Worcester Business Journal

16 Worcester Business Journal | May 19, 2025 | wbjournal.com P OW E R 1 0 0 R E A L E S TAT E Craig Blais President Worcester Business Development Corp., in Worcester Employees: 10 Residence: Auburn College: Framingham State University As president of the Worcester Business Develop- ment Corp. and a member of the City of Worcester's Economic Development Coordinating Council, few people have as much influence over economic devel- opment in Greater Worcester than Blais. Elected as a selectman in the Town of Auburn at just 20 years old, he's a longtime power player in the region. e biggest item on Blais' agenda now is the revitalization of the former Saint-Gobain campus in Worcester's Greendale neighborhood. e project seeks to bring a new era of manufacturing to the 51- acre area via a $50-million transformation, seeking to create 1,000 new jobs in areas like advancing manufacturing and green tech. Assuming all goes as planned, the project — dubbed GreenTech Park by the WBDC in March — will help continue the legacy of Worcester-built products at a time where bringing manufacturing back to American shores is in the spotlight. e WBDC helps facilitate the growth of small businesses through its Small Business Administration loan program, providing financing to businesses like Quinn's Blue Plate in and Seven Saws Brewery. e corporation assists developers with receiving tax credit approvals, among other assistance. - E.C. Tom Bull Captain City of Worcester Fire Department Employees: 450 Residence: Worcester Colleges: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, UMass Amherst Beyond financing, a solid piece of property, good design and construction partners, or even a great lawyer, what a developer looking to complete a major real estate project in Worcester needs more than anything else is fire Capt. Tom Bull's approval. Bull performs inspections on all major building projects within Worcester, ensuring they meet code compliance and life safety requirements to achieve the goal of providing the greatest level of fire safety. Even though he's known as a great guy to work with, Bull wears his meticulousness as a badge of honor and does not bend to any external pressure. Bull is very by the book, and he does it all in the name of safety. is, of course, gives Bull the power to stop any project or keep it from being occupied upon completion. He will work a little bit with project developers in advance so they can avoid any conflicts, but his true role is inspecting work when it's finished, to make sure everything is done properly and doesn't put anyone in any added danger. Bull's proudest moments, he said, are when he receives reports of incidents either mitigated or controlled by fire protection, life safety equipment, or people educated in fire safety that he and his division worked to ensure were in place and operational when needed. - B.K. Christopher Egan President Carruth Capital, in Westborough Employees: 29 Residence: Boston Colleges: UMass Amherst, Harvard Kennedy School of Government e son of one of EMC Corp.'s founders, Egan formed Carruth Capital with his brother Michael in 1991. He hasn't looked back since, assembling one of, if not the, the largest portfolios of corporate real estate in Central Massachusetts. e firm is responsible for more than 3 million square feet of space, with more than 220 tenants occupying 40 commercial buildings. With a focus on MetroWest, it's impossible to take even a short drive down Route 9 without passing several Carruth-owned properties. Even in the age of work-from-home, Egan led Car- ruth toward delivering 350,000 square feet of office and industrial space in 2024. He then started 2025 on a big note with the sale of 165,000 square feet of first-class offices to TJX Cos. in Framingham, allowing the retail giant to expand its corporate campus in the process. e massive size of Carruth's holdings allows Egan to not sweat sudden bad news, like when it was discovered in March that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency had canceled a lease for an office in one of his buildings for space used by e United States Geological Survey. A longtime donor to Republican politicians, Egan took the news in stride, simply telling WBJ: "We've been DOGE-ed." - E.C. Denis Dowdle President Madison Properties, in Boston Residence: Newton College: University of Wisconsin Much to the chagrin of many Worcester officials, Dowdle remains a powerful figure in the redevelopment of the city's Canal District. While he completed e Revington, a 228-unit, mixed-use building across Madison Street from the Polar Park baseball stadium, Madison Properties' plans for other ballpark district developments — integral to the City of Worcester's plan to pay for the $160-million publicly owned ballpark — have blown well past their projected groundbreaking deadlines. e site of a planned hotel and second residential building in the Canal District owned by Madison sits unused. is comes as the City is increasingly ramping up pressure on him to sell the site of a planned biotech building sitting beyond Polar Park's le field, with its bare foundation serving as a reminder to ballpark patrons the revitalization remains a work in progress. Dowdle's ongoing beef with the Worcester City Council and other officials hasn't stopped him from adding more to his to-do list; in January, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester announced it would part- ner with Madison to redevelop the 13-acre former site of Rotmans Furniture, which sits across Interstate 290 from the university's campus. Plans for that project remain in the early stages. Even with promises unfulfilled, Dowdle will remain a Central Mass. power player as long as he holds the deed to prominent Worcester parcels. - E.C. "Those who find themselves with power have a responsibility to use it to lift people up and fight against those who abuse it." - Joshua Lee Smith, Bowditch & Dewey PHOTO | COURTESY OF CITY OF WORCESTER FIRE DEPARTMENT

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