It used to be that Worcester was known for bargains and dirt-cheap prices, but are high-end stores soon to be the norm?

By Scott Zoback

When Nordstrom spokesman Michael Boyd offhandedly told the Telegram & Gazette this September that the chain was looking as much to the west into Worcester County as it was into Boston when it located a new store at the new Natick Collection, it could have easily been overlooked as the usual drivel of a marketing pro spilling whatever BS comes to mind.

&quot;If you just look at the overall market, the population and the demographics of the area are certainly appealing,&quot; said Boyd, citing 50,000 Nordstrom cardholders within the area 50 miles west of Boston. His remarks read as being targeted directly to the audience.

But Boyd&#39;s comments aren&#39;t easy to pass by when it&#39;s part of a larger gestalt of upscale development in the area.

Over the past few years, Worcester and Worcester County have seen a not-so-subtle tectonic shift of sorts. Where once we were the domain of the cheap stores of lore, now the area has become the province of condo developments and mid-to-upscale retail.

Gone are Spag&#39;s, O&#39;Coin&#39;s and the Kelley Square Flea Market.

Here are Tush, Nordstrom and The DZian Art Gallery.

When the hell did that happen?

Where once there was Spag&#39;s

If there&#39;s any place to begin a eulogy for a pervasive frame of mind, it&#39;s at the site where that mentality was born.

Spag&#39;s was, not too long ago, the world&#39;s Mecca and Medina of cheap. We, for one, never missed an opportunity in our pages to reference Spag&#39;s as an icon over the years: It&#39;s been a synonym for &quot;cheap&quot; (Wright&#39;s Chicken Farm became a &quot;veritable Spag&#39;s of dining&quot;) or just a way of describing a particular peculiar behavior (&quot;The Spag&#39;s mentality in action,&quot; we declared on hearing someone describe buying four pairs of shoes for $80 at the old Kelley Square Flea Market). We once suggested &quot;The Spag&#39;s Mentalities&quot; and &quot;The Spag&#39;s No Bags&quot; as potential names for the Can-Am baseball team before the Tornadoes won out. Hell, we&#39;ve even started a regular feature (&quot;Chuckie&#39;s Cheap Worcester&quot;) that is an acknowledged spin-off of that desire for all things Spag&#39;s-esque.

INC.com retail columnist and Massachusetts-based consultant Ted Hurlbut says that the Spag&#39;s mentality was omnipresent for years.

&quot;Historically, Spag&#39;s was such a dominant presence. If not in fact, in image. You thought of Central Mass., you thought of Spag&#39;s.&quot; It was, in a word, &quot;Spagtacular.&quot;

In any case, Spag&#39;s eventually became not-Spag&#39;s. Building 19 took the store over a few years ago, tried to combine the two cultures in name and function, made some changes (bags at Spag&#39;s, for example), and then decided it wasn&#39;t working out. The company proposed redeveloping the site, and although they are not part of the final team, earlier this year, the town of Shrewsbury approved national development company AvalonBay&#39;s proposal to build 400 condo units on the Spag&#39;s property.

Just think about that for a minute. The Taj Mahal of random bargains, now a cookie-cutter condo development. That sound you hear is Spag turning over as he reads that sentence.

What we&#39;ve got

The redevelopment of the Spag&#39;s parcel is emblematic of the well-documented glut of so-called luxury condos through Metrowest into Worcester County. Artist lofts in Marlboro complement ongoing projects in Worcester. But the rise of a Central Massachusetts upscale attitude goes far beyond living arrangements. It&#39;s the retail and dining options that are the most visible changes in the market.

Everyone has seen the steady rise of trendy/higher-end dining in the city over the past couple of years. Take Shrewsbury Street: it&#39;s no longer just the Italian Restaurant Row; indeed, trendy non-Italian places now outnumber Italian joints on the strip. There&#39;s a similar phenomenon in the Canal District, where clubs and restaurants cater to a much broader audience than in the past. Tom&#39;s Deli on Water Street and the Pho place on Green Street still do a good business; but so do the trendy club Fusion, the no-longer-a-dive-bar Dive Bar, and Bocado. There&#39;s Sushi in Kelley Square, Indian food coming to Green Street, rumors of another tapas place on Harding Street, and reports of a themed &quot;adult saloon&quot; in the old Prime Mortgage location. The sign endures but does the attitude?

