Category — Newtonville

The city zoning ordinances that require businesses to provide off-street parking have not been revised since 1963, the same year the Massachusetts Turnpike was being constructed through Newton, when cars ran on leaded gasoline that cost around 30 cents per gallon.

A lot has changed since then. These parking requirements have not. Today, they serve to repel new business and hamper existing businesses that wish to expand. [Read more →]

For all of the concerns voiced this year about parking meter rates and parking enforcement, the city has far more important parking issues to address. For starters, as a city, we need to make it easier for businesses, especially restaurants, to open in our village centers.

Today, almost every village center has vacant storefronts. Granted, these are difficult economic times, and the cost of a commercial lease in Newton presents no small challenge. While the city has no control over these market factors, our zoning ordinances do present an effective barrier to entry: outmoded parking laws that require businesses to provide off-street parking.

Don Levy (left), with his lawyer Michael Field, offers a slice of coconut pie at the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown.

Of all village businesses, restaurants really take it on the chin. [Read more →]

Among other docketed items aldermen will discuss tonight, the following relate to village centers:

1. In Newtonville, Paragon Global Partners Inc. has an application for a Class II automobile dealer license in the two-story office building at 259 Walnut Street.
2. In Newton Centre, Pie Bakery and Cafe is petitioning for a parking waiver (9 spaces) so that the restaurant will be allowed to add 24 more seats at 796 Beacon Street. This would double the amount of seating for customers. A public hearing may be scheduled for July 13.

On Tuesday, at the Economic Development Commission meeting — at 7:30pm in Room 209 — members will discuss recent discussions of redevelopment of city property at Austin Street and in the “Firefighter’s Triangle” in Newton Centre, the proposed development at Chestnut Hill Square, Business Improvement Districts, Needham Street, Riverside, and the recently formed Mixed-Use Task Force.

Merchants and residents are welcome to attend these public meetings.

This is the first in a series of short profiles of the businesses that make our village centers special.  If you have a favorite business you’d like to see profiled, please contact me or Daphne Collins.

Bread & Chocolate: bakery/café at 108 Madison Ave, Newtonville Newtonville resident Steve Feller established Bread & Chocolate in 2006, with his wife Eunice. They have eight employees.

What motivated you to get into business?
Well, it’s not a short question to answer. It was a combined effort between my wife and I. We were at two different spots in our corporate careers, and they just sort of converged. She just left her job of 20 years, and I was unsatisfied with corporate life.

[Read more →]

Earlier posts described the work we did in Newtonville and West Newton, but I had to add a few pictures.  (Thanks again to John Sisson for organizing the work.)

I walked by the Newtonville site last week and found four high school kids having lunch on the benches we cleaned.  No camera then, but I had one today, where I caught this (click it for a larger version):

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Last week, Newton Villages hosted Emmy Hahn of Massachusetts Downtown Initiative (MDI) for a tour of city’s village centers.  Hahn has extensive and broad experience in revitalizing downtowns:  she directed the downtown revitalization program in New Bedford, and has coordinated MDI–a statewide educational and technical assistance program to improve downtowns in Massachusetts–for several years.  She knows a lot about downtowns.

During her visit to Newton, while she toured several village centers (plus Needham Street) with a crew of Newton Villagers and others, one concept dominated all others: Business Improvement Districts (BIDs).

[Read more →]