 |
| Photo taken in March when I saw some work happening. |
Let me start by saying that I had heard that there was a tenant in the building who had trouble with past management and was getting ready to relocate out of Maynard. After Saracen came in, not only did they decide to stay, but they also signed a five-year lease. Somebody must be doing something right.
And a friend of mine and the company he works for (located in another town) went in to talk about potential space. He saw the presentation and told me that if Saracen can do what they hope to do, he'd want his company to be there. He's a good friend, so I can say with conviction that he's a person not easily impressed.
Given that Saracen is still discussing their plan with the town, I can't really tell you anything specific that I saw, but I feel like I can talk about it in broad strokes, so you get the feel for it. But really, you all should just be at the presentation to the public. Even my talking about it wouldn't nail it. That property is so huge that we had to go back and forth a couple of times on the visuals for me to understand the parts we were talking about.
My take on the presentation is that Saracen understands that Clock Tower Place should be more a part of our downtown. Part of the plan might include the removal of the iron fence that surrounds it. They're also interested in making the mill pond more of a feature than it is currently. That's about all I can say, really. I know it's not much, but the rest of the stuff I don't have the right to talk about, and really, it's something that is best understood with the visuals. So in broad strokes: they are looking to make the CTP campus more accessible to the community and more attractive to potential tenants, and the plans certainly seem to reflect that. I think we might all agree that that's something to look forward to right there.
The presentation to the public will be on Thursday, June 11th at 6:30 pm, and will take place in the Roosevelt Room of the Maynard Public Library,
Did they say anything about the OpenTable food pantry? I don't know the whole story but it seems as if they were told they could no longer offer the weekly dinners. I believe this has something to do with the new restaurant moving in? Then Open Table was told that they needed to vacate the building entirely and could no longer have the pantry there. OT was able to get them to agree to let the pantry stay till June. OT is now left scrambling to find someplace to help service the needs of those less fortunate in OUR community. Seems to me that CTP really dropped the ball on this one. It would have been awesome for them to use this opportunity to offer n lend support to the community within that massive facility. Very sad!
ReplyDeleteI asked about Open Table. It sounded like it wasn't a decision that they wanted to make, but was needed by the new tenant. I was told that they were helping OT for a few weeks while they found another space. While I agree that it's not great that OT was asked to vacate, I also understand that the whole town can't thrive with the mill complex being nearly empty. I'm sure it will come up at the meeting, so you should be there.
DeleteDo you know where Open Table was before it went to CTP?