Community edible gardens

Basically what I’d wanna see is something like the t to bring people into worcester from the suburbs. Ideally, these lines would have a number of places to transfer between eachother and the busses with all lines meeting at union station where you can transfer to fast and frequent electrified regional rail to Boston, Springfield, RI and CT.

Who says public services are supposed to be economical?

Wasn’t the Big Dig the most expensive highway project in the entire country and generally regarded as one of the most mismanaged projects in the state?

Totally agree

I would like more Aldi stores in lower income areas in Worcester, and cheap grocery stores in general. Price Chopper is okay, but apparently there used to be an Aldi on Webster, would be a game changer for me. Going to Lincoln is a hassle.

A stronger appreciation for the local unions. I’m an electrician and we scratch tooth and nail to get local jobs. We are locals the company I work for is based in worcester and has been for almost 100 years. I’ve live in the city my whole life I own a home in the city I pay taxes here yet I have to travel to Boston to work while the city gives tax breaks to company’s who bring in Subs from New Hampshire.I know we get a bad name for being lazy or over paid which both are further from the truth. So let’s support the local trade unions the nurse/teachers/ police and fire. I’ll never understand why fighting for better working conditions for all is such a bad thing!

Is that why there's no concerts there? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! If central Mass needed one thing to promote entertainment, it should have been an outdoor music venue. All our venues either suck or are tiny, and I don't think there's any major outdoor venues in the entire county.

more apartments

One of the strongest consensuses in economics (specially urban and sports economics) is that governments funding and investing in sports stadiums is a bad idea. Economists (and i'm assuming most non economists) rang the alarm bell way early on:

> “There’s a great deal of consensus among sports economists of all political stripes that this is not a good thing for local governments to be doing"

> “Your community could think of all other ways to spend the money with better economic return than a minor league baseball team,” said Baade, from Lake Forest College in Illinois. “We’re talking, after all, about a minor league club … If the local economy is going to be given a boost by this project, it would somehow have to stimulate additional spending in the local economy.”

> Economists generally feel sports, especially in the minor leagues, do not spur additional spending.“Overwhelmingly, the fannies in the stands are local,” said Allen Sanderson, an economist at the University of Chicago. “They’re choosing to spend a day or an evening at the ballpark instead of at the ball or other entertainment options.”

> Matheson said he was surprised that Worcester officials committed to so much money for the stadium with what he said is so little in return. The city, which would own the ballpark, would allow the team to keep advertising and concession revenue at the stadium and revenue from a planned naming rights deal with Polar Beverages. “They seemed to be smarter than that,” Matheson said of city officials. “I’m extremely surprised that (the city’s cost) is as large as it is.”

This was my pick as well, but it's hard to argue with transportation.

The restaurants that closed in the Canal District probably didn’t close just because of the ballpark. Food cost and rent have gone up. Add in the uncertainty of projected revenue caused by a reduction of customers during 70+ home games, and these businesses made the decision to close.

Also, let’s not ignore the fact that the places that closed had similar menus and atmospheres- they were competing against each other and the new Mercantile downtown (a corporate chain that has deeper pockets).

Long term, if this park is going to pay for itself in 30 years (and be the first in US history to do so), the city needs all the current businesses need to succeed as well as the new developments, plus residents to patronize the district.

If businesses are closing around Polar Park, who is going to fill all the new retail space in the new developments that will be built in the next 2-3 years? With inflation and interest rates going up, it’s going to be harder to fill those storefronts and apartments and hotels. We haven’t even come close to filling all of the storefronts in City Square, never mind the new developments around the ballpark.

And in the meantime, we lose locally owned businesses that hired locally and put money back into the community. Instead we are going to be stuck with generic corporate chains without local ties, and another 28 years of ballooning payments on the ballpark bond. And we all have to pay more in rent and food because of the gentrification caused by greedy developers.

Any elected official who keeps telling you this will all work out well doesn’t care about us and our every day lives. They just see the glory of a new ballpark and new development, and ignore the displacement of actual Worcester residents, who they actually need to patronize the district to pay the tax bill they should have handed to Larry Lucchino.

common outlets all over again.

Bicycle infrastructure.

It's also completely insane that the park doesn't have a door capable of allowing in the equipment necessary for concerts (making the stadium look more like Fenway was prioritized over this functionality). Concerts were supposed to be another source of revenue.

Green Street was actually one of the few areas in the city that was already doing well before the ballpark was built - it was happening organically without the need for intervention from the city. This is one of the things that makes the choice of location for the stadium so heartbreaking and puzzling.

I was coming here to say this exact thing. Dropping 290 underground would be so beneficial for the city that is currently bisected by this road. It would open up the city, provide the space for buses, trains, bike lanes, leisure activities just like it did in Boston. Dropping route 93 underground in Boston made it into a world-class city connecting the waterfront to downtown.

Went with the recommendation from u/MadManDH.

508 Audio Innovations. Linking the image of their business card below:

https://i.imgur.com/gNnHbvy.jpg

Worked with Isaac directly and everything was straight forward and seamless. Very knowledgeable! I will be going here in the future.

I work for Amazon Robotics and a lot of our engineers come from WPI. It's an excellent engineering school, but not cheap. I also had a friend go there and then later get his MBA from Harvard.

They are a bit unusual in that they run quarters not semesters, so each class is 7 weeks long. It's good in that there isn't much fat in the material, but bad in if you get behind in a class it can be really hard to catch up.

For sure! They were also super fast, efficient and fairly priced.

Super awesome to hear. I had such a good experience. Felt like old school car audio guys.

Took my car to 508 today. Solid guys and solid work. Thank you for the recommendation. They will absolutely have my future business.

Couldn't agree more. I know it's a much larger stage, but take a walk around the Fenway Park area during a Red Sox game and count how many bars are closed because tHaT gOdFoRsAkEn BaLlPaRk Is TaKiNg AlL oUr MoNeY. I assure you, the WooSox would just be tickled if you spent all of your money within the ballpark but they're certainly not holding game-goers hostage in there.

I mean, look at all the good the stadium did for Pawtucket for all those years. There’s your due diligence

Dive Bar closed specifically because the property's landlord wanted to make a "family baseball destination" that never ended up happening. And Smokestack closed because the building was sold, probably to become parking from what I've heard. COVID and inflation make for good scapegoats, and they definitely play a part, but most of the closures seem to be from greedy landlords thinking that they can make a quick buck before everyone wises up to the ballpark not really helping business in the area