Aesthetic Improvements

Question: How you’ve made actually downtown Gardner look better since you’ve been here. I mean sidewalks and paving, right?

Answer: I mean that’s part of it but but what else in downtown? There’s the recreation part too. Yeah, I mean the sidewalks and paving were all done as part of a water infrastructure project to help make it so that we had opportunities for more businesses to come in but it did help us in the long term too and making sure that we had a walkable downtown. We had places for people to go so for instance the Orpheum Park which is going to have some sprucing up this summer but now, you know, it went from the grass lot than just where the movie theater used to be to now where the fountain is with the flowers and some benches. The Maki Park, you know, while that still has some work that has to be done for it is better than just a plain grass lot that we just had to mow and do nothing with over the course of the years it had been since the Makie block got torn down. Monument Park has had a lot of upgrades there. We’re partnering with Gateway Fiber to provide free internet for Monument Park in terms of for Wi-Fi for people who just like to get out and get some work done in the sun or sit down and watch the band concerts or increase the opportunities that we have there moving forward. There’s a lot that’s happened in the downtown even just the sprucing up with the flowers. Now the flower pots came from a lot of people came to us saying that they liked the way the downtown Leomonster looked so we took a drive down downtown Leomonster and saw those flower pots. Mayor Mazzarella and I talked very regularly so we talked about where he bought those plastic flower pots so we went we talked to them we used some grant funding that we got for beautification services got the flower pots and the intent was to really put them out for the parade that we had for our centennial celebration and it really has taken off from there too and I really can’t thank our volunteer flower pot committee who’s now really just become the flower committee because it’s not just the flower plots but the boxes that we have at you know Bullnose Park at the different large planters that we have around the city. So our city councilor Judy Mack, Amy Levasseur from our purchasing office, Megan Grace from the human resources office and Katie Jablonski from my office who really took that program and ran with it and they look beautiful and I you know I’m very proud about how that looks just to improve the curb appeal so people want to get out and walk around.

Question: So, aesthetic improvements in downtown Gardner in the city, making the city look good. What was it then? What was it now? And what specifically, we’ve covered a little bit of it, but what specifically have you put forward in the city?

Answer: Well, for instance, we paved more roads in the city in the last five years than we have in any five-year period in the city’s recent history going back to as far as the 80s. We’ve paved 25% of the city’s roads, we’ve got 100 miles of roads, we’ve paved 25 miles of that. Is there always more we can do? Absolutely. And I understand that when you say you’ve paved 25 miles of road in the city in a quarter, the city has been paved, that’s great, but my street wasn’t one of the ones that’s paved. I understand that and I completely get it. The cost of paving a mile of street right now is about a million and a half per mile, which is a lot. The funding that we receive from the state through Chapter 90 every year is helpful, but we’ve been receiving the same amount every year since 2012. So there’s only so much we can do with what we have. We have supplemented that money each and every year on the city side with free cash. I always put up a minimum 10% of free cash towards paving every year, and then at the end of the year, if we have anything left over in the extra at the end of the year in our free cash appropriations that are use or lose by the end of the fiscal year, the remaining of that I’ve always put forward in paving, and we saw that just recently when I put up an additional $105,000 for paving funds in the city. But again, when you’re at a million and a half per mile, you really have to prioritize what you can do. There’s only so much you can do each and every year, so we’re going to continue doing what we can. We’ve started to find new ways to fund paving projects via grant funding, like we saw over with Crystal Lake Drive through the Mass Trails Grant because it connects to the bike trail, through the infrastructure upgrades that we had, as we saw in the downtown area, through the water infrastructure project, and we’ll continue doing that moving forward. Same thing with the sidewalks. If there’s a road that has a sidewalk on it, we’ll always try to do them both at the same time. We’re going to be seeing that this year with Elizabeth Street, where we’re doing the water line replacement project there now, too, so we’re looking at repaving and doing the sidewalks on that street. We talked about the facades and the signage downtown, but we’ve also instituted a new wayfinding plan that’s going to be a part of our final master plan document that we have for the city on where we can improve our signage around the city to help people get to where they want to go, and really working with our DPW to make sure we have the adequate signage that we need through Doug Monroe and his lines and signage division of the DPW. They’re really great.

Question: We’ll start with aesthetic improvements. Mayor Nicholson, what can you tell us about what people can see with their own eyes when they look around Gardner?

Answer: If you’re looking around the downtown, you’ll start to be seeing a lot of improvements that are in that area already. Between the new lights that have been strung between the Victorian light posts, the fountain that’s been installed in Bullnose Park, the new fountain that’s being installed as we speak over in Orpheum Park on top of a new raised flower bed with new plantings along the fence that’s out there too to give it more of that hometown feel. Pretty soon we’ll see work being done over in the Mackie Park area. We’ll have a three-terraced location over there with a new outdoor stage, a permanent concrete cornhole facility, and some outdoor seating opportunities as well. And that’s just in the downtown alone. As you go over to South Gardner, you start to see some things spruce up for the summer times. We’ll have the American flag hanging on the Victorian light post as you go through, similar to what we see on Nichols Street around Memorial Day. The planter boxes and flower pots have been placed out around the city, so you’ll start to see a lot of those going out there too. And the aesthetic improvements that we have going on in the city, those are the small things that make a big difference when you add them all up together. And that’s been one of our main goals here that we have.

Question: Now, one of the things that you’ve done is you’ve had some issues with respect to storefronts and improving those. What can you say about that?

Answer: So we are working right now with the Commonwealth Vacant Storefront Program. Last year was the first year that the city was designated a vacant storefront revitalization district for both the downtown and the Timpani Boulevard corridor. What this does is it allows us to attract more businesses in, and we let them know that if they are filling a storefront that was vacant for more than 12 months, they qualify for a $10,000 grant from the city and then a $10,000 tax rebate from the state as well. So that does help bring people in. We’ve got two businesses right now that fit this mold that are going to be submitting applications to the state for this designation. Alexa Fashion over on Main Street immediately next to the Blue Moon Diner, and Perry Swimming Pools which will soon to be open over in the Timpani Crossroads area next to Clearview Dermatology and Verizon Wireless.

Question:What challenges does a small city like Gardner face in terms of making aesthetic improvements that you’d like to do?

Answer: I think the biggest challenge, believe it or not Werner, is getting out of our own way. It’s showing that Gardner is capable and has the potential to be a great city that really stands out and you don’t have to go to these cities or towns along the coast for this hometown feel. You can get that right here in your backyard. But it’s getting out of the mindset of this isn’t how things were done before, that’s just not Gardner and showing that it may not be Gardner today but that doesn’t mean it can’t be Gardner tomorrow.