Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | April 26, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 5 B R I E FS Nichols picks new president from Bryant Nichols College has named a provost from Bryant University in Rhode Island as its next president. Glenn Sulmasy will succeed Susan West Engelkemeyer, who will retire at the end of the school year aer a decade leading the Dudley school. Sulmasy, who lives in Connecticut, joins Nichols with 24 years of experience in higher education, most recently as provost and chief academic officer at Bryant. He will start on July 1, becoming Nichols' eighth president. Sulmasy's career has also included stints as a law pro- fessor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. At the Coast Guard, one of his alma maters, Sulmasy also led the humanities department. He's been a lecturer at the University of Con- necticut School of Law, Roger Williams Law School in Rhode Island, University of California Berkeley School of Law and Harvard University. Landmark Brookfield restaurant buys site e Clam Box, a landmark restaurant on Route 9 in Brookfield, now owns the land where it had long leased. Tim Dugas and his wife, Cynthia, bought the site at 53 S. Maple St. in an auction April 12 for $310,000. Now that they own it, Dugas said they'll move ahead with plans for using an adjacent site they own at 47 S. Maple St. across Quaboag Street for overflow parking. If they didn't win the auction, they were prepared to build a new restaurant at the other site. e Clam Box has been in business for 70 years, and the Dugases have owned it for more than two years. Logistics company signs major lease in Clinton Tighe Logistics, a Woburn logistics company, has signed a 84,000-square- foot lease at a building in Clinton. Tighe's lease is for 100 Adams Road, a 344,000-square-foot industrial building just north of the town center and next to UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital. e site is owned by Boston-based Marcus Partners, which paid nearly $28 million for the site in 2018. BJ's CEO and president, Lee Delaney, dies BJ's Wholesale Club president and CEO Lee Delaney, who was 49, died unexpect- edly on April 8. He is presumed to have died of natural causes. In an obituary, his family said he was out for a run in his hometown of Wellesley when he suffered a medical emergency. Bob Eddy, executive vice president, chief administrative and financial Officer, was named CEO by the company's board. Delaney joined BJ's in 2016 as executive vice president and chief growth officer. He became CEO in February 2020. Before BJ's, he was a partner at Bain & Co. in Boston, where he headed the firm's con- sumer products practice. "We are shocked and profoundly saddened by the passing of Lee Delaney. Lee was a brilliant and humble leader who cared deeply for his colleagues, his family and his community," said Christopher Baldwin, who was also newly appointed executive chairman of the board of direc- tors, in a statement on behalf of the board. "We will honor his legacy and remem- ber the extraordinary impact he had on so many," Baldwin said. Canal District landlords buy three sites for $1.8M A trio of Worcester businessmen seek- ing to create more parking opportunities in the city's Canal District have bought three more small parcels of land. An entity registered to businessmen Allen Fletcher, Dino Lorusso and Edward Murphy paid $1.75 million to buy three sites that each contain buildings today and are not planned to be knocked down for parking, according to Fletcher. e deal, which closed March 18, comes weeks be- fore Polar Park opens for Worcester Red Sox baseball games and as the neighbor- hood is eyed for further development. e properties they bought are 30 Millbury St., a former Advance Auto Parts; 7 Lamartine St., home to Golden Tandoori Bakery; and 13 Lamartine St., a PPG Paints store. e sites total just over 1 acre and were sold by an entity regis- tered to Jon Stockel of Armonk, N.Y. e Lamartine Street sites are adjacent to one another and contiguous with another site the trio owns. "We're victims of our own popularity," Fletcher said Monday of needing more parking in the neighborhood. Fletcher, the owner and developer of the Worcester Public Market, Lorusso, the owner of the adjacent Crompton Place, and Murphy, the president of 7 Hills Property Management, each have a stake in helping the neighborhood maintain parking opportunities. Turnover does not concern us Are you worried your company will have increased turnover as the pandemic comes to an end? When the coronavirus pandemic sent countless white collar workers home to work remotely, both business leaders and employees had to acclimate. From technology to workflow, it seemed like every aspect of the workday required readjusting. According to data from the inaugural Microsoft Corp. Work Trend Index, whose results were released in March, more than 40% of the global workforce reported they are considering leaving their employer in 2021, with 46% reporting they plan to move because they are now able to work remotely. This could have major implications for companies stationed in cities and other industry hubs around the country, where housing and living costs are often more expensive than in other regions. When polled online, nearly two of out three WBJ readers said turnover is not expected to be a problem in the near future. F L AS H P O L L 2% Yes, we are already experiencing an increase in turnover. 16% W T H E T I C K E R 274 Housing units being built in two developments on Route 117 in Sudbury, near the Concord town line, by Atlanta-based builder Pulte Group Source: Town of Sudbury 30 seconds Source: Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce The length of a new pro-Worcester commercial released by the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Amount allocated for a new federal Restaurant Revitalization Fund, part of the American Rescue Plan $28.6 billion Source: U.S. Small Business Administration Central Mass. companies – Saint-Gobain and Dell Technologies – who signed a letter to President Joe Biden asking the United States to take action against climate change 2 Source: We Mean Business Coalition Glenn Sulmasy, incoming president of Nichols College Yes, I am worried it's going to happen in the near future. 20% No, I am not worried about increased turnover. 62% Other COMMENTS "Turnover?! We can't hire folks back to work because the government has given away so much free money! No one wants to work. They'd rather stay home, collect money, do side jobs earning extra money. Business folks cannot even begin to compete with that."

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