Bostonwood Furniture Opens in Bedford

Bostonwood opened June 1st at the old Payless ShoeSource location in the Great Road Shopping Center next to Moison Ace Hardware. The company which also has stores in Boston and Watertown, has been making real wood furniture for 26 years. I recently spoke with Howard Lomen, the co-owner

According to Howard, everything the stores sells is hand crafted at their Boston location. Bostonwood got its start selling to Boston's college students and nearby residents. While Bostonwood, opened a second location in Watertown 11 years ago, Howard recently realized they were making a lot of deliveries West of Boston and decided to look for a third location and Bedford seemed like a good location. With the business going well, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage during the current economy.

While the store displays a few hundred prebuilt furniture items such as bookshelves, desks, bed frames and cabinets, almost 60% of the orders are made to order. So for example, say you like a desk, but would like it to be 5 inches wider and 3 inches taller, they can build to your custom dimensions. The same is true if you want a specific design attribute like an extra drawer. So while the store may display 20 different desks, they have designs for over 4,000.

The Bedford "showroom" features hundreds of items.

The store features a wide variety of items from simple storage cubes to large bookshelves with desks being the most popular item. According to Howard, some items take as little as 15 minutes to make while others can take a few days. It normally takes about 3 weeks from when an order is placed until it's ready for pickup. All of the Furniture is unfinished and while about 70% of their customers do their own staining, Bostonwood does work with several outside companies who can do the staining if the customer requests.

These storage cubes were originally designed to hold record albums.

According to Howard, all of their furniture is made with real wood, there is no particle board. Also Bostonwood is very focused on being environmentally friendly so all glues are water based and all products are free of formaldehyde and other Volatile Organic Compounds. Bostonwood prides itself on minimizing resources by reusing some wood scraps to build slotted bookcases while the rest are used to help heat it's Boston store.

All of the furniture can be made to order to a specific size and/or design.

Bostonwood also offers delivery for a fixed price regardless of the number of items you want delivered (as long as they can all fit on its delivery truck).

Bostonwood also sells Miniature Furniture made by Bedford resident Bruce Dawson. Click on the image for a larger view.

Bostonwood uses it's own furniture. Seen here is the checkout counter.

The store will soon replace this temporary sign with a permanent one.

It's interesting to note that the retail business in Bedford appears strong compared to the surrounding area. While other towns like Burlington or Lexington have lots of recently vacated retail space, Bedford has very little (the most recent being Bedford Laundromat and UFood Grill).

Bedford Depot Freight House Opens After Renovation

On Monday June 15th, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held to celebrate the renovation of the Bedford Depot Freight House. The total project, including Depot Park has taken over 15 years to complete. The project included improvements to the Intersection of South Road and Loomis Street and safety improvements to the area. The Freight House was originally used to store/service the Engines for the narrow gauge Billerica and Bedford Railroad. Two engines could be stored at one time. The Friends of Depot Park have been the driving force in getting this project off the ground.

The interior has been totally redone and will continue to be staffed by Friend of Depot Park who will sell Refreshments and Souvenirs. The revenue generated will help keep Depot Park self sustaining.

As part of the renovation, 2 sorely needed public bathrooms were added as well as handicap access to the Freight House.

The Interior of the Train has been restored to it's original look it had in 1955 and includes wooden floors and decorative lighting.

The train can be rented out for private gatherings.

As part of the renovation, a Solar Powered Trash Compactor was installed.

All this improvements along with the recent addition of the Bedford Farmers Market, has really updated this area and serves as a destination point for the Bedford end of the Minuteman Bikeway. In addition, the old Bedford Depot is undergoing a roof renovation. While the Freight House will likely be well utilized by Bedford Residents and users of the Bike Path, I think the addition of a adjacent restaurant (preferably with Outdoor Dining) would be very well received. It's possible the Bedford Depot could be renovated to meet this need.

Here is how the Freight House looked before the renovation.

Renovated Dunkin' Donuts on Great Road Opens

After being closed for 4 weeks for renovation, the Dunkin' Donuts at 308 Great Road has re-opened with a new facade and interior. Click on any image for a more detailed view.

The basic layout has been retained. However the interior has been updated for a more modern look.

Similar to McDonald's, the renovated Dunkin' Donuts features both table and high bar stool seating.

While the interior has been updated, the menu has stayed the same except for a New Cinnamon Twist.

Dunkin' Donuts has additional locations in the Bedford Gulf and in Northside Convenience and Gas. However this is the only location in Bedford with a Drive Thru.

The store is open from 4:30 am to 10pm.

The past year has also seen renovations to D'Angelo Grilled Sandwiches, McDonald's and Papa Gino's. While construction has been delayed, the renovation to the Bedford Shopping Center is still expected to occur in the next 24 months.

