Potential buyers approach Newton officials about Atrium Mall
At least half a dozen potential Atrium Mall buyers have approached Newton officials over the past few months to discuss potential uses for the struggling retail complex on Route 9, city officials said Friday.
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The interest comes as the boutique shopping center in Chestnut Hill continues to shed tenants.
Bertucci’s is the latest to close shop at the Atrium, a spokeswoman for Simon Property Group confirmed Friday.
The suitors have sought general information about what kinds of commercial uses are allowed at the Atrium, noted Candace Havens, the city’s planning director, in an interview Friday.
Mayor Setti Warren said the inquiries, combined with other major retail developments nearby on Route 9, have made him optimistic about the Atrium’s future.
“It is always a positive sign when you get these inquiries about what the possibilities are,” he said.
So far, Simon, which put the mall up for sale early in the year, has shown no inclination that it plans to redevelop the property on its own, Havens said.
Simon has not filed any development plans with the city, said Havens, who said she had reached out to the national mall owner and developer more than once.
“Simon Property Group does not comment on the sales, acquisitions or dispositions of its properties,” Les Morris, the public relations manager for Simon Property Group, said in an e-mail to the Globe.
Havens said the questions from potential buyers were fairly standard and have focused on what can and can’t be done with the property under Newton zoning rules.
Between six and 10 potential buyers and/or their representatives have either met with city officials or had discussions with them, Havens estimated. Without any major zoning changes, a new owner could add small restaurants, a bank, and offices, including medical office space, she indicated.
A new owner could also add housing, lab space or a hotel, among other uses, but would need to first get a special permit from the city, Havens noted in an email.
She said she is not worried about the mall’s viability, pointing to major revamps of other nearby Route 9 shopping centers.
The Chestnut Hill Shopping Center is being renovated by WS Development, with plans for an upscale movie theater in the old Macy’s store. And Wegmans will be moving into the Chestnut Hill Square shopping center taking shape where the old Omni Foods once stood.
“The city feels optimistic about the developments that are occurring now in that corridor,” Warren said.
Still, Atrium is fast becoming a ghost town, with Borders Books & Music and several other long-time tenants having jumped ship over the past few months. The list of stores that have pulled includes Tiffany & Co. Williams-Sonoma, Abercrombie & Fitch, as well as the Gap and GapKids.
It is a situation that Warren said city officials are monitoring and a far cry from when the Atrium first opened in 1989, when it stood a cut above more traditional malls with boutique shops and a deluxe feel that catered to high-end shoppers.
“We will continue to monitor the progress in the coming weeks and months,” Warren said.
Scott B. Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
Middlesex DA warns local parents of child drownings, window falls, and car heat
The following is based on a prepared statement sent by the Middlesex DA's office:
The Middlesex District Attorney’s office is launching a three-prong summer safety awareness campaign aimed to educate parents, caretakers, and their children on how to be safe during the summer season, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone announced.
Last week, Leone’s office launched a “Splash into a Safe Swim Season” public awareness campaign focused on water safety. These efforts have been expanded to include window fall prevention and car safety, two additional areas of child deaths and near fatalities that occur often this time of year.
“With the onset of warm weather and the desire to be outside, come seasonal dangers we’d like parents to be aware of in and around water, cars and windows," Leone said. “All too often, we see the tragic results of accidental drownings, window falls, and overheating from being left in a car... the bottom line is that these child deaths and near fatalities are all completely preventable.”
The DA's office will distribute a safety brochure this summer, which features key prevention and safety tips around water safety, window safety and car safety.
The brochure will be distributed by Middlesex YMCAs, hospitals, and schools, as well as the Middlesex Children's Advocacy Center's multidisciplinary team, which includes members of the DA's Child Abuse Unit, law enforcement, and the Department of Children and Families.
Leone's office will also promote the information on its website, providing the information in a format easily accessible to parents and caretakers.
Every year, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, local Child Fatality Review Teams, the Office of the Child Advocate, and DCF review numerous accidental child deaths and near fatalities caused by water drownings, falls from windows and overheating after being left in a motor vehicle.
