Worcester Business Journal

4 Worcester Business Journal | February 21, 2022 | wbjournal.com ALS grant "These gifts aren't about job creation. They're about science creation." C E N T R A L M AS S I N B R I E F V E R BAT I M Community response "Once again, Worcester does us proud." Alexis Kelleher, owner of Crust Bakeshop, reflecting on the community support the bakery received after thieves broke into her West Boylston Street store and stole from its safe on Super Bowl Sunday Nichols bar "This is a historic occasion for the campus community, and especially for our students who have long sought a safe and convenient place where they can relax and socialize on the weekends." Glenn Sulmasy, president of Nichols College, celebrating the reopening of the college's campus bar, after a more than two-decade hiatus Dr. Michael Collins, UMass Chan Medical School chancellor, on a $15-million gift pledged to the school to fund ALS and neuroscience research Report: Polar Park hotel delayed to 2025, office building to 2024 PHOTO/EDD COTE BY KATHERINE HAMILTON WBJ Staff Writer C ompletion dates for the office and hotel buildings in Madison Properties' development across the street from Worcester's Polar Park stadium have been pushed back another year. e new timelines for the two buildings were reported in a financial analysis of the City from Fitch Ratings Inc., a New York credit rating agency, as part of an assessment of the City of Worcester's financial situation to rate the City's bond offerings. "A new residential and retail develop- ment is underway and planned for com- pletion in 2023; however, the originally planned office facility and hotel have been delayed to 2024 and 2025, respec- tively," the report said. In a September 2020 report from City Manager Edward Augustus, the office building was projected to be complete by 2023 and the hotel was projected to be complete by May 2024. at was the last official update on the projects' timeline, before the release of the ratings report. In compiling the report, Fitch Ratings would have worked with city officials to obtain information on its financial situation. "e City of Worcester provided [to Fitch] intentionally conservative esti- mates of revenue realization from the development around Polar Park to the rating agencies, not timelines for build- ing completion," said Tim McGour- thy,Worcester's chief financial officer, in a statement about Fitch's report. "e movement of a project by one month – from June to July – can transfer receipts from one fiscal year to the next even while the calendar year opening date does not change." e five-building project is located in Polar Park's District Improvement Financing zone, so the tax revenues col- lected from the buildings will go toward paying off the cost of the $160-mil- lion stadium. In addition to the office building, hotel, and residential building, Madison is planning a second residential building and a laboratory building. Construction on the first building, a 228-unit residential complex, has begun, and a second residential building is in the design phase, Madison Properties President Denis Dowdle said. e first residential project received $57 million in financing on Jan. 27 and is slated to open by the summer of 2023. Dowdle has retained Boston archi- tect Elkus Manfredi to design the life sciences building beyond the le field of Polar Park, and he expects to have the revised building permit for that building by May, he said. Dowdle is working with Boston brokerage JLL to bring in tenants for the building. "We remain committed to this project and are more enthusiastic today than when we started," Dowdle wrote in an email. Construction has begun on developments surrounding Polar Park, although not on the initially planned hotel. W

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