New Retail Development Opening in Bedford

The Village at Taylor Pond, a mixed use development at 59 Middlesex Turnpike has 16,000 square feet of new retail space available. The development is located just south of the intersection of Crosby and Middlesex Turnpike about 1/3 mile north of the Double Tree Hotel. The residential part of the development consists of 6 buildings with 188 apartments and opened last October and is about 50% occupied. The retail space is located on the first floor of two of the opposite facing buildings and consist of 8 units varying in size from 1600 to 2600 square feet.

The center of the development includes a public "Greenway" similar to the one designed for Bedford Marketplace. You can click on any image for a more detailed view.

The development was built by Criterion Development Partners, which has built a similar type development in Andover and is currently involved in the much larger mixed use project - Westwood Station.

The retail space is located just off Middlesex Turnpike.

I recently spoke with Todd Alexander, a Vice President at Colliers, Meredith & Grew which is the company responsible for leasing out the retail space. According to Todd, they are most interested in finding businesses that will be catering to the residents of the development as well as the businesses in the nearby office parks. Todd also mentioned that unlike a lot of other retail space, this is "tenant ready" in that in most cases no additional work is needed for the business to open. In addition, two of the end units were designed with restaurants in mind and feature a cement patio that could be used for outdoor dining.

The new spaces feature 10 foot ceilings and is ready for tenants.

A patio for outdoor dining is available for a restaurant or coffee shop.

As far as what type of businesses, according to the property manager, residents are most interested in seeing a restaurant/coffee shop, a dry cleaner and a convenience store.

The retail space has reserved parking for 87 or 100 vehicles depending on the time of day. At night, 13 of the spaces become available to residents.

Bike Racks are located at both sides of the development.

Along with the 164 apartments at Heritage at Bedford Springs across the street, this adds up to over 350 new apartments with very few stores in the area. The Goddard School recently opened nearby and the Home Plate restaurant will be relocating from Billerica to 54 Middlesex Turnpike which is only a few blocks away. In addition, work will soon begin on Middlesex Turnpike to make it 2 lanes in each direction and add a much needed sidewalk. Although it may take awhile with the down economy, I think this bodes well for new retail space in this area. I think this area of town will continue to grow. It will be interesting to see if this "new area" (which I would consider Middlesex Turnpike as well as Crosby Drive) gets branded with a new name like East Bedford, a high tech sounding name to represent all the technology companies or something that incorporates the 3 towns (Bedford, Billerica and Burlington) that intersect. A new name might be helpful in attracting new businesses.

Middlesex Turnpike will soon be extended to 2 lanes in each direction.
   

The development features a paved walking trail that will be connected to a sidewalk on Middlesex Turnpike as part of a pedestrian path once the road widening has been completed.
  

In addition to the 6 residential buildings, construction is planned to soon start on a 3 story 5,000 square foot office building with first floor retail space. The new building will have a roadway and sidewalk connected to Plank Street.

UFood Grill shuts down

The Bedford location of UFood Grill closed last week. There are about a dozen location in several states. UFood Grill originally opened in Bedford as KnowFat LifeStyle Grille about 5 years ago. The store underwent a renovation and changed it's name to UFood Grill last July.

Since the name change, I noticed the restaurant seemed to be less busy (at least during lunch) and during the past month or two was noticebly quiet the few times I stopped by. Maybe the combination of the economy and the name change did them in. Looking back, with the marketing relationship they have with George Foreman, perhaps a better name would have been The George Foreman Grill. The restaurant is currently vacant with a for lease sign on the window. It looks like they are going to try to sell everything turnkey to another restaurant. This is similar to what happened when Fiji Fujiyama (thanks JMP) closed a bunch of years ago. Most of the equipment was sold to Ginger which opened in the same location.

What's interesting is watching which restaurants picks up business when a nearby restaurant goes out of business or renovates and whether they keep the business. When McDonalds closed for renovation in late 2007, one restaurant that seemed to pick up a lot of business was Bedford House of Beef and judging by the lines, they seem to have managed to keep a lot of that business after McDonalds re-opened.

Construction Starts on Cambridge Savings Bank

With the start of warmer weather, construction has started on the new location for Cambridge Savings Bank at 181 Great Road. This replaces the old Mobil gas station. Construction should move forward fairly quickly this spring. Along with the new building, the sidewalk along Great Road will be improved and extend on to Weber Avenue but only the length of the building (the remainder of Weber Avenue does not have any sidewalks).

The new bank will face Great Road and features a dual lane drive-thru.

The last few years have seen a large increase in bank branches across the US. According to my count, there are 10 bank branches in Bedford. With the economic downturn it will be interesting to see if banks begin to consolidate their branches.

Title Town Sports Opens on Blake Block

Yet another store opens on the Blake Block. Title Town Sports located at 72 Great Road, recently opened. This store front was the previous location of Cuzz's Candy and Novelties which opened last August and closed in January.