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many civic projects planned or ongoing: water line improvements, new sewers, more afford- able housing, a renovation of the public library, the construction of a new elementary school, road improvements, and landfill development, among others. Recently, we spoke with Paul Bockelman, the new, permanent Town Manager who is return- ing home, as it were, being an alum of Hamp- shire College. Bockelman started just after our article was published last year.We wanted to get his views and impressions of the town he is now charged with running, and reacquainted ourselves with Kravitz, who ran down a list of some of the projects talked about in last year’s conversation. “We mentioned that there was a project – One East Pleasant Street – that was permitted,” AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS Kravitz begins. “It is now under con- struction. That’s going to be 135 units of housing and 7,500 square feet of com- mercial space. There’s a development in North Amherst, in one of our village centers of 130 units -and 20 percent of those are going to be deeply affordable, to people at or below 50 percent of the area’s median income. It will also include 22,000 square feet of commercial space. We’ve also permitted another downtown development, right down the street from town hall on Spring Street, that’s going to have 38 residential units and 1,000 square feet of commercial. And a project that’s going before our Zoning Board of Appeals is for 131 residential units, with 16 of those being affordable.” “We were excited to see the first co-working space in Amherst open this winter,” Kravitz continues. “It’s called AmherstWorks. It’s a mix of offices, dedi- cated desks, and stop-in desks.”Amherst- Works opened last November and, a few months ago, became the venue of the Kayon Accelerator, a business incubator that provides information, coaching, and support for area start-up businesses to help them become viable and scalable. “The Amherst Visitor Information Cen- ter, which houses both the Amherst Busi- ness Improvement District and Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, opened at