Good morning,

Two Newton residents will receive their 2024 Nobel Prizes in Oslo today:  Gary Ruvkun for medicine and Daron Acemoglu, for economics.

Jason Tatum and Jrue Holiday live in Newton too.  Maybe it’s time for the Garden City to be rebranded the City of Champions.

Stay a little longer

Visitors to Newton Centre now have an extra hour to meet friends for coffee, run errands and visit the many shops and other businesses there.

That’s because every two-hour parking space in the triangle lot adjacent to Langley Road now has a three-hour limit, as do the Cypress, Pleasant and Pelham lots.

The change was the idea of Kay Masterson, co-owner of Johnny’s Luncheonette who organized a group of 14 neighboring businesses to petition the city for the extension to encourage customers to spend more time — and money — locally.

There are now 246 spaces with a 3-hour limit in Newton Centre; 102 spots with a 10 hour limit (40 of which are reserved for local employees with a free permit); plus all those on-street metered spaces and the Green Line.

So go shopping, okay?

Thanks to David Koses and the Newton Traffic Council for quickly supporting this idea from our businesses.

Tomorrow:  We’ll be talking about housing, workforce and business attraction

If you’re an employer looking to understand demographic trends as you consider your future hiring needs and what we need to do to address the exodus of workers from Massachusetts, please join us at tomorrow’s Regional Estate Forum: The Road Ahead.

Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, will unveil insights from the newly released Massachusetts Competitiveness Index, comparing our state to the rest of the nation across 26 critical metrics.

Then we’ll hear from two terrific panels, one featuring young professionals and the other featuring our local planning directors.

Coffee and conversation starts at 8:45 a.m. The program begins at 9:30 on the UMass Mount Ida Campus. Register.

BC unveils plans for Mount Alvernia campus

Boston College has unveiled its plans for the former Mount Alvernia Academy campus in Newton Centre, which the university bought last fall.

Plans include building a new School of Social Work building and athletic facility, Genevieve Morrison at the BC Heights reports.

The Mount Alvernia campus is approximately 75,000 square feet. BC plans to renovate 60,000 square feet of it, while restoring a large portion of the façade. Hayes Hall and a maintenance garage next to it will be demolished

The university also bought 9 Old Orchard Road, a home on the corner of Beacon Street built in 1645, $3.8 million this past October.

Immigrant docs given a path to practice

Here’s something I didn’t know was included in the $4 billion economic development bill signed by Gov. Maura Healey until I read about it from Isabel Hart in the BBJ yesterday.

Internationally trained immigrant physicians now have a pathway to practice medicine in Massachusetts. The measure aims to help ease the primary care doctor shortage  and provide opportunities for MDs who may have decades of experience in their native countries but are forced to take less fulfilling jobs here.

Under current rules internationally trained physicians must repeat residency training if they wanted to be licensed in the U.S.  The new law will allow these physicians to practice with a mentor at sites with underserved patients before eventually qualifying to pursue a full license.

Sounds like a more productive idea than mass deportations, eh?

Tuesday grab bag

• Great news! Jana Grill & Bakery in Watertown has reopened after repairing damage to the family-owned Armenian restaurant at 2 Watertown St. after a vehicle struck the building in July. (Watertown News)
  
  
• While in Needham on Sunday, Congressman Jake Auchincloss was asked about the Jan.14 referendum in that seeks to undo the Town Meeting-approved plan to gradually allow for more multi-family housing.  “The solution is supply. We need to build more housing,” he said. “Any other answer is not getting to the root cause of the problem.” (Needham Local)
  
  
• Rockland Trust plans to acquire Enterprise Bank in a cash and stock transaction valued at $562 million. (Banker& Tradesman)
  
  
• Medium Rare, a full-service restaurant famous for its French-influenced steak and frites (fries) opens for dinner service at Arsenal Yards in Watertown this week (Boston Restaurant Talk)
  
  
• The median down payment on a Greater Boston home is now $110,662. That’s up from $73,000 in early 2021. No surprise then that 26% of young adults who recently bought homes say they used family cash for down payments, up from 23% last year. (Axios)
  
  
• Chamber member Mavis Chin, co-founder of Zenagos, was recently honored as a 2024 CWE Women Entrepreneurs Who Lift Up Massachusetts.
  
  
• The President & CEO of the Charles River Regional Chamber  (i.e. me) has been booted from the Needham Facebook group for the apparent crime of trying to answer a question about MBTA Communities law compliance.
  
  
• Watertown is one of three municipalities in the state that’s home to 60+ MassBio member companies (Cambridge and Boston are the others). Watertown employers won more than $300 million in venture capital investments, representing 9% of all investments across Massachusetts.
  
  
• Newton’s first Craft Crawl is happening Sat. (Dec. 14). Participants can explore the city’s creative businesses and arts organizations through hands-on crafting activities at ten locations.  The next day, from noon to 4 p.m., Newton Centre will have its annual Holiday Shop & Stroll.
  
  
• Join the fun at Holiday Trivia on Wed. Dec 18, 4-6 p.m. at Sunrise of Newton. Enjoy festive treats, test your knowledge, and win prizes—trivia starts at 4:30 p.m. RSVP.
  
  
• The Linden Square Holiday Stroll is Sunday (Dec 15), 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Visit with characters and enjoy hot chocolate with activities provided by the Wellesley Lions Club. Donations welcome for Wellesley Food Pantry and Cradles to Crayons.
  
  

What happens when BERDO passes

The Newton City Council will likely approve the long-deliberated BERDO ordinance ordinance next Monday (Dec. 16)

The regulation will require owners of commercial properties of at least 20,000 SF to report — and eventually reduce — fossil fuel use or be subject to fines on a phased-in process.

The first required to report energy use will be owners of 47 properties that are 100,000 SF or larger, due Sept. 15, 2025 for calendar year 2024.  Remaining commercial buildings must begin reporting by Sept. 15, 2026.

Building owners can ask for a 6-month extension under the ordinance.

The city will provide some joint workshops with the utilities on how to get data and how to use Energy Star Portfolio Manager and will notify all building owners by mail once the BERDO passes and informing them of reporting requirements.

There’s a list of BERDO covered buildings, here and memo here.

Are you ready to say ‘YES for Needham!’?

On Jan. 14 Needham voters will decide whether or not to support the gradual creation of multi-family housing, primarily along Highland Ave and Chestnut Streets.

The carefully crafted proposal came after years of community input and independent third-party analysis and was approved by Town Meeting in October. (Find a helpful video presentation here.)

But that decision is now being challenged through an ill-considered referendum that will put Needham out of compliance with the state’s MBTA Communities law and reverse an opportunity to address Needham’s housing needs.

A citizens’ committee called YES for Needham has formed in support of keeping the Neighborhood Housing Plan intact.

And they can use your help.

If you have a Needham-based business and would be willing to display a “YES for Needham” lawn or window sign, email Max Woolf in our office and he’ll make sure you get one. (Needham residents request your sign here.)

Thanks very much for considering this.

And that’s what you need to know for today — Otis Redding died in an airplane crash on this day in 1967 — unless you need a more contemporary version of the Yule log.

Let’s do this again on Friday, shall we?

Greg Reibman (he, him)

President & CEO

Charles River Regional Chamber

617.244.1688

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