An estimated 5,000 children are hospitalized each year due to unintentional drowning related incidents, with 15 percent dying and 20 percent left with permanent brain damage.
The following are tips for parents and caretakers to ensure water safety:
- Actively supervise children at all times
- Never leave a child alone near a pool or other body of water
- Teach children to swim
- Stay within arms reach of preschool-age children
- Provide locked safety barriers for swimming area when not in use
- Keep climbable objects away from pool barrier
- Teach children about water safety
- Learn CPR – use infant CPR until age one, then child CPR until age eight
- Be alert when visiting homes with a pool
- Remove toys from pool after use
- Do not rely on air-filled or foam toys - they are not designed for safety
- Older children are most vulnerable in bodies of fresh water
- Always use US Coast Guard-approved life jackets when boating
- A four-foot-high barrier, not including a house, enclosing the swimming area, even if you don't have children
- Access gates that self-close, lock, and open outward from the swimming area
- Opening/locking mechanism that must be located 54 inches high or on the pool side of the gate
- Access ladders or steps that should be removed, locked, or secured to prevent usage by children
Contact your city or town hall for additional requirements.
Landscaped water features and koi ponds are also safety hazards for children, Leone's office said.
The DA's office also seeks to warn caretakers about window falls, which are the leading cause of injury to children. On average, 14 children a day are injured in window falls, Leone's office said.
The most common injuries are head and brain trauma, as well as extremity fractures.
To prevent window falls, parents and caregivers should:
- Be sure children are always supervised
- Lock all unopened doors and windows
- Keep beds, furniture, and anything a child can climb on away from windows
- Open windows from the top, not from the bottom
- Install quick release window guards - screens do not protect children from falling out of windows
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates a closed car sitting in the summer sun quickly turns into an oven, with temperatures rising from 78 degrees to 100 degrees in just three minutes, and to 125 degrees in six to eight minutes.
In addition, children can be injured while getting out of moving cars, or can be run or backed over by motor vehicles.
To keep young children safe in and around cars:
- Never leave children alone in a parked vehicle, even when they are asleep or restrained or if the windows are open
- Always lock your car and keep the keys out of children's reach
- Make a habit of looking in the vehicle - front and back - before locking the door and walking away
- Ensure adequate supervision when children are playing in areas near parked motor vehicles
- If a child is missing, check the vehicle first, including the trunk
- Ask your childcare provider to call you if your child does not show up for childcare
- Do things to remind yourself that a child is in the vehicle such as placing your purse, briefcase or something else you need in the back seat so that you will have to check the back seat when you leave the vehicle
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Jaclyn Reiss can be reached at jaclyn.reiss@globe.com
Newton hanging tomato garden finds a new home -- at theological school
Divine intervention has rescued Newton’s wayward hanging tomato garden.
Newton city officials had warned Eli Katzoff - the creative force behind the 13-foot tall hanging tomato garden - that he had to start removing the structure from his front yard near Route 9 by Friday.
Late on Thursday, Katzoff landed a new home for his garden: the Andover Newton Theological School.
“We wanted to find something that really worked for us,” Katzoff said. “It’s in a place that’s very safe.”
The graduate divinity school has volunteered a sunny spot near its chapel for Katzoff’s A-frame structure and the 34 red containers sprouting tomatoes.
“Who can be against tomatoes?” asked Nick Carter, the president of Andover Newton. “Institutions should be helping people do the right thing.”
The school has a student garden on campus and Katzoff’s project should fit right in, Carter said.
It won’t disrupt the neighborhood and shouldn’t run afoul of any Newton zoning laws, Carter said.
“It’s not going to bother anybody where it is,” he said.
Katzoff, who is staying at his parents’ house near Route 9, built the wood structure a few weeks ago. He wanted to grow tomatoes in the sun-soaked front yard, but didn’t want to disrupt his father’s existing garden.
