenix and Rhode island monthly. Check it out.
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I think having Pawtucket thought of in the same breath as a visit to the Registry can't really be good for the city. After spending an eternity in the Registry, people are only going to want to leave and get as far away as possible.
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That is the truth. State agencies were put in Cities througout the state in hopes of having a positive impact on the host community. The DMV really did not bring a lot of money into the City. Waiting in long lines for service did not give people much time to drive around to seasrch out a restaurant. They probablly lost their appetite too.
For those who are interested, Pawtucket's first published artist resource directory will probably be back from the printer at the end of the week. We were able to compile the names of hundreds of artists and creative sector companies. Those seeking one of a kind art work or creative sector services can easily identify the appropriate artist or company by the table of contents listing a comprehensive listing of headings. In Pawtucket, we consider artists to be small bssinesses. The intent of publishing this directory was to get customers into our City to buy art work or services to support the City's creative community.
For more information about this project call Diane Agostini at 724-5200.
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The city has been hoping for this revival for some time now... with the re-relocation of DMV, why isnt the old apex building the clear front runner, considering the smooth transition, and making the DMV a more plesent atmosphere...? Is it in the hands of the city or is it more of a state venture. Sorry one last thing.... if the dmv were to leave the city would it hurt the progress that the local government has been pushing forward?
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We believe that the DMV will be moved to Cranston this summer. The Governor is pushing to move MANY of the state agenceis scattered throughout the state to the Cranston complex (it's state property). Apex is privately owned and the City can only describe its vision to that individual, who ultimately will develop the property that wayhe wants.
I do not believe that moving the DMV will hurt the City's efforts. The users do not come into the City and spend their money. However, we were able to assist a restaurant (Crazy Burger) to get a loan interest loan to open in the old Newport Creamry site at Apex.
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I'm so excited about Hope Webbing. Phew. I'm relieved that Lowe's didn't get to level it as Home Depot did a couple of years ago in Providence with the Silver Spring complex.
THese are good times for us mill huggers. The Foundry, Rising Sun, Ashton in Cumberland, Royal Mill in West Warwick, and now Hope Webbing. It looks like the state tax credit program as well as the enlightened and energetic work of people like Mayor Doyle and Herb Weiss are saving the state's industrial architectural heritage.
Let's hope that the General Assembly keeps the tax credit in place. I remember that last year Costantino and some others on the House Finance Committee were talking about scrapping it.
PS- a memory about the Hope Webbing building. I live about a mile south in the Summit area of Providence. I remember every so often outside my house I would smell this almost sickly sweet scent like corn syrup or cotton candy. I was a mystery what was causing it for some time. Until I discovered the culprit on a happenstance drive down Esten St. in Pawt. - the Hope Webbing bldg was being used to manufacture candy.
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Glad you have the mories about this mill. Here's another article about the Hope Webbing mill and the developer's vision to transform the 13 acre site into an artist village. -- Herb Weiss
03/24/2005
Old Hope site sold; in line for makeover
David Casey
PAWTUCKET -- The Los Angeles-based company that purchased the six-building, 600,000 square-foot former Hope Webbing mill complex for $2.5 million Wednesday plans to invest an additional $20-$25 million to transform the late 19th century brick-and-timber behemoth into a veritable Greenwich Village.
Ron Wierks, the director of operations for Urban Smart Growth
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Here's an excellent article about affordable artist housing issues in Pawtucket. This article was published today in the Providence Phoenix.
HOUSING CRUNCH
Although the plight of artists and affordable housing has gained more attention since Eagle Square, things are not necessarily any better
BY ROBIN AMER
AN ITEM LISTED for the March 15 meeting of the Providence City Plan Commission
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That is great news...
Another questoin i have has to do with the Hope site. Are there other buildings within that general area that will also be turned into condo style apartments, thus creating a village style section for the would be tenents...
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Yes, the Union Wadding mill on Goff Street (probably 500,000 sf. Will give you an update about this property soon...
Here's an article about the Hope Webbing mill site that was in the Projo today.
Investors see Hope as urban village
Developers say the Hope Webbing complex will become a self-contained community, with its own restaurant, bar, gym, theater for live performances, and boutiques.
01:03 PM EST on Thursday, March 24, 2005
By JOHN CASTELLUCCI
PAWTUCKET -- A factory complex idle for more than a decade was purchased yesterday by a group of investors who plan to transform it into an urban village, complete with a restaurant, office suites, artists' lofts and, oh, yes, a bowling alley.
Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
Ron Wierks, of Urban Smart Growth, stands in the bowling alleys on the top floor of the Hope Webbing mill complex in Pawtucket. The sprawling complex, which once employed more than 1,000 people, will be transformed into an urban village, say the devlopers, in a five-year, $25-million project.
Hope Webbing, the 115-year-old factory complex in Woodlawn that once employed more than 1,000 people, was bought by an investors' group led by California developers who specialize in acquiring historical buildings and adapting them to new uses.
Ron L. Wierks, East Coast representative of Urban Smart Growth, the developers' property management and construction arm, said everything of historical significance on the 13-acre Hope Webbing site will be preserved, including the bowling alley that the mill owners built for their workers.
Wierks, who led a tour of the former textile factory with Michael R. Gazdacko, the project manager, said the bowling alley will be transformed into a lounge where people who live and work in the former factory complex can relax.
"We take old buildings and we try to keep the historic integrity and make them useful again," Wierks said.
He said the first tenants of the renovated Hope Webbing complex will probably be the light manufacturing firms -- a furniture refinisher, a woodworker and a metal stamping company -- that are being displaced from the Eagle Square mill complex in Providence, which Urban Smart Growth is cutting up into apartments.
The Hope Webbing development is expected to take five years and cost $25 million. Wierks said that the key to the project was the state historic tax credits the General Assembly passed four years ago. The state credits, combined with the 20-percent historic tax credits offered by the federal government, have made it worthwhile for developers to acquire dilapidated mill buildings and fix them up.
The investors' group that bought Hope Webbing consists of several family trusts, a financial firm, and a limited liability corporation headed by Lance Robbins, a Berkeley, Calif., lawyer who specializes in development work, and Frank Gamwell, head of a construction management company that has done projects for Disney, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Amgen, the West Greenwich, R.I.-based biotechnology firm.
A deed filed in City Hall yesterday showed the investors group paid $2.575 million for the Hope Webbing complex, though it is largely empty. One of the few remaining tenants, Cooley Inc., a local manufacturing company, uses part of the 600,000-square-foot complex for warehouse space.
Wierks said the developers plan to transform the half-dozen buildings in the complex into factory space for light manufacturing companies, 80 to 130 office suites for businesses and 150 to 200 loft-style apartments for artists.
The plans call for the complex to be a self-contained community, with its own restaurant, bar, gym, theater for live performances, and boutiques.
The courtyard, now a desolate area full of potholes and fallen bricks, will become a warm weather performance venue, with musical concerts and live dramatic performances, Wierks said.
Urban Smart Growth will have its East Coast regional office in the mill complex. Wierks said the developers are hoping to turn Hope Webbing into a destination, and plan to retain ownership until it catches on.
Mayor James E. Doyle called it the largest such project in the city in recent memory and predicted it would help boost's Pawtucket's reputation as a mecca for the arts.
The section of Woodlawn where the factory complex is located, between Main Street, Esten and Warren avenues, and Dudley Street, has already begun to draw artists. They've acquired mill buildings and turned them into lofts and studios even though the area is outside the special district the city created seven years ago to offer breaks on artists' sales and income taxes.
"It's going to have a big spillover effect in Woodlawn," Doyle said, providing construction jobs for people in the neighborhood as well as new sales for local businesses.
Doyle said the redevelopment of Hope Webbing will continue the trend of artists moving into Pawtucket from Providence, helping to fulfill city officials' dream of revitalizing the city by luring artists into dormant mill buildings.
Things didn't look so promising for Hope Webbing in July, when the bleachery, a building in the complex with the Hope sign visible from Route 95, caught fire and burned to the ground.
At the time, M&P Management, a group of New Jersey-based investors, was negotiating to buy the factory complex out of receivership. In September, M&P Management paid $900,000 for the property and went looking for a buyer. Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, the big hardware chain that recently opened stores in Warwick and Cranston, was rumored to be interested in acquiring the mill complex and tearing it down for one of its stores.
Wierks said Urban Smart Growth has no such intention. The company, which has done projects in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Bloomfield, N.J., and Columbus, Ohio, as well as Providence and North Providence, is planning to nominate the complex for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Properties.
"We've been doing this since 1984, in Los Angeles," Wierks said. "That's where we created the idea of working with old buildings."
The Bucket Forum
in Pawtucket and Blackstone Valley
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The trees were diseased and had to be cut down...I will find out when the new trees will be planted and post on Pawtucket Urban Planet site.