N.A. Plaza sold for $2.5 million

By Glenn DrohanPrint Story | Email Story
North Adams Plaza
NORTH ADAMS — A Fairfield, Conn., real-estate development company has bought the long-stagnant North Adams Plaza on Curran Highway for $2.5 million, paving the way for a big-box retail store that even former owner Michael Meehan and Mayor John Barrett III say they haven’t yet identified. The transaction, first reported here on Friday, was recorded yesterday afternoon at the Northern Berkshire Registry of Deeds in Adams. According to the documents, North Adams Property Development LLC of Fairfield took out a $2.5 million mortgage with the Citizens Bank of Connecticut to finance the deal with Buzzard Bay Investiment Corp., of which Meehan is principal owner. His coroporation bought the plaza in 2000 for $925,000. Meehan said last week that the buyer was Starwood Ceruzzi LLC of Fairfield, a major retail-store developer whose clients have included Wal-Mart, Home Depot and other huge chains. Starwood Ceruzzi's president is Louis Ceruzzi Jr., who signed the mortgage agreement for North Adams Property Development, and is listed on the registry documents as a "member" of that company. Ceruzzi has been attending a convention in Las Vegas, and efforts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful. “We don’t know what their plans are,” Mayor Barrett said Thursday, a comment he repeated during this morning's Opinion Show on WNAW radio station. “If I was to narrow it down, it would probably be a Home Depot or a Super Wal-Mart, but who knows? Target might even be in the running.” Another possibility that has been rumored for the past several months is a Lowe’s store, part of a nationwide home-improvement chain. “It will be significant, whatever it is,” said Meehan, who confirmed the sale to The Advocate late Thursday. Meehan has been trying to develop the 93,000-square-foot plaza since his company bought it from Lilarn Properties Corp. of Rego Park, N.Y. The plaza is currently assessed at just over $1 million, and Buzzard Bay Investment Corp. paid roughly $28,000 in property taxes on it last year. In 2000, when there were more tenants, property taxes totaled nearly $74,000. The new buyer, Starwood Ceruzzi LLC of Fairfield, has developed more than 4 million square feet of retail shopping centers in the Northeast since 1988, according to its Web site. Recent projects have included a Target Store in Orange and a Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart complex in Baltimore, Md. The company has done development work for such major companies as Home Depot, Stop 'N Shop, Barnes & Noble, Borders Books and The Gap/Old Navy. It has also built retail space in shopping centers for major banks and drug store chains. According to the Web site, “Starwood Capital Group and its affiliates, including Starwood Ceruzzi LLC, have become one of the largest owners of real estate in the United States and have completed more than 200 single-asset and portfolio acquisitions. These acquisitions have resulted in an aggregate portfolio of assets, owned or controlled, valued in excess of $6 billion. The plaza development, combined with the likely move by Staples into the vacant former Kmart store downtown, bodes well for the city, Barrett said, although he cautioned that the plaza development would have to be done tastefully. “It signals that the economy here is pretty stable here now — something that hasn’t been seen in a good 25 years,” Barrett said. “We have a good mix of businesses, and our economy is broad-based, which means a chain store like this can be sustained by the population, even though that population is not very big. The good thing of it is, if it’s the right store, it will be a destination. This has been an area of blight for some time and has not been very attractive at one of the major entranceways to our city.” The plaza is just north of the Adams line, across from the Hardman Industrial Park on Curran Highway (Route8). Meehan said he first tried to attract major stores to the 14.3-acre plaza, former home of anchor stores Price Chopper and Carr Hardware, and later marketed it to potential developers through Atlantic Retails of Boston. The process was long and frustrating, he said, but, “Now we’ll finally have something there.” He said Starwood Ceruzzi has told him little about its plans, but he has learned that the company plans to raze at least half of strip-mall type building — from the former Price-Chopper end — by September. Barrett said it was almost a certainty that North Adams Cinema and Gringo’s will have to move out of the other end of the plaza. Gringo’s owner David Nicholas is trying to relocate in Adams. Barrett said he was hopeful North Adams Cinema would move downtown, possibly into part of the Kmart building. The investment in the new North Adams Plaza retail complex will have to be significant, both Meehan and Barrett said. “There’s a lot of problems — the building needs a lot of help,” Meehan said. “Just to blacktop the parking lot would cost in excess of $375,000,” Barrett said. The Kmart downtown cost more than $6 million to build in the late 1990s. “Whatever they put in there, it’s not going to be an automatic ‘yes’ on the city’s part,” Barrett said. “It’s going to have to be compatible with our economic development efforts in the city. They’re no different than anyone else. They will be held to the same high standards we’ve established over the last 20 years, on everything from site plan review to construction.”
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Lanesborough Fifth-Graders Win Snowplow Name Contest

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — One of the snowplows for Highway District 1 has a new name: "The Blizzard Boss."
 
The name comes from teacher Gina Wagner's fifth-grade class at Lanesborough Elementary School. 
 
The state Department of Transportation announced the winners of the fourth annual "Name A Snowplow" contest on Monday. 
 
The department received entries from public elementary and middle school classrooms across the commonwealth to name the 12 MassDOT snowplows that will be in service during the 2025/2026 winter season. 
 
The purpose of the contest is to celebrate the snow and ice season and to recognize the hard work and dedication shown by public works employees and contractors during winter operations. 
 
"Thank you to all of the students who participated. Your creativity allows us to highlight to all, the importance of the work performed by our workforce," said  interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng.  
 
"Our workforce takes pride as they clear snow and ice, keeping our roads safe during adverse weather events for all that need to travel. ?To our contest winners and participants, know that you have added some fun to the serious take of operating plows. ?I'm proud of the skill and dedication from our crews and thank the public of the shared responsibility to slow down, give plows space and put safety first every time there is a winter weather event."
 
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