Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 25, 2024 | Worcester Business Journal 5 B R I E F S Palliative Care —for improved quality of life. Our Adult Palliative Care Program serves patients living with serious illness with a focus on relieving pain or other distressing symptoms, assisting with advanced care planning, clarifying goals of care, and improving quality of life. Our team provides palliative care services in personal homes, other nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, or wherever patients call home throughout Central Massachusetts. 555-559 Plantation Street Worcester, MA 01605 508-852-5800 Contact us to learn more about the mission-driven, not-for- profit difference at Notre Dame Health Care. Notre Dame Palliative Care notredame healthcare.org Worcester, WPI reach deal over controversial hotel purchases Following months of controversy over its purchase of two Worcester hotels with the plans to convert them to student housing, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the City of Worcester have reached an agreement which will see the university make payments to partially offset the potential shortfall created by the potential certification of the two Gateway Park properties as tax-exempt. e deal, revealed as part of the agenda for the Worcester City Council's upcoming Nov. 19 meeting, will see WPI continue to pay property and hotel occupancy taxes until it converts the Hampton Inn & Suites at 65 Prescott St. into housing, a move expected to happen by 2026. e deal signifies a potential end to the feud between WPI and local political and business figures, which saw members of the City's Economic Devel- opment Coordinating Council write a sternly-worded letter to the university, accusing its leaders of moving forward with its plans for the two properties without input from other stakeholders. WPI will then move to certify the Hampton Inn property as tax-exempt, and if successful, has agreed to make payments through the end of June 2029 equal to the actual property taxes of the fiscal year prior to the conversion to tax-exempt status. From July 1, 2029 through 2034, WPI will make payments to the City equal to 50% of that amount. A similar provision for the other hotel property, the Courtyard by Marriott at 72 Grove St., will see WPI apply for tax-exempt status for that property no earlier than 2030. If tax-exempt status is received, WPI has agreed to make payments of 50% of the actual property taxes of the fiscal year immediately prior to the conversion. "While the loss of the hotels will have an impact on the municipality, I am pleased that we were able to find ways to reduce it," City Manager Eric Batista wrote in the letter. In a Nov. 15 letter to the WPI com- munity from Michael Horan, executive vice president and CFO of WPI, and Philip Clay, the school's senior vice pres- ident for student affairs & enrollment management, celebrated the deal. "For 159 years, WPI's mission has centered on collaboration and cooper- ation, a shared commitment to creating value for all members of the commu- nity, and an enduring goal of fostering mutual success with our partners," the two wrote. "One of the most prominent examples of this is the development of Gateway Park, where WPI has invested more than $140 million in the last two decades." Under the terms of the agreement, if WPI fails to receive tax-exempt status for either property, the City will meet to renegotiate the terms. WPI has agreed to offer employment to hotel employees impacted by the conversions and will work with private developers to facilitate new hotel proj- ects in Worcester. e university agreed it will not use its other properties in Gateway Park, 10 Salisbury St. and 32 Prescott St., through 2039 and agreed to discuss any future plans for those properties with the City. WPI signed on to collaborate with the City on up to four projects per academic year focused on an area of need chosen by City officials. DPH investigating the Hospital for Behavioral Medicine e Hospital for Behavioral Medi- cine in Worcester is under investiga- tion by the Mass. Department of Pub- lic Health, marking the Department's fourth investigation into a Central Massachusetts hospital in fewer than three months. Details of the investigation remain unknown, as the DPH wrote to WBJ in a Nov. 15 email it could not provide information due to its ongoing nature. Evelyn Alsup has led the Hospital for Behavioral Medicine since January. Prior to her employment there, she was employed at Strategic Behavioral Health in Garner, N.C., where a state investiga- tion found her unfit to lead the facility. e Garner psychiatric facility was shut down while under Alsup's lead- ership as CEO by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, with the government agency also issuing violations to the hospital including unauthorized handcuffing and drugging of a minor and the escape of an adult patient, according to a news article by e News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina. e hospi- tal agreed to pay $175,000 in adminis- trative penalties. e Hospital for Behavioral Med- icine is a joint venture with UMass Memorial Health, based in Worcester. Gateway Park 3.7% Massachusetts' seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate in October, 0.1 percentage points higher than in September and 1.1 percentage points higher than October 2023 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Site of Spectrum Health Systems' new outpatient treatment facility in Worcester Source: Spectrum Health Systems 1023 Main St. 600 Jobs that Shrewsbury-based JNP Coffee, its Burundi-based affiliate company, and the U.S. Agency for International Development hope to create through the Coffee Academy of Burundi, a collaborative project to increase opportunities for women and youth Source: JNP Coffee $3.7 billion Marlborough-based Boston Scientific's purchase price of Axonics, Inc., a California-based medical technology firm specializing in devices used to treat urinary and bowel dysfunction Source: Boston Scientific T H E T I C K E R W

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