Worcester Business Journal

4 Worcester Business Journal • January 4, 2016 www.wbjournal.com L ast month, Worcester's Civic Center Commission unanimously approved a plan to bring profes- sional hockey back to the DCU Center. The fate of a potential Worcester team is in the hands of the East Coast Hockey League and businessman Cliff Rucker. For months, Rucker worked with City Manager Edward Augustus and DCU Center General Manager Sandra Dunn to figure out terms to bring professional hockey back to Worcester. In February, Rucker will present his plan to the ECHL board in Kalamazoo, Mich, where he will need a yes vote from 21 out of the 28 existing teams. If approved, a Worcester team could start playing in 2017. Rucker, the sole owner and investor for the possible team, is a Danvers resi- dent, father of five, and the president of Beverly technology lender NFS Leasing, which was founded in 2001. His now- wife introduced him to the Boston Bruins about 30 years ago, and he's been a rabid fan ever since. At one point, the family attended 30 Bruins games a year. He became interested in ownership, and looked closely at purchasing two ECHL teams and semi-seriously at an American Hockey League (AHL) team. He ultimately decided to start a local team from scratch because he decided being able to go to games and have lots of face time as the owner was an impor- tant aspect of owning a team. "In order to be an integral part of the community, it had to be local, quite hon- estly. It's much easier to purchase an existing team than to start an expansion team, as you might imagine. This is a much longer, and more arduous pro- cess," he said. "I see minor league sports as an opportunity to integrate into a community, something with a very sig- nificant appeal to me, to give back -- that's a cornerstone for the business plan -- and hockey is my favorite sport." Worcester seemed like a good home for a hockey franchise because of its size, central location, and the fact that the community wants a team, he said. "It's the second largest city in all of New England -- a fact that I certainly didn't know until I started to investigate. It's a big city, it's a city on the upswing, there's a significant amount of develop- ment, hotels, apartments, youth hockey rinks. I think the city government has done a wonderful job of making invest- ments," Rucker said. "And there's a void -- I wanted to start a hockey team, and they wanted a hockey team." The ECHL has pre-approved two new hockey franchises, so it's just a question of where those teams will be based. If approved, the team will be New England's second ECHL franchise, join- ing the Monarchs of Manchester, N.H. The ECHL hosted 756 games -- with an average of 4,598 fans per game -- over the 2014-2015 season. Since its founding in 1988, the league has had more than 550 players advance to the National Hockey League (NHL). Rucker hopes his team will have the support of Worcester's businesses. "In minor league sports, it's critical. The relationship between the commu- nity, the city, the businesses and the teams has to be symbiotic, or it won't be successful," he said. n Worcester City Square scores $42M loan The developer of the 237-unit apart- ment complex in Worcester' City Square has secured a $41.5-million construction loan from Citizens Bank. The apartment complex, to be called 145 Front @ City Square, is the first phase of a residential development that will also include 128 residential units and a parking garage, according to developer Roseland that is a subsidiary of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation. Construction on the project began in November. The first phase will include approxi- mately 12,000 square feet of indoor amenity space as well as a courtyard with a swimming pool, fire pit, BBQ grills and dog run. At full build-out, according to a release from Citizens, the entire Roseland project is expected to include two four- and five-story resi- dential buildings with a total of 365 units, 402 parking spaces and approxi- mately 11,200 square feet of street-level retail. The project is part of the 12-acre master plan City Square that will include a 150-room hotel (currently under construction), a recently com- pleted 65,000-square-foot St Vincent Hospital medical facility, a recently completed 214,000-square-foot office tower occupied by Unum Insurance, as well as future parking garages, office space and street-level retail. 100K square foot Worcester VA facility off the table The UMass Medical School and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will offer expanded medical coverage for veterans at the UMass Medical School in Worcester despite pulling plans for a 100,000 square foot new construction. Collaboration between the two enti- ties will move forward, according to a release from the Veteran's Affairs. Beginning in 2016, the UMMS campus will begin providing specialty care within 13,000 square feet the Biotech 4 building at 365 Plantation St., accord- ing to the VA of Central Western Massachusetts. The annex will provide highly demanded specialty services including podiatry, optometry and audiology. Congress has also authorized the VA, through the Veterans Choice and Accountability Act, to lease a 40,000 square foot clinical space to replace the current outdated, 25,000 square foot community-based outpatient clinic on Lincoln Street. The VA has advanced two lots as finalists for that clinic, including the MassDOT property at 403 Belmont St. which is owned by UMMS, which is adjacent to the medi- cal school campus. This 40,000 square foot facility would be in place of a pre- viously announced 100,000 square foot facility. EMC's $67B Dell sale clears hurdle The acquisition of Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. by Dell Inc. has made it through the "go shop" period with no outside acquisition proposals coming in to unseat the approximately $67-bil- lion purchase, according to EMC. The period for alternate offers ended on Dec. 12, a month after the acquisi- tion announcement for the transaction scheduled to close between May and October of 2016. The takeover's $67-billion price tag soars above the current record-holding tech buy: the $25 billion Hewlett-Packard paid for Compaq Computer in 2002. According to EMC, the combined company will have more opportunity to innovate and invest for the long- term. Boston Scientific issues recall for failing surgical instrument Marlb oroug h-b as ed B oston Scientific has issued a global recall on its Chariot Guiding Sheath following 14 complaints of failure, including while the device was inside patients, which could lead to obstruction of blood flow causing stroke or kidney damage. This voluntary recall has been classi- fied as a Class-1 recall by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Guiding sheaths are used to enter into the vas- cular system for intervention or diag- nosis. There have been 21 reports of failure of the Chariot sheath on the FDA's web- site. These failures include pieces of the sheath separating, sometimes while the device was within a patient. There have been no reports of permanent injuries or patient deaths, according to Boston Scientific. Staffing firm opening Worcester location; hiring 63 The health care staffing and recruit- ing firm Barton Associates will hire 63 employees to staff a new Worcester location, set to open in January. The company has leased 17,906 square feet of space at the office build- ing at 50 Prescott Street, according to real estate firm Kelleher & Sadowsky. The new office will be the Peabody- based firm's Central Massachusetts location. College savings pilot launches in Worcester A pilot program launched by Treasurer Deb Goldberg will make col- lege savings accounts available to REGIONAL BRIEFS Verbatim "Massachusetts continues to be a leader nationally with the high insurance rate, but it does mask the experience of some struggling to gain access." Aron Boros, CHIA executive director, following a new study that found more than one in six people in Massachusetts had an unmet health need due to the cost. >> "The ultimate drivers ... are at some level fundamentally how well the job market in Massachusetts is doing, and I think we're seeing pretty good growth." Revenue Commissioner Mark Nunnelly on the state's increasing tax revenue. >> "Plastic is plastic no matter what, nature doesn't take care of the mess. And just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there." Ellen Curran, director of communications for Women Working for Oceans said at a hearing encouraging the banning of "mocrobeads." >> In Review CENTRALMASS >> Continued on next page Beverly businessman pushing for Worcester professional hockey BY LAURA FINALDI Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer

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