Using 16-foot wood beams and with the help of his friends and girlfriend, Katzoff built what looks like an oversized swing set frame. He started to sell some of the tomato containers to his neighbors and friends who wanted fresh tomatoes during the season and decided that he would donate the rest to food pantries. Katzoff, 26, created a website for his endeavor and as a promotional filmmaker, he began documenting the work.
The only thorn in this garden?
Newton’s zoning laws bar such accessory structures in the front yard for safety and aesthetic reasons.
In the past week, Newton officials issued Katzoff a notice of violation and told him to make plans for a move by Friday. They also offered him three alternative sites on city properties.
“We’re not trying to tamp him down,” Bob Rooney, the city chief operating officer said earlier this week. “We’re trying to let him experiment.”
Katzoff said he appreciates the city’s help but he was concerned about the safety of the plants at some of the sites. Instead, he and his girlfriend Melissa Hoffman approached Andover Newton for help. Hoffman attends Hebrew College, next to the theological school.
“There was never a moment’s hesitation,” Carter said. “They’re caught on the down side of zoning.”
Now the only question left is how to move those upside-down tomatoes plants a mile up the road to the school.
Katzoff is confident that it will work out. He hasn’t ruled out grabbing friends and volunteers to walk the buckets to Andover Newton.
“It’s kind of corny to say,” Katzoff said. “But it’s a happy ending.”
Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com
Bertucci's closes at struggling Atrium Mall in Chestnut Hill
Bertucci’s is the latest business to leave the near-vacant Atrium Mall on Route 9 in Chestnut Hill.
A message left on Bertucci’s phone said the restaurant closed on May 14.
“Thank you for all the memories,” the message said. “We’ve truly enjoyed being part of the Chestnut Hill community for the past 10 years.”
The restaurant’s closing was first reported by the Boston Business Journal on Thursday.
That leaves two restaurants and 10 retailers in the Atrium Mall, according to the mall's website.
Once a shopping destination for the western suburbs, the Atrium Mall in recent years has lost Borders Books & Music, Willams-Sonoma, Abercrombie & Fitch, and luxury jewelry store Tiffany & Co. Just this year, clothing retailer Gap and jeweler Ross-Simons left.
The mall has struggled in recent years, with the opening of other high-end shopping centers, including Legacy Place in Dedham and the Natick Mall.
Simon Property Group, which owns the Atrium, has been trying to sell the mall.
Some of the former Atrium tenants, such as Ross-Simons and Tiffany & Co. moved across the street to the Mall at Chestnut Hill, another Simon-owned property.
Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com
Charles River Museum to host children's open house, "Mill Children" exhibit
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Lewis Hine, who inspired "The Mill Children" exhibit, photographs children circa 1910 in a slum.
The Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation will host a children's open house, where kids receive free admission, this Sunday to encourage them to visit the museum's exhibit that explores life for young mill laborers.
The exhibit, "The Mill Children," will feature paintings, photographs, music, film, and narrative inspired by early 1900's photographer, Lewis Wickes Hine.
Hine visited the Eclipse Mill in North Adams, Mass. in late August of 1911 to photograph child laborers on behalf of the National Child Labor Committee. Hine’s photographs contributed to the creation of labor reform laws for American child and adult workers, museum officials said.
One hundred years later, a group of artists working in North Adams used nine of Hine’s photos for inspiration. The resulting exhibit, “The Mill Children,” will be on display in Waltham through June 15.
Sponsored and created by the Brill Gallery in North Adams, this exhibit features both images of the original Hine photographs, art inspired by his work, historical narratives of children photographed and interviews of the artists currently working in the Eclipse Mill building.
What started as a fact-finding mission became a labor of love for Brill Gallery owner and curator Ralph Brill. For years, visitors to his gallery - located in the Eclipse Mill in North Adam - told him stories of family members who had worked there, and he started conducting research on the topic.
Brill realized in his research that through the efforts of Hine, the mill and its children had played a major part in child labor reform movement in America. So in 2010, Brill assembled a team of artists, a historian, a musician, a filmmaker and educators to helped him tell the story of what it was like to be a child worker in the Eclipse Cotton Mill in 1911.
