Quincy Restaurant Week

Quincy Restaurants Participating in Taste Quincy


This year the Taste Quincy Event is being held from March 22nd through March 27th.
Many restaurants throughout the City of Quincy will be providing special pricing, and daily specials.

Many of the restaurants are offering lunch at ten to fifteen dollars for two people with dinners at twenty to thirty dollars for two.

Great dining with special pricing.

Check out the site www.TasteQuincy.com for more information and participating restaurants.

One Billion Dollar Develop Plans for Quincy Center

Street-Works, a developer has been in talks with the Mayor and City Council with huge plans for Quincy Center. The plans will include 1100 condos and apartments, more retail space, boutiques, a hotel, 20 story office building, parking garages and some open green space. The cost is estimated to be in the One Billion Dollar range.

The Patriot Ledger has set up a web site with many stories and pictures of the project. Check out the site here.

This could be a tremendous opportunity for the City of Quincy. Quincy Center has needed a boost for a long time. Parking has always been an issue and the new plans will address that. Check out the site for all the details.

Quincy News Briefs

Snow removal costing the City dearly. After Tuesdays storm the City of Quincy has spent upwards of 2.5 million dollars on snow removal efforts. The City only budgeted $300,000 for snow removal. Seeing that the Winter is only half over, who knows where the final tally will end up. Unfortunately, this is not good news for the City of Quincy, especially with the current economic situation. The Mayor has warned of property tax increases even before the snow cut into the budget.

New Quincy High School – The first wing of the new high school is opening in mid February. This state of the art facility contains some unique features such as automatic light shut offs for rooms not being used, electronic blackboards, laptop computers on a wireless network, and a solar powered greenhouse to mention a few. The Mayor is also saying that the new High School is both on time, and on Budget.

Quincy College Looking To Break Ties With The City. Quincy College The College wants to be independent of the City and apparently has the funds available to make such a move. It is now up to the Mayor and City Council. It should be interesting to see what happens.

City Councilors Looking To Limit Sex Offenders in Quincy. Councilors Doug Gutro and Kevin Coughlin have proposed a bill to not allow sex offenders in Quincy. From what they are saying, Quincy has the highest number of sex offenders of all the towns on the South Shore. The do not want Quincy to become a haven for sex offenders who are being barred from other towns.

North Quincy High School was recently ranked in the top 50 high schools in the State according to an article in Boston Magazine. Good news for the City of Quincy.

Condo Buyers Beware!

Not only are the cities and towns already out of snow removal funds, so are a lot of condo complexes.

If you are planning to purchase a condo, I would highly recommend making your offer contingent upon your satisfactory review of not only the condo docs, but also the condo financial statements. You want to see how much money the association has in reserves. If the reserves are not adequate, you may be hit with a special assessment.

A Special Assessment is an amount of money that the condo unit owners will each be required to pay to build up the condo reserves, or to pay expenses that have already accrued. If the snow removal expenses are beyond what the Association has in reserves, the amount of shortfall will be divided by the number of unit owners according to the square footage of the unit meaning 1 bedroom unit owners will pay less than 2 bedroom unit owners.

Even if they have adequate resrves to cover the costs there may still be a Special Assessment to build up the reserves again. Or, instead of a Special Assessment, the condo fee may be raised. Of course, the unit owners would need a majority vote to do either, but if the money is not there, there is no other choice.

What Will The Housing Market Do In 2009?

A new year is upon us and we are hearing the same question; What will the real estate market do in 2009?

1. First off, the Government has said they will do everything in their power to stimulate the
economy, and they added that to get the economy going, they need to stimulate the housing
market.

2. Interest rates are now in the high 4's and low 5's. The Treasury Department is planning to
come out with a 4.5% 30 year fixed rate mortgage.

3. Prices are down considerably from recent years.

4. Foreclosures are slowing down.

5. With the stock market heading in the wrong direction, Investors will be looking for Real Estate
to invest in.

In fact, National Realty News came out with a great report on January 6, 2009 about the housing market in 2009.
Read about it here; http://nationalrealtynews.com/content/templates/default.aspx?a=1571&template=print-article.htm

Preview of Quincy's 56th Annual Chrstmas Parade

The 56th annual Christmas Parade was held on Sunday, November 30th, despite the rain. The parade started at Elm Street and proceeded the full lenth of Hancock Street finishing up at North Quincy High School.

Attendance seemed much lower this year probably due to the inclement weather.

The young ones did not seem to mind the rain.

Of course, this is the one every one was waiting for!

Quincy Christmas Parade

The 56th Annual Christmas Parade is scheduled for Sunday, November 30th starting at 12:30 PM. Should there be inclement weather, the rain date is set for December 7th.

Santa will be arriving by parachute at Pageant Field on Saturday, November 29th at 12:30 PM.

For more information on all the Holiday Events visit the City of Quincy Web Site at; http://ci.quincy.ma.us/filesDownload/ChristmasFestival2008.pdf

Happy Holidays to all.