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Date Posted: 21:09:25 02/24/08 Sun
Author: JMR
Subject: Illegal businesses leaving

Here we go again, another sob story.
A story of fallout

By Matt Lynch/Daily News staff
MetroWest Daily News
Sat Feb 23, 2008, 11:47 PM EST

MARLBOROUGH -
A men's clothing store and a salon. An English/Spanish/Portuguese language center and a restaurant.

Four very different businesses, but they all share two traits: They were once part of Main Street, and they are now closed.

Local officials attribute the number of empty stores between City Hall and the end of Main Street, to several factors, including natural turnover, the economy, and the declining population of Brazilian immigrants across the state and in the city.

"Small businesses have been hurting for two or three years, but people are just waking up to it because big businesses are hurting, too," said City Council President Arthur Vigeant. "Main Street has anchors that have been there a long time and some other storefronts that turn over regularly. We'll keep an eye on them and see if we can get them filled up."

John Riordan, executive director of Marlborough 2010, the local economic development agency, said one of this year's priorities will be attracting more small businesses to Main Street and revitalizing the area.

Possible solutions could include tax incentives for businesses that open along Main Street, he said.

"We're not talking about yet another planning study of how pretty it could be if we do this or that," he said. "We want concrete plans that will produce results in the short- to mid-term future. (And) one of the most potent tools any community has at the local level is taxes."

Marlborough resident Nilton Lisboa, a founder of the Brazilian Civil Rights Coalition, a local immigrant advocacy group, said the decrease in the state's Brazilian population, along with the downturn in the economy, has compounded problems for stores catering to the immigrant population.

"I think it's a combination," he said. "The population has declined recently, but it also has to do with the general recession we're almost in."

Both Mayor Nancy Stevens and Susanne Morreale Leeber, president and CEO of the Marlborough Regional Chamber of Commerce, said the empty stores are more of a natural turnover than signs of a recession.

"There's always turnover as far as Main Street is concerned," said Leeber.

The chamber is trying to work with Brazilian businesses to expand their services to non-Brazilian residents as well, Leeber said.

"There's only so many Brazilians that can patronize the store," she said. "One of the things we'd like to help with is encouraging Brazilian businesses to do business with everybody."

Lisboa said it's not easy for Brazilian businesses to expand, however, because much of their customer base is built on their ability to speak the language and many non-Brazilians are not likely to switch from a Shaw's or Hannaford.

"Besides restaurants, the businesses are language-based," he said. "They go to the Brazilian store to get products from Brazil, which other people may not be interested in."

Riordan said Marlborough 2010's biggest concern will be using the industrial growth on the city's west end to attract business owners to locations throughout the city, especially along Main Street.

"We want people to think of Marlborough as a whole, not one Marlborough on one side of Interstate 495 and one in downtown," he said.

(Matt Lynch can be reached at

508-490-7453 or mlynch@cnc.com.)

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