Business View Civil & Municipal l November 2022

195 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 9 a big industry here. A lot of the hospitals from Boston have satellite offices here, and we have Spaulding Rehab Center, which is a world-class center.” Restaurants offer another source of employment in Sandwich, with the industry seeing positive growth post-COVID. “We have a pretty decent restaurant trade. We had a few instances where four or five restaurants closed, but they were quickly replaced with others, and then in addition to those replacements, we have three new ones,” says Vitacco. Unfortunately, the ongoing issue of workforce attraction and retention has many of the town’s smaller retail shops and restaurants, along with major chains like Dollar General operating under reduced hours. He clarifies, “They can’t stay open as much as they would like to because they can’t cover the shifts. Coming out of the summer season, you’ll see a lot of stores closed on Mondays and Tuesdays because it’s a slower day, and they just don’t have enough help to keep them open. They’ve done the math, so they close on those days, but they do a pretty robust trade over the weekend, fortunately.” On the housing side, Vitacco reports Sandwich is made up of primarily single-family homes. “That’s about 92% of our housing stock. Like everywhere, we are looking to increase that stock to increase as we like to say, not affordable housing, but houses people can afford.” The conversion of a decommissioned school into 128 affordable seniors housing units by development company SCG is one new option in the works. This is a necessary addition to the community, as Vitacco admits, “One of the things we’ve learned is that sometimes it’s hard for older people to stay in the house, they are by themselves, with taxes and everything that goes along with homeownership. So, we have this housing development going in.” Ensuring that the building would be converted into something which would benefit the town, Sandwich has also contributed “community preservation funds” to offset the price of development and keep these units affordable. Another development project, the restoration of the Deacon Eldred House, will be featured on the popular HGTV show, “Houses with History”. A private residence since 1757, the house was purchased by the town of Sandwich in the 70s and resold in 2022 after it was realized that they were not able to finance the restoration that the historic gem deserved. Vitacco recounts, “We were very fortunate that through our marketing process Mike Lemieux and Jenn Macdonald came across it. They are fully aware of how to maintain a historic home and they have been working with the Massachusetts Historical Commission. We’ve done studies in the past, and it would have cost the town about $700,000. As a municipality, we have to make choices about where we want that $700,000 to go. It could go to education, or to first responders. So, it was a good choice to go out into the marketplace to see if we could find someone who will respect the building and care for it.” With the Orleans | Sandwich | Nantucket | Waltham, MA Smithfield, RI CIVIL, STRUCTURAL, WATERFRONT/MARINE ENGINEERS AND LAND SURVEYORS coastalengineeringcompany.com/sandwich-marina SANDWI CH MASSACHUSETTS