On the retail end, there&#39;s a store like Tush, a denim boutique in the old Crompton and Knowles Loomworks across from Block 5 that features jeans and outfits that are light years beyond what you&#39;ll find at TJ Maxx.

&quot;This is a city; these are the things a city should offer,&quot; says Michael Covino, one of the foremost pioneers of that &quot;certain type&quot; of business in town. He&#39;s one of the guys (with his wife Deb) behind Tush; he&#39;s also the co-owner of Block 5, Bocado and Mezcal. As he talks, a guy in a Red Sox sweatshirt with his girlfriend in tow pick through a rack of trendy hoodies and $150 jeans.

&quot;People leave town for this stuff,&quot; says Covino. In other words, why not keep them here?

It&#39;s the same concept behind The Hanover Theater, scheduled to open in March, 2008. If people from Worcester, Central Mass. and Metrowest are traveling to Providence, Hartford and Boston for their entertainment, the thought process goes, why shouldn&#39;t they come here?

On the flip side, why should the businesses come here? Even Covino admits, &quot;The Spag&#39;s mentality scares some entrepreneurs. We need to get outside of that.&quot;

Covino states that &quot;it&#39;s a changing mentality,&quot; citing the fact that one of his restaurants valet-parked 80 cars on a recent weekend. A year ago, he says, he couldn&#39;t have convinced 80 customers to let him take their cars if he paid them.

It&#39;s all part of what Covino considers the pervading philosophy in town, even more than the so-called Spag&#39;s mentality.

&quot;It&#39;s about a perception of value,&quot; he says. &quot;If you do right by them [customers], they do right by you.&quot; Shannon Gray (left) and Deb Covino, owners of Tush.

In Covino&#39;s eyes, it&#39;s not just about the price point, it&#39;s what you get at that price point. Charge $15 for a meal that people think is worth $10, and you&#39;ll be vilified. Charge the same price for something people perceive as worth $20 and you&#39;re set.

Covino again poses that ever-present question, especially for people outside the city: &quot;Do I go to Boston, Providence or Worcester?&quot; Here, he says, you can still find that slight value advantage.

Hurlbut says that what is happening in the Worcester area, at least with smaller retailers and restaurants, is representative of a larger trend nationwide.

&quot;It&#39;s really the evolving dynamic of the industry,&quot; says Hurlbut. &quot;Retail has had so much consolidation, that everyday commodity goods have really been taken over by the Wal-Marts and Targets of the world. That has squeezed out a lot of smaller players.&quot;

So for smaller chains and independent entrepreneurs looking to make a mark, &quot;The opportunity that exists is for higher end.&quot;

&quot;A lot of entrepreneurs are trying to create higher-end experiences. Customers are seeking out that that is unique and unusual. The entrepreneurial retailers are trying to attract that little more upscale, little more affluent [customer]&quot;

Is there a market?

But do those customers exist?

&quot;The resurgence in Worcester is on the higher end,&quot; says Hurlbut. Referencing The Natick Collection, he says, &quot;Retailers are very much focused on where the new money is. Older wealth doesn&#39;t tend to spend as much at retailers. There are so many dollars in that area but it&#39;s clear the focus of new money is out to 495 and into the Worcester area.&quot;

Worcester Director of Economic Development Timothy McGourthy agrees, citing the 42% of 25-to-34-year-olds in town with bachelor&#39;s degrees or higher, and the usual litany of benefits the city has.

&quot;Anecdotally, people want that upper-scale place to go,&quot; he says.

On a small-business scale, Covino says he, too, hears enough anecdotal evidence to convince him that there are enough people in town who want to eat here, shop here and live here. Similarly, there are people from surrounding areas who are looking for non-Boston locales to find - again &mdash; that added value.

