Butler Outlines Adams' Potential Growth
  Town Manager Jonathan W. Butler discusses the Adam's potential at a breakfast meeting at Town Hall. Top & left: Work has begun on the Jones Block on Park Street. |
"If Adams is going to become a player, we need to find our strengths," he told the two dozen community leaders gathered at Town Hall on Thursday morning. "What I'm saying is, Adams is open for business."
The event was part of the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce's "Eggs & Issues" program, designed to bring business people, civic leaders and community activists together in more intimate settings. The topic was an update on the town's master plan and its future direction.
Attendees mingled and dined on egg dishes, muffins and coffee provided by Bounti-Fare. The sponsor was Adams Co-Operative Bank, established in 1895 by a group of 30 businessmen who thought the town needed more banking services.
Butler, hired in June after the town went without a full-time administrator for nearly a year, pegged the town's moribund attitude to various changes in its leadership over the past few years, which may have prevented it from finding its path.
"When I first got here, it seemed that Adams had fallen of the map for a few years," said the Cheshire native. "It's the third largest community in the county ... but we don't act like it's the third largest community."
The town has to aggressively court business in the same way its larger neighbors North Adams and Pittsfield do, he continued. But first, it has to build a strong creative and community core to support the industry it needs.
 Amenities such as this pocket park on the Ashuwillticook Trail (where there was once an old mobile home) can make the town more attractive. |
The master plan is focusing in on those strengths, with goals to make the town more attractive through neighborhood revitalization, development of the arts and cultural scenes and development of the Greylock Glen.
Butler pointed to the successful facade improvement project that has been refurbishing the fronts of Park Street's buildings. Two critical components are the Topia Arts Center (seen as a catalyst for arts-related ventures) and the now under-reconstruction Jones Block, "one of our great symbols of revitalization projects in downtown Adams," said Butler.
The long-vacant building is being rehabilitated with public and private funds as three first-floor storefronts and upper-story high-end apartments. Behind Park Street, work has been done with parking, parks and commercial spaces along the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail, another valuable destination about to be extended from Hoosac Street to Lime Street.
Summer Street is about to get a makeover with hopes that the roadway will become more of an offbeat arts venue to complement the more commercial Park Street. The town has received $885,000 Community Block Grant toward the streetscape improvements; about a third will replenish the Park Street facade program.
 Berkshire Chamber President Michael Supranowicz welcomes the breakfast club. |
It's also the birthplace of civil rights activist Susan B. Anthony, Anthony museum Director Martha Dailey reminded Butler. "She is a national figure. We are going to make her an international figure."
The 27-year-old Butler was upbeat on the town's potential to create and maintain jobs that will keep its youth from leaving if it continues on the master plan's path.
"This is our way of becoming a player in the regional creative economy," he said.
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