Although the exhibit focuses on a local mill, it also spotlights the conditions American children faced each day working in the mills across the country, including the Boston Manufacturing Company, and other factories in Waltham, said Charles River Museum Elln Hagney in an e-mail.
“The stories of these children are important to tell and I can think of no better place to tell the story of child labor than in our galleries," Hagney said.
The children's open house begins at 1 p.m. Sunday, June 3.
At the event, kids can interact with exhibit artists, watch a performance by The Drury High School Chorus from North Adams performing music evocative of the mill workers' experiences, meet Hine as portrayed by historian Joe Manning, and participate in hands-on activities designed to bring the exhibit to life, according to the museum.
There will also be an artist talk and book signing at 6:30 p.m. by Gene Dattel, author of Cotton and the Race in Making of America.
Refeshments will also be served.
For more information, visit the museum's website.
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Jaclyn Reiss can be reached at jaclyn.reiss@globe.com
Newton gardener must pick new home for hanging tomatoes
Eli Katzoff must figure out a new home for his hanging tomato garden, by Friday.
Newton city officials have offered Katzoff three potential sites on public property for his garden, along with a deadline to remove the A-frame, 13-foot-tall, structure from his front yard.
“We’re optimistic that it can be resolved in an amicable manner,” said Bob Rooney, Newton’s chief operating officer. “We’re not trying to tamp him down. We’re trying to let him experiment.”But the experiment cannot continue in the front yard of his parents’ home near Route 9, Newton officials have informed Katzoff. Newton bans such accessory structures in front yards.
Newton has also sent a violation notice to Katzoff, citing him for constructing a wood frame structure without a permit and for constructing a wood frame structure in the front setback, Rooney said.
Katzoff has made the frame safer by bolting it to the house and now city officials are awaiting his decision on the move, Rooney said.
Katzoff, 26, said he and his girlfriend will have more information early next week about the fate of their tomato garden.
“As of right now we are looking into various options, some suggested by the city of Newton and some we are investigating," Katzoff said in an e-mail Thursday.
Katzoff built the wood-beam structure to support his 34 hanging tomato plant containers. He has sold many of the pots to friends and neighbors interested in a steady supply of summer tomatoes and plans to donate some of the crop to local charities.
Newton officials took notice of Katzoff’s plans in mid-May when one of his neighbors called the city to inquire about what was being built. A city inspector then told Katzoff that his tomato garden creation ran afoul of the city’s codes.
Last week, the city suggested that Katzoff move his garden to three potential sites, a community garden, a parks and recreation lot or to a portion of a parking lot by a city building. Volunteers with Newton’s Angino Farm have also offered to work with Katzoff, Rooney said.
In an e-mail back to the city earlier this week, Katzoff said he is considering his options though he is concerned that the city sites pose a risk of theft, one is too far away to ensure regular maintenance and others don’t have proper water accessibility.
Rooney said if Katzoff doesn’t find a solution soon, the city will be able to levy fines of $300 a day. By Friday, the city wants him to decide where the tomato garden will go.
Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com
Newton-Needham business group gets new president
Greg Reibman, a former community newspaper publisher and a founder of a Newton-oriented blog, has been named the president of the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce.
Reibman replaces Bob Halpin, who accepted a job as the Framingham Town Manager after about a year as the head of the Chamber of Commerce.
Until last year, Reibman had been the publisher of the Newton Tab and headed up several of GateHouse Media Inc.’s Boston-area newspapers. Gatehouse eliminated his position last year as part of cost-cutting measures.
Soon after he left GateHouse, Reibman launched Village 14, a community blog that focuses on Newton issues. Reibman said he will continue to be involved with that website.
The Chamber selected Reibman because of his business experience in Newton and Needham and his familiarity with the community and its leaders, said Joseph De Vito, chamber chairman, in a press release.
“We are especially pleased to be bringing in someone who already knows our communities, our elected leaders, our businesses and the challenges we face as we emerge from a long recession,” De Vito said.
Reibman said he hopes to use his social media and community engagement skills to broaden the Chamber’s on-line presence. He said he expects to update the business group’s website and offer members the traditional networking opportunities and seminars on such issues as using Twitter.
