This is a major development for any city including Boston. Worcester is a working class town with limited resources. It’s also not that appealing when doing a upscale business analysis. The developer has the knowledge and experience to do the job. There are a few issues, one is the obvious credit market and the other is the demographics. Most national companies do their home work before making a decision and Worcester lacks a resonable size of middle and upper class residents.

This is changing thanks to the many people moving west from Boston but it’s still a challenge. I believe the project will come to fruition but it will have more challenges ahead. I suggest less negative talk and more commitment from the residents to support the many new projects the city has brought to the city in recent years.

I say all this with the knowledge of doing this professioanlly in another part of the country but still having a small piece of my heart still in my home town.

Keep the faith

He/She does make a good point that the scale is large, but the location, at the very heart of the city, makes it impossible to ignore. It’s like the kitchen of the house, everyone ends up in or through there for something fairly often. Kitchen renovations are the most expensive and painful. Right now I think we are in the phase where we are tired of ordering out and using the microwave in the living room. But once the room is done, it will change the feel and functionality of the whole house. We’re Worcester: we may not get granite countertops, but we will get the much improved refrigerator and range, and the extrememly useful counters and storage.

It makes me think of Buddy Cianci in Providence. I’ve heard it said that Worcester doesn’t have a “strong” mayor. We are ruled by a council, which is good when you’re booming but not so good when someone needs to make something happen. Buddy Cianci was a strong mayor personally and perhaps politically, and he got it done in Providence.

Little Girl Worcester needs to get assertive and say what she wants. Or she might not end up with anything at all.

My super-cynic streak says that nothing will happen here for quite a while, and the developer will eventually sell to someone else.