Pittsfield Council OKs $1M in Economic Development Funds for BIC, Myrias

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The City Council unanimously approved a total of $1 million in Pittsfield Economic Development Funds to expand the Berkshire Innovation Center and add a new company. 

Last week, councilors OKed the BIC's request for $500,000 to expand by 7,000 square feet and Myrias Optics Inc.'s request for the same amount to establish a manufacturing laboratory at the BIC. Myrias expects to hire at least 55 people by 2028 with average salaries between $110,000 to $120,000 per year. 

Ward 6 Councilor Dina Lampiasi recognized that $1 million from what had been the GE Fund is a lot of money, but pointed to the other support this project has garnered. The BIC was awarded a $5.2 million boost from the state for this effort, and another $2 million was earmarked through an economic development bond bill.

"I think we, as Pittsfielders, know how important that money is for our future and to recoup what we can of the losses that have happened to this community," Lampiasi said. 

"But looking at that $7 million that's coming down the road, and the fact that the state is behind us, and we're part of this tech hub, when you look at the region and what this is going to mean for our community, I think it's really exciting, and folks at home can get excited about it, too." 

The economic development funds will go toward an $11 million specialized nanoimprint lithography (NIL) lab that Myrias will use. NIL is basically using a mold to imprint microscopic patterns on substrates used in electronics, optics and other nanotechnology.

The company's biggest customers are "Tier 1,"  or major manufacturers, in consumer electronics and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) applications. The expansion can be built in a year, and if all goes well, the BIC hopes to break ground in the spring. 

The University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute said the Advanced Manufacturing for Advanced Optics Tech Hub in Pittsfield could generate up to 1,310 jobs between 2025 and 2031 through direct, indirect, and induced employment. BIC Executive Director Benjamin Sosne explained that this is the ripple effect from new employees living and spending their money in the area. 

State Rep. Tricia Farley Bouvier, who presented a certificate of recognition to Interprint at the beginning of the meeting, pointed out that the $5.2 million award from the state is contingent on the release of the $2 million in last year's economic development bond bill.

"We really are starting something big," she said. "MassTech could see that the coming together of these two entities, the BIC and Myrias, along with EMS that is already at the BIC, not only are bringing the jobs that we are seeing right in front of us, but it's going to start, and I think Ben Sosne uses the term a 'flywheel,' of other jobs, because we are going to need suppliers for these companies. ...

"When these kinds of tech companies start, they want to be near other tech companies, and that model has proven itself, not only across the commonwealth, but across the nation." 

For Myrias, $250,000 will be released when a 10-year lease is signed at the BIC's expanded space, and 10 full-time employees earning at least $65,000 plus benefits are documented.  Another $150,000 will be released six months after the company documents 10 more hires, and the final $100,000 six months after an additional 10 new hires, bringing the total to 30 full-time employees earning at least $65,000 plus benefits. 

Interprint was named a Manufacturer of the Year at the 10th Annual Manufacturing Awards Ceremony in October. Farley-Bouvier explained that this award celebrated the company's work, contribution to Pittsfield, and its 40th anniversary in the city. 

"Later on today, you guys get to take a pretty cool vote to bring a new company into Pittsfield, and we look forward to when they celebrate their 40th year here in Pittsfield," she said. 

"But it was a city 40 years ago that invested in a company named Interpint, invested in a family, really, and they put their blood, sweat, and tears into that company." 

Interprint sells its decorative papers and films worldwide and has seen several expansions.

Berkshire Jazz: New Leadership Continues Founder's Passion

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
07:33AM / Saturday, February 28, 2026

Chuck Walker, left, found Berkshire Jazz a year after moving to the Berkshires and shared his enthusiasm for the musical form with Ed Bride, not realizing he was the founder. It eventually led to Walker become the organization's president.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Berkshire County is jazz, said Chuck Walker, the newly appointed president of the nonprofit Berkshire Jazz. 

 

Jazz embodies freedom way of thinking, improvisation, and a distant respect for the rules, Berkshire Jazz founder Ed Bride said. 

 

It is an emotional refuge from today's atmosphere. The Berkshires, too, is like that, a place to escape and clear your head, which is why so many artists over the years have visited the area, the duo said. 

 

"You need a place to escape from that in order to, as we all used to say back in the '60s, to get your head right. The Berkshires are a place where you can get your head right," Walker said. 

 

"The way that you just described jazz as improvisational … as being out of lockstep with  whatever the prevailing society is. That's what makes jazz jazz. That, too, is what makes the Berkshires the Berkshires." 

 

For the last 20 years, Bride has been rejuvenating jazz in the Berkshires, a genre that was once alive thanks to venues such as Music Inn and The Lenox School of Jazz, sometimes called the Music Barn, active from 1950 until the late '70s. 

 

Bride said when he started the Pittsfield City Jazz Festival in 2005, which became the Berkshire Jazz nonprofit in 2009, you could go months without hearing jazz, with only one place in the county that would regularly play it: Castle Street Café in Great Barrington, which closed in 2016.