City makes an effort to spruce up languishing Adopt-a-Spot program
WOONSOCKET – In the hierarchy of Adopt-a-Spot real estate, the flower barrel on Rathbun Street was a downscale locale for Lucien “Mitch” Michaud of Michaud Auto Body. But he’s moving up in the world. Maybe you can too. After a year on the skids, the Adopt-a-Spot program is up and running again with new signs, hardscapes and, possibly, new opportunities for businesses to snag a choice, high-visibility location. That’s how things worked out for Michaud, anyway, who helped Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt and volunteer Adopt-aSpot coordinator Armand Desmarais – president of the Stadium Theatre Foundation – kick off the makeover Wednesday with his company’s new garden spot on Cumberland Street, near Bob’s One-Stop.
“It’s wonderful exposure,” said Michaud. “And it’s such a wonderful spot.”
For those who don’t know, the Adopt-a-Spot program allows private businesses, big and small, to post a sign at one of many small perennial gardens the city maintains for an annual fee of $250. The business advocacy program provides the city with money to offset the cost of flowers and maintenance and gives businesses a unique opportunity to raise their profile in the community.
Last year, however, for the first time in many years, no gardens were put up for adoption by the city. The signs, made of pressure-treated wood, were so old they were turning to dust and had to be dismantled.
The city pulled the program in for
an overhaul and put Desmarais in charge of reinventing it.
Under his direction, the city commissioned new signs from a local company, Jay Wilson Signs. They’re made of rustproof aluminum and feature the city’s official seal and company names in bright, weather-resistant paint.
Instead of using wood posts to brace the signs, the city acquired handsome, gray-granite stanchions that will last many, many years.
“We’re very pleased with the results,” said BaldelliHunt. “They’re old signs were not prominent enough, and they were deteriorated.”
Theoretically, corporate adoptees might expect to see some advertising benefit from hoisting their flags at conspicuously situated Adopt-A-Spot gardens. Many are located on patches of turf at busy traffic islands and public squares.
But Michaud couldn’t say whether the Privilege Street collision repair shop, founded by his father in 1948, gets any more customers because of his participation. And he doesn’t seem to care much one way or the other.
“I’ve never thought of it in that context,” he said. “I thought of it as, anything I can do for the city, I’m glad to help.”
Ray Coia, the city’s events coordinator, said there are about 30 Adopt-a-Spot locales, but only half have been claimed since the city began notifying the last group of adoptees that they were available again.
The city says it’s still waiting to hear back from former adoptees to see whether they want their old spots back now that the program has been rekindled. The city is expecting at least some of those who haven’t committed yet to reclaim their old gardens, but it’s also likely that some longstanding plots that other companies had adopted over the years will be freed up for other takers.
Any business owner who wants to participate in Adopta-Spot should contact Coia at City Hall. His phone number is 767-9257.
Michaud got lucky. He signaled his intentions to stay involved in the program early and learned that a former adoptee of the neatly tended patch of perennial flowers, shrubs and shade trees near Bob’s One-Stop was no longer interested in the site.
It didn’t take him long to realize that it was a better piece of real estate than the old half-barrel of flowers at Rathbun and Social streets, where he’d been for a few years.
So he moved, and BaldelliHunt says she’s glad he did.
“It gives them some exposure and shows they’re part of the community,” she says.