Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | December 7, 2020 | Worcester Business Journal 5 B R I E FS With COVID cases, spiking UMass Memorial & Medical School switch to emergency protocols UMass Memorial Health Care is shiing into an emergency operations plan because of a critically high number of patients, and UMass Medical School is expanding testing and travel protocols as coronavirus pandemic numbers continue to rise. UMass Memorial's new operations plan includes expediting all patient discharges now that the hospital system is at what a staff announcement said was a critically high number of patients, including more than 90 who have or are suspected of having coronavirus. e protocol includes virtual operations of its command center, and a review of operating room schedules to potentially reschedule some procedures. e Worcester-based health system reported 65 inpatient coronavirus cases as of Monday, including 20 in intensive care. As for the health system's own employees, 534 have tested positive since the pandemic began, including 53 in the past week alone. e system has 123 employees who remain unable to work. UMass Medical School leaders said the school is expanding surveillance testing to three other locations where its doctors and students operate: the Memorial and Hahnemann campuses in Worcester and the Baystate campus in Springfield. More employees are being tested, including residents, fellows and so-called dual docs, those working on clinical and research degrees. e school and UMass Memorial are both requiring all staff to take a flu shot by Dec. 15. e medical school is using what's known as an unobserved protocol, where those being tested pick up a kit and test themselves, which allows for moretests to be conducted. e school has conducted more than 40,000 tests this fall, with 36 coming back positive. UMass Medical School is tightening its travel restrictions. Only one state remains safe to travel to: Hawaii, except it requires plane travel to get there, which the school doesn't consider safe. Marlborough gives tax break for California biotech's $115M facility California's Revance erapeutics has secured a tax increment financing agreement with Marlborough to cover a planned $115-million new construction with the company committing to the creation of 76 jobs. e biotechnology company based in Newark, Calif. plans to open its new office and manufacturing facility in the city, with a 79,000-square-foot building and parking facilities to be built in the lots of 110, 110, 250 and 350 Campus Drive near Hologic's headquarters. e company will make $115 million in improvements to the property. ese improvements, and not the existing value of the property, will be the taxable property covered by the agreement. Shrewsbury Street restaurant manager sentenced for drug money laundering A manager of a former Worcester restaurant has been sentenced to 22 months in jail followed by a year of supervised release for his role in a money laundering scheme for which he is the latest to receive jail time. Joseph Herman took part in a laundering scheme run by e Usual's owners, Stacy Gala and Kevin Perry, and then continued the scheme while he ran another restaurant on the same Shrewsbury Street site, e Chameleon. He has pleaded guilty to the charges. Herman is not contesting the jail sentencing. His attorneys urged the court to sentence him at a facility close to home. Herman financed $40,000 in materials and labor to renovate e Usual into e Chameleon using laundered drug money. Laundered money was also used to fund ongoing operations at the restaurant, as well as for Herman's personal expenses, including home repairs and a trip. Prosecutors said Herman falsely told the Worcester Licensing Commission he and his relatives funded the work. It's cold, we're headed outside F L AS H P O L L Will you do more cold-weather outdoor activities, like skiing or snowboarding, this year? Outdoor activities like golf, hiking and swimming were increasingly popular this summer, in part because they provided an opportunity for people to get outside and take part in lower-risk activities as the coronavirus pandemic wore on. With temperatures dropping and a second COVID-19 surge underway, outdoor and recreational activities are limited, although not nonexistent. When polled online, the plurality of WBJ readers said they will increase their outdoor activities this winter. Planned Milford Amazon site sells for $53M A sprawling planned Amazon distribution warehouse site in Milford has sold for nearly $53 million, months aer the online retail giant signed a lease agreement for the property. e site of the 320,000-square-foot warehouse was bought by Nuveen Real Estate Global Cities Advisors, a New York real estate investment firm. e deal comes just under two years aer the former Ardagh Group glass bottling site sold for $4.1 million. e sale price is the latest indication of the rising value of such distribution facilities, including along the I-495 belt. Last year alone, another Amazon facility in Milford sold for $34 million, and a FedEx warehouse in Natick sold for $52 million. Facilities further from Boston and with easy highway access are also selling for large sums. e West Boylston warehouse of retail distributor Bunzl New England sold in October for $14.6 million. Amazon's site at 1 National St. in Milford will bring use back to a site long used by the Ardagh Group before the bottling plant closed in 2018. An investment group bought the 32-acre site in December 2018 and has since renovated the site. e group committed to roadway improvements. Continued on page 6 Sutton packaging firm pays $9.5M for site Sutton packaging company, which has four sites in Central Mass. and others abroad and nationally, has paid $9.5 million for a 383-acre site straddling the Millbury and Sutton town lines. e company, UN1F1ED² Global Packaging Group, makes a range of packaging material, from foam and cardboard to wood and molded fiber. e firm bought the land from Aggregate Industries, a British firm that makes construction materials, which operated a sand and gravel site on part of the land. e deal closed Nov. 6. e site was last assessed by the Towns of Millbury and Sutton at about $830,000. e land purchase by UN1F1ED² gives the company hundreds of acres of undeveloped land off Providence Street in both Millbury and Sutton. UN1F1ED² has Central Massachusetts operations at two sites in Sutton, including its headquarters on Route 146 and a building at 46 Providence St. down the street from the site it just purchased, as well as others in Lancaster, Whitinsville and Worcester. e company also has sites in North Carolina, Ireland, Poland, Quebec and the Czech Republic. The UMass Memorial Health Care and UMass Medical School campus in Worcester Yes, I plan on being outdoors more this winter. 40% It will be the same amount I always do. 31% I don't typically do outdoor winter activities and don't plan to start now. 20% No, it will be less. 9%

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