Community members had a chance to position streets and buildings around on a mockup of Center Street (Route 2) if the Veterans Memorial Bridge was removed.
MCLA officials break ground on Porter Street for an arts center.
The Re/Max balloon made an appearance at Noel Field during Fall Foliage Week.
The Brown Street Bridge was opened after a two-year closure.
The new owners of the dilapidated mansions on Church Street are planning to restore them for residential use.
Local photographer Nick Mantello couldn't stop taking pictures even as grand marshal of the Fall Foliage Parade.
Works by three Berkshire artists — Adam Brown of Lenox, Sarah Sutro of North Adams and Shelsy Rodriguez of Pittsfield — are on display outside the governor's office until Sept. 12.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll checks out the painted lockers, leftover from when Mark Hopkins was an elementary school, on Friday. MCLA is hoping for funding to renovate the old school.
The Annex, the Williamstown Theatre Festival's black-box theater at the former Price Chopper complex, opens in July.
Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll was at Mass MoCA on April 13 for 413 Day.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The year 2025 pointed to the city's future with three big projects — a proposal to take down the deteriorating Veterans Memorial Bridge, funding for design and planning on a bike path to connect North County, and a big step forward in the construction of a $65 million elementary school.
This fall's election also saw a reconfiguration of the City Council, with voters placing women in the majority for the first time in the city's history. Come Jan. 1, Mayor Jennifer Macksey will be inaugurated for a third term and Ashley Shade will pick up the gavel to lead the City Council for the next term. She is joined by newcomer Alexa MacDonald, Marie McCarron and Lillian Zavatsky, and fellow incumbents Lisa Blackmer, Keith Bona, Peter Breen, Andrew Fitch, Bryan Sapienza.
It remains to be seen how this new council and the mayor will work during what may be a difficult budget year. While the council has largely supported the mayor's actions, they butted heads this past year over appointment authority, kicked off by the drama in the Airport Commission the previous fall. The mayor insisted she didn't need council approval to make appointments to the commission — or any other boards — based on the charter. Some councilors pointed to conflicting state law and opposed losing control over a right they'd exercised for decades. A compromise by the majority recognized the mayor's authority with the caveat that she keep them apprised of appointments.
The results of a nearly yearlong study of the Veterans Memorial Bridge by Stoss Landscape Urbanism were presented in December, although the recommendation to remove the span did not come as a surprise. As early as April, the consultants were leaning toward that conclusion after months of research and listening to public feedback.
The city partnered with Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art to apply for a $750,000 federal grant from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act's Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, one of only two communities in Massachusetts that qualified.
Connecting the city's massive museum and its struggling downtown has been a challenge for 25 years. A major impediment, all agree, is the decades old Central Artery project that sent a four-lane highway through the heart of the city in the 1960s. The 171-foot span was deemed "structurally deficient" the state Department of Transportation and its midsection was narrowed by jersey barriers for months.
It's currently undergoing a $19 million repair to keep it functioning until more funding can be acquired for its removal — a multimillion-dollar project that will include reconfiguring intersections to keep traffic flowing east and west. Officials see promise in "restitching" what's now a desert of parking lots and multi-lane roadways to open up land for public use and private development.
Congressman Richie Neal helps celebrate $17 million in federal funding toward bike path design and engineering.
Part of that "restitching" will include the ongoing three-year study of the flood control chutes (expected to be completed in 2026 or 2027), and the extension of the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail to connect the Mohican Recreational Path that ends at the Spruces in Williamstown to the rail trail termination at Lime Street in Adams.
U.S. Rep. Richie Neal was in the city last January to announce $17.3 million in federal funding for the "Adventure to Ashuwillticook Trail," a 9.3-mile section that will run through North Adams. The collaborative grant administered by the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission will cover the entire preparation phase — planning, design and permitting — to emerge in "shovel-ready" status.
A completed trail would connect North County from Syndicate Road (Route 7) in Williamstown to Merrill Road in Pittsfield, around 25 miles. This will eventually link up to a proposed bike path in Lee, years down the road.
And thirdly, the new Greylock Elementary School has moved into the bidding stage, with general contractors' bids due on Jan. 14. Voters approved a debt exclusion for the city's nearly $20 million share of the project back in 2024, so the past year has been all about the design. Subcommittees consisting of staff, faculty, designers and officials have been meeting regularly to pin down design aesthetics, mechanics and functions for the prekindergarten to Grade 2 school. It will be 2026 before the physical work begins — a groundbreaking for the school and the demolition of the old school — with an anticipated opening in fall 2027. See all our articles here.
In other news, there were some highs and a few lows. The Brown Street Bridge's two-year closure ended after $350,000 in repairs; a $2 million MassWorks grant will allow reconstruction on the collapsing Walnut Street and another $1 million in grant funds will go toward downtown infrastructure and Western Gateway Heritage State Park; the landmark Church Street mansions were finally acquired by the city after years lingering in Land Court and sold into private hands (and are already looking better); lots of paving and street reconstruction were completed near the college, and the library's historic belvedere is in the midst of a restoration.
Retiring Superintendent Barbara Malkas, left, poses with the new North Adams schools new administrators —Assistant Superintendent Annie Pecor, left, Superintendent Timothy Callahan and Director of Professional Learning Kimberlee Chappell.
The city mourned the passing of Robert Davis, longtime McCann Technical School teacher, musician and civic and community activist; Daniel Connerton, a professor emeritus of history at MCLA who served on city boards and commissions; and Robert LeClair, a retired elementary schoolteacher best known for his more than 30 years of coaching football and basketball at local high schools.
Two fires claimed three victims this past year. Four-year-old Ensley Lacosse died when her West Shaft Road home caught fire in March, and two other family members were seriously injured. In November, fire claimed the lives of Donald Hazard, 83, and Venture Hazard, 76; their son, Darius Hazard, 44, has been charged with murder and arson in their deaths.
North Adams also played host in September to the Rural Innovation Network Summit, a national gathering of policy leaders and rural economy innovators. The Berkshire Innovation Center and 1Berkshire partnered in bringing the sixth annual summit to North Adams.
In November, the Western Massachusetts Arts Economic Impact Summit brought creatives from the nonprofit, for-profit and governmental worlds together at Mass MoCA to talk housing, energy, grants and funding, training and retaining, partnerships and sustaining with state officials.
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