“We’re ready to modernize,” he said.
Reibman said he also plans to start a shop local initiative to promote businesses, especially in the village centers.
With major developments in the pipeline, including several Route 9 projects, and the Riverside mixed-use proposal, the Chamber will likely have a role to play in ensuring that commercial space in Newton and Needham is best-used, Reibman said.
“This is a really critical time,” he said.
Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com
Newton schools tighten criminal background checks after arrest of teacher on child porn charges
The Newton school district will expand its criminal background checks of all new hires in response to the arrest this past winter of an elementary school teacher on child pornography charges, Superintendent David Fleishman announced Tuesday night.
School administrators will start checking new employees against the Sex Offender Registry Information system to ensure that potential workers haven’t been convicted of sex crimes in other states.
Newton has been conducting similar checks on municipal employees for more than a decade, but this would be a new procedure for the school department, human resources officials said.
Newton officials will also back proposed state legislation that would give Massachusetts employers, such as schools and child-care providers, access to a national FBI criminal fingerprint database.
“It’s extremely important that it move forward,” Mayor Setti Warren said at a School Committee meeting Tuesday night. “It’s not just important for our district, but districts across the state.”
Neither of these tools would have helped identify David Ettlinger, a popular second-grade teacher, because he didn’t have a prior criminal record, Fleishman said in an interview earlier Tuesday.
Parents and residents demanded a review of current procedures following the separate and unrelated arrests this past winter of Ettlinger and library employee Peter Buchanan on child pornography charges.
Ettlinger, who taught in the Newton Public Schools for 12 years, is facing federal charges that he participated in a global child pornography network. He also faces state charges that he indecently assaulted three young girls from the Boston area and taped the encounters. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. None of the alleged victims were his students.
Buchanan has been charged with possession and dissemination of child pornography. He has pleaded not guilty.
Fleishman and Warren set up a team to look at hiring policies in February. The team, which included human resources officials from the city and schools, the city solicitor, and a police lieutenant, made its recommendations in a memo to Fleishman Tuesday.
“It’s always good to look at different processes,” Fleishman said.
The Newton school district already checks employees under the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) law. But the CORI checks only report criminal history in Massachusetts. The FBI database would be more helpful, Fleishman said.
State Representative Alice Peisch of Wellesley, who proposed the legislation to check the national fingerprinting database a few months ago, said Massachusetts is the only state that doesn’t access the information.
“I think it’s almost embarrassing,” said Peisch. “It’s sort of a common sense bill.”
The legislation is being debated in the Joint Committee on Education.
In the Ettlinger case, some Newton parents have also called for clearer procedures on how the school district handles parent complaints about a teacher.
While many parents requested Ettlinger as their child’s teacher, some raised concerns about his behavior during his tenure at the Underwood Elementary School.
A parent reported in 2008 that Ettlinger kicked a student. In another case a teacher’s assistant complained that Ettlinger told a child to eat a banana out of a trash can. In 2009, the then-president of the school’s parent–teacher organization said, she went to the principal after seeing Ettlinger frequently hug a student and allow her to sit on his lap during a field trip.
Ettlinger also gave his personal phone number to students. And a parent recently complained that last year, a student wet himself because Ettlinger wouldn’t allow the child to go to the bathroom.
None of these concerns were documented in Ettlinger’s personnel file. He never received a letter of warning during his 12-year career in the school district.
Newton schools will outline parent complaint procedures more prominently on its website, Fleishman said.
The district will also provide administrators continuing training on how to handle teacher complaints, he said.
Geoff Epstein, a School Committee member and former Underwood parent, pressed administrators to make it clear that some complaints require principals to get district officials involved. In Ettlinger’s case, many of the concerns were handled by the former principal, who has since retired.
“Principals are often caught in this difficult situation,” Epstein said, in which they have to handle parent complaints while also trying to be supportive of their faculty.
Anything involving alleged criminal activity is already reported to the district’s human resources department, but some parents have asked that other concerns be referred as well.
