Worcester, Gardner share in $3.6M to fix Table Talk street, explore business park

July 22, 2020

Worcester and Gardner are sharing in $3.6 million in MassDevelopment state funding aimed at helping communities develop challenging locations.

The funding, announced Wednesday, gives Worcester $500,000 to help Table Talk Pies' new manufacturing facility on Gardner Street. The street, which connects Main South with the South Worcester Industrial Park, will be lowered where a railroad bridge passes overhead so trucks heading to and from the facility have more clearance. The bridge's clearance today is listed as low as 11 feet and 6 inches.

The grant, which was administered by MassDevelopment, will also enhance the marketability of other industrial zoned land nearby, the state said.

The new Table Talk site, across from a Boys & Girls Club of Worcester branch, is being developed at the former Crompton & Knowles campus in a long-underutilized brick building that was demolished earlier this year. The Worcester City Council voted in February to give the facility a $4.6-million tax break.

The planned 120,000-square-foot facility, which is slated to cost $22 million, will replace Table Talk's facility in Kelley Square next to where the Polar Park baseball stadium is being built.

In Gardner, the city is receiving $80,000 to conduct a feasibility study of a 140-acre site that's been proposed for a business park off Route 140 and Matthews Street.

In all, the MassDevelopment project benefited 12 projects statewide by paying for site improvements, land acquisition, planning or environmental work.