Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | May 30, 2022 | Worcester Business Journal 5 Leicester restaurateurs buy Worcester diner site e property of the former Mac's Diner on Worcester's Shrewsbury Street has been sold to a Leicester restaurateur, according to the Worcester South District Registry of Deeds. An entity registered to Erion Callo, the manager of the Twisted Fork Bistro in Leicester, purchased the property at 185-187 Shrewsbury St., in a deal closed April 27. e price of sale was $400,000. Callo, who owns the Twisted Fork with his wife Alda, confirmed the purchase but did not share details about the future of the restaurant property. e 1,800-square-foot restaurant was sold by Christopher McMahon, the son of Paul McMahon, who owned and operated Mac's Diner until his death in 2019. WBDC promotes Brien to executive vice president Roberta Brien of the Worcester Business Development Corp. has been promoted to executive vice president, the WBDC announced May 20. Brien is being promoted from her position as vice president of projects and has been with the WBDC for 18 years. She works closely with President and CEO Craig Blais and CFO Kathleen Kelleher on strategic planning, expense monitoring, and project management. e nonprofit works with public and private officials to facilitate development throughout Central Massachusetts, by acquiring land and prepping it for development, arranging government financing, and making personal connections. In overseeing ongoing project management for WBDC-owned properties, Brien has assisted in creating a variety of mixed-use developments, according to WBDC's website. She managed the redevelopment of 20 Franklin St. in downtown Worcester, which now houses a co-working space, theater, and restaurant. Before joining the WBDC, Brien was a project manager at the Massachusetts Office of Real Estate for the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance. Current projects in the city related to the WBDC include the 44-acre biomanufacturing campus e Reactory, the 650,000-square-foot downtown development e Mercantile Center, and a vacant seven-acre land parcel purchased last year by Clark University. W BJ has partnered with the Worcester Historical Museum to run a year-long trivia contest in celebration of the 300th anniversary of Worcester's founding on June 14, 1722. Readers should email their answer to the question below by June 9 to bkane@wbjournal.com or visit the trivia page on WBJoural.com to compete for a special year-end prize package. Sponsored by Worcester 300 trivia contest | part 10 And the answer to last edition's question: e official name of the building at 67 Millbrook St., the former home of both Bay State Automobile Co. and the om McAn shoe company, is now Worcester Business Center. e best thing e device in the adjacent photo was invented and made in Worcester by the Hamblin & Russell Manufacturing Co., which first opened on Front Street and later moved to Water Street. e invention allowed for consistency in use and could be folded flat for storage when not in use. Patented in 1913, the product was used in Worcester's restaurants and diners. T H E T I C K E R 3.5% Unemployment rate in the Worcester metro area in April, down from 3.9% in March even as the region's workforce shrunk by 7,600 people Source: Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development 135K Source: The Bulfinch Cos. Annual salary for Worcester Acting City Manager Eric Batista, after the departure of former City Manager Edward Augustus, who made $283,594 $225K $59.2M Source: Middlesex South District Registry of Deeds Square feet proposed for a research-and-development facility including office, medical, and lab space at the former Neiman Marcus department store in the Natick Mall Sale price of Orchards Apartments, a 156-unit luxury apartment complex in Marlborough, on May 20, about a month after the 205-unit The Point at Marlborough sold for $101 million n Trivia question: What kitchen task was this device invented by the Hamblin & Russell Manufacturing Co. used for? Source: City of Worcester The invention by Hamblin & Russell Co. PHOTO | COURTESY OF WORCESTER HISTORICAL MUSEUM Worcester trivia leaderboard 1. Mary Camosse 2. Allison Chisolm 3. Roseann Fitzgerald 3. Sean McDonald 3. 22 others tied City of Worcester reinstates indoor mask advisory following COVID-19 spike Worcester city health officials issued an advisory on May 13 strongly encouraging the use of masks indoors following a rise of COVID-19 cases in the region. According to the advisory, there were currently 72 people in the city hospitalized with the disease, and 11 were in critical condition. e city advised anybody who was not currently vaccinated against the virus to do so and those have to be up to date on vaccines and booster shots. ough COVID cases dropped to a year low on March 12, Worcester's seven-day daily average of new positive COVID-19 cases has risen steadily the past eight weeks since to around 128.9 per day. e U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has upgraded the community transmission level in Worcester County to high. Despite the advisory, health officials noted they remained encouraged by the fact the most dominant strain of the virus in the country, a subvariant of Omicron, subsided relatively quickly following in other countries, such as Continued on page 6 Roberta Brien, WBDC executive vice president

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