Industrial Space

Question: Today we have the honor of talking to Gardner Mayor Nicholson about industry. Industry provides jobs. Gardner has industrial parks, which are at capacity. What can you tell us about the success of industry in Gardner, and what can you tell us about your efforts to bring more industry to Gardner?

Answer: You know, I’m very proud of how much our business growth has seen over the past couple of years. You look at our industrial parks, and they are full, and they’ve got new endeavors in them that are expanding. You look at ACT in the Summit Industrial Park over on Suffolk Lane off of Pearl Street, and they’ve expanded recently and are growing. You look at Mount Wachusett Community College in the Linus Lane Business Park. They have moved their new automotive program into one of the old spaces in that industrial park there, too. So now our industrial parks aren’t just working on businesses, but they’re also training people for those businesses in the future. There’s a lot that’s been made to really strengthen our partnerships that we have with our manufacturing sector, with our companies that are in our industrial parks. We’re really looking at trying to further those as we bring more people in. We’ve got two spots left open in the Summit Industrial Park there, but we need to start looking at planning, you know, once those two are filled, all of our industrial parks at that point are full. Is there a place that we can fit another one in somewhere? Is there something that we should start planning for now so that we can get it so that when a business does want to come in after our business parks are full, they can go to this location? Even if it’s something like reaching out to the state like we did a couple of years ago, and when we were talking about, you know, Frederic Street and Wilkins Road over at the Gardner Industrial Park. The road was just in bad condition, and there were some businesses there that were looking at expanding, but they were having a hard time with investors because they said the road was in bad condition. So I called the Secretary of Economic Development, Yvonne Howe, at the time, explained the situation to them, and then the state gave us a grant of just over a million and a half to pave the road and put in new sidewalks too so that the employees would be able to walk from one place to another. And that’s sometimes the partnerships that you just need to have is finding new ways to just work with the business sectors who are there, be in contact with the companies themselves so you can see how their interactions with the city are going, and just make sure that we’re checking in with them. Because honestly, the best way you can market yourself for those locations is showing that you have the relationships as strong as you do with the businesses that are already there.

Question: Can you tell us about the industrial park study and about the possibility of another industrial park in Gardner?

Answer: Yeah, the study is still ongoing, and it is looking at some locations around the city for a new industrial park on where that’s going. There’s a couple options in there too. And again, I want to say too, those are, you know, looking for potential. It’s not saying a specific industrial park is going here or going there, because the private sector could come in and take the same land and do something else with it that may be just as beneficial. So we are still looking at some locations for future growth and development for a new industrial park. That way, again, once Summit is full up on Pearl Street, we’ll be able to say, okay, well, here’s the next location to go.

Question: Mayor Nicholson, for those who don’t know, can you tell us about some of the unique things made in Gardner and how some Gardner firms are known around the country?

Answer: Yeah, I mean, the advanced cable ties, everyone knows the phrase zip ties. Zip ties is a brand name of a cable tie. So for instance, just like some people will refer to their tissues as Kleenexes, and they’ll be like, give me a Kleenex instead of give me a tissue, a cable tie is a generic zip tie. Advanced Cable Ties is one of the largest producers of those in the eastern United States, right here in Gardner. You look at Seamen Paper Company and all of their subsidiaries that they have in the city with First Mate and Specialty and everything else. They are the sole producer of the little white tab that you have in Hershey Kiss called a plume. Those are printed here in Gardner. If you are a fan of sports, and you’ve seen the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Championship, if you are a Taylor Swift fan and went to the heiress tour, if you have gone to any location that has confetti basically falling from any of the places at these locations and celebration, those are actually made here in Gardner as well. Around Christmas time, you’re going to Dollar Tree or somewhere else and you’ve purchased the tissue paper packs that are red, white, and green, those are made by Seeming Paper Company as well too. So there’s a lot happening here in Gardner that’s really cool and really neat to see. Additionally, we have Vivitide, which is a biomedical engineering company in the Summit Industrial Park that has contracts with a lot of the hospitals in Boston to create targeted chemotherapy treatments that are basically run by courier service. So the Boston hospitals will take samples and tests from their patients in Boston, send those by courier service here in Gardner to their location at the Summit Industrial Park off of Pearl Street, and then they’ll make the specialized basically medicine for those patients that are there. It’s really cool to see what’s happening right in our backyard.

Question: In 2026, the United States celebrates its 250th. What are the chances that some of that confetti made in Gardner will make it to all 50 states?

Answer: I think it’s pretty big. I think it’s going to be neat to see for sure. It’s going to be a fun time for sure and we’re going to be tracking that to see how far out they go.