Cybill Goldberg, an Underwood parent who attended Tuesday night’s meeting, said she was “hoping for a more complete answer for what makes up a list of behaviors that should be required to be reported.”
“I was hoping for more,” she said in an interview afterward.
Deirdre Fernandes can be reached at deirdre.fernandes@globe.com
Newton South graduate on "dream road trip" killed in an accident
A Newton South High School graduate died after he fell off an abandoned fuel tank at Gas Works Park in Seattle, Washington on Friday, according to officials in the Seattle Police Department and the Newton School Department.
Lucas Voss-Kernan, 19, was headed to California on a “dream road trip” with his friends, according to Newton South Principal Joel Stembridge, when the accident occurred.
Gas Works Park is a 19-acre public park in Seattle that used to be a gas-manufacturing plant. It was opened to the public by the city as a park in 1975, according to a spokeswoman for Seattle Parks and Recreation.
Voss-Kernan was in a fenced-off area of the park climbing on a fuel tank just after midnight when he fell, according to Detective Mark Jamieson of the Seattle Police Department.
Periodically, Jamieson said, people scale the fences to climb the old gas plant structures still standing in the park.
“Usually, what happens is they get part way up or all the way up and they slip and fall,” he said.
Less than two weeks before Voss-Kernan fell, a 25-year-old man broke his leg after climbing a tank in the park, according to the Seattle Fire Department.
A spokeswoman for the King County Medical Examiner’s Office said that Voss-Kernan died of blunt force trauma.
Stembridge said in an email to the Newton South community that Voss-Kernan’s family asked him to share that Voss-Kernan’s death was not anyone’s fault.
Voss-Kernan was a 2010 Newton South graduate, according to Stembridge, who described him as a “great friend to many – and a charismatic young man.”
Family members declined to comment.
Evan Allen can be reached at evan.allen@globe.com
Newton's new bicycle network plan identifies key routes for change
Calling for a minimum of 30 miles of new bike lanes and related infrastructure over the next five years, Newton has released a Bicycle Network Plan that identifies important roadways and ways they can be made more amenable to cyclists.
The public is invited to comment on the plan at a meeting June 4 at 6:30 p.m., in City Hall's War Memorial Auditorium.
“We do need to set priorities and we do need to start seeing some paint on the road,” said Lois Levin, the bicycle coordinator for the city who worked on the plan. “The concept is to develop a network, and we have a lot of tools in our toolbox that we will present.”
Although the plan identifies critical routes and also discusses several different ways to accommodate bicyclists, it does not determine exactly which roads will see the changes or when.
Levin said advocates are trying to remain flexible in the hopes of winning more than what’s called for in the report, which is six miles of “safe bicycling infrastructure” every year for the next five years.
Among the routes highlighted for changes are:
-- Commonwealth Avenue, which should get bike lanes along the outside of the traffic lanes on the main roadway “for higher speed cyclists,” as well as a “two-way multi-use boulevard along the existing carriage lane” for cyclists who want to ride a little slower.
-- The Upper Falls Greenway, which is an abandoned rail line owned by the state but eligible for conversion to a multi-use path via lease agreement with the city.
-- Washington Street, between Newton Corner and West Newton, which should be a candidate for a “road diet” and intersection upgrade.
A “road diet” is one of several ways outlined in the plan to make room for bicyclists. According to the plan, where there are more traffic lanes than needed based on traffic volumes, it could be safer for motorists and bicyclists alike to reduce the number of car lanes in order to add bicycle accommodations.
Ultimately the plan calls for making Newton more bike friendly in an effort to reduce the city’s carbon footprint and improve safety for everyone.
“The goal is to create a complete bicycling network that will link all villages, transportation nodes, schools, public buildings and business districts,” according to the report.
In addition to more road room for bicyclists, the plan also calls for requiring public education for young people about bicycling safety; increasing the number of public bike racks and other storage; and considering the safety of everyone when decisions are made on traffic signals, speed limits, and the like.
Lisa Kocian can be reached at lkocian@globe.com.
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