REVERE
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Friday, March 16, 2018
$2M MassWorks grant Revere Jakes honor memory of fallen Shirley Ave. area Boston firefighters with marathon run bolsters By Sara Brown grant to transform the former
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Pictured from left to right: Revere Fire Chief Christopher Bright, John Carroll Jr., Kathy CrosbyBell, and Jamie Nadworney at the Revere Firehouse.
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n March 26, 2014 firefighter Michael Kennedy and Lieutenant Edward Walsh lost their lives battling a nine-alarm fire in Boston’s Back Bay. On Wednesday, March 14, the Revere Fire Department had the honor of meeting Michael’s mother, Kathy Crosby-Bell. Kathy is the founder of the “Last Call Foundation” in memory of her son, Michael. The mission of the Last Call Foundation is to
provide funding, education and research to advance the safety needs of the firefighting community. They are committed to enhancing the ability of dedicated firefighting professionals to effectively and safely fight fires and protect the public. On Monday, April 16, Chief Christopher P. Bright along with the members of the Revere Fire Department and Revere Firefighters Local 926 will be cheering on John
Carroll Jr. (son of retired Revere firefighter John Caroll) who will be running the Boston Marathon representing the Last Call Foundation, as well as our own Jamie Nadworney. We wish them both good luck and we will see them at the finish line. For information on how to donate and learn more about the Last Call Foundation, please visit their website at “Lastcallfoundation.org”
he Shirley Avenue neighborhood recently received a $2 million grant from MassWorks. The grant will help the city to improve streets and sidewalks in the area, construct a walkway to Wonderland Plaza and support private development, which will include a 30-unit home for veterans. “The Shirley Avenue neighborhood is the past and future of our city,” said Mayor Brian Arrigo at the Bagel Bin last week. “This grant will help Shirley Ave. continue to be the vibrant neighborhood we are all proud of.” The MassWorks Infrastructure Program helps cities and towns with street projects that will generate income from the private sector. “This is the most flexible tool we have with communities to help them with economic development,” said Gov. Charlie Baker. Baker said they received many competitive proposals from communities all around the Commonwealth and that Revere’s application stood out. Last year Revere received a $3.6 million MassWorks
Shaw’s Supermarket site into a 220-apartment/132-room hotel project currently under construction. “Programs like MassWorks fuel the momentum happening in Revere, benefiting residents, visitors and small businesses in the Shirley Avenue neighborhood,” Baker said. “We continue to work closely with our local partners to advance important projects like this one that drive development and prosperity in our communities.” Councillor Ira Novoselsky said he is “so excited” about the grant and how it will improve his ward 2 community. “There’s a lot of history in this place,” he said. “We want to beautify where we live.” Novoselsky said Shirley Avenue has always been a community of immigrants and this grant will help develop the neighborhood and help new immigrants prosper in the city. “The effectiveness of MassWorks is the program’s ability to support projects across a range of sizes and scope,” said Massachusetts Housing and Econom-
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Zoning Subcommittee passes Overlay District By Sara Brown
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he Revere Zoning Subcommittee voted in favor of the overlay district at Suffolk Downs. The HYM Investment Group met with the council again at the March 12 subcommittee meeting hoping to seek approval for possible development of the Revere portion of Suffolk Downs into a mixeduse development filled with
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residential, commercial and office space. Tom O’Brien of HYM said one of the focal points of the project is the innovation center at Beachmont. The building will be a co-working facility for different offices and will be about 50,000 square feet. HYM plans to build this in the first phase of the plan. O’Brien said it is central that HYM build office spaces in Revere and that eventually
it will shift the tax burden off of homeowners in the city. “I dare say no one else would be putting that up,” Councillor-at-Large Anthony Zambuto said about the innovation center. “If that’s not an opportunity for success, I don’t know what is. We will never see a project like this in our lifetime. Councillor-at-Large George Rotondo said he understands residents’ concerns about res-
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idential units and traffic but the process ensures Revere can protect its interests. Once the overlay district is passed, HYM still needs to appear before the council before getting permission to build anything. Zambuto didn’t believe the new development would cause that much traffic, saying that most of the traffic in Revere originates from residents from surrounding cities traveling through
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the city.“This is not going to generate a lot of traffic; what it is going to generate is a lot of economic development,” he said. Ward 1 Councillor Joanne McKenna said that residents need to understand that they have to accept residential units to bring in commercial. “This is our only chance,” she said. “We have to ride the wave.” Council President Jessica Giannino agreed. “We have never had a developer so eager to work with us,” she said. Rotondo said he hopes that when construction begins, HYM will use Revere workers, and O’Brien said that is something he would be interested in. “I think Revere workers should build Revere buildings,” said Rotondo. “I feel strongly about that.” The committee unanimously approved the overlay district. They will ask the whole council to vote in favor next week.