McGourthy, Covino, Assistant City Manager Julie Jacobson, Berkeley Investment officials, city real estate brokers &mdash; everyone loves to talk about that supposed mass of &quot;affluent young professionals.&quot; It&#39;s a hard thing to track directly, but officials and business owners all reference the presence of the universities and the hospitals as a key driver of that crowd. Covino specifically references UMass Medical employees as a key source of his business.

&quot;People [originally from out of town] say, &lsquo;We&#39;ve been here for 12 years - it&#39;s awesome, I can do that here [now].&#39;&quot; Checking out Worcester's emerging upscale scene.

Still, the bigger retail chains want more than anecdotal evidence. And The Natick Collection again provides the best evidence that chains are looking west. According to marketing data from parent company GGP, The Natick Collection&#39;s primary &quot;trade area&quot; includes the Worcester County region right up to the Worcester line. And The Solomon Pond Mall, and The Shoppes at Blackstone in Millbury, combined with The Auburn Mall and The Greendale Mall &mdash; while not on par with The Natick Collection &mdash; represent a critical mass of mid-scale shopping that usually precedes the next level of high-end retail.

McGourthy, like Covino, cites changing perception as a key reason for this sudden attention.

&quot;It&#39;s a question of, is it a tapped or untapped market?&quot; he says, pointing to places like Neal Rosenbloom Jewelry and The DZian Gallery that have filled a niche, building on the several existing upscale businesses that have been in town for years.

&quot;It&#39;s the beginning of that change. It&#39;s the market&#39;s wake up to the fact that there are people here looking for the higher end.&quot;

McGourthy, ever the optimist, recognizes that it&#39;s not going to be a sudden flood.

&quot;First have been restaurants,&quot; he says. &quot;I think retail is starting to follow now, but it&#39;s a slower process.&quot;

To McGourthy, who last worked at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, it&#39;s all about the continuing trend for young professionals to move farther and farther from Boston. As they move, the logic goes, so will the stores.

&quot;Part of it is you&#39;re seeing that march west &mdash; Solomon Pond, Blackstone Shoppes &mdash; but it&#39;s still in that inception stage.&quot;Locked out.

Now, they get us

Since the initial architect&#39;s renderings of CitySquare depicted what looked like a Banana Republic along Front Street, it has been known that project and city officials would like to get some higher-level retail outlets in the project. Berkeley head Young Park, Vice President Barbara-Smith Bacon, and City Manager Michael O&#39;Brien have continually issued variations on the theme: It&#39;s about getting a certain type of client.

And it&#39;s not just CitySquare: the Wyman-Gordon property has also been cited as a potential &quot;urban shopping village,&quot; and home for the same types of stores wanted for CitySquare, should it get bought by a developer. Of course, that&#39;s a big if. It is impossible to ignore the fact that both Wyman-Gordon and CitySquare are, thus far, the city&#39;s own private vaporware. Despite that, city officials maintain &mdash; off the record, of course &mdash; that big-name, higher-end retailers have been looking at a variety of spaces in Worcester.

McGourthy won&#39;t talk specifics, but does say that there have been a growing number of businesses exploring Worcester.

&quot;Definitely. People have been coming and looking,&quot; he says. &quot;These higher-end retailers look for more established markets. As they begin to prove themselves, I think we&#39;ll see more major marketers.&quot; o

I&#39;m not dead yet! Spag&#39;s lives forever!

It isn&#39;t all high-brow and high-fashion, though. Michael Covino can talk about the &quot;perception of value,&quot; but the truth is that in Worcester, there&#39;s still a demand in many quarters for the cheap seats. That&#39;s why The Hotel Vernon, with its $1 &lsquo;Gansett drafts, has carved out a niche with both blue-collar Vernon Hill types and hipsters; it&#39;s why &quot;free valet&quot; is still the rule for many restaurants.

Take a classy club like Union Blues: This is still a populace that balks at paying a cover charge in excess of $5 at clubs, and its high cover charge was one of the prime reasons Blues couldn&#39;t make it. That attitude is something that new businesses of all types in town must plan for and contend with.

And then there&#39;s our love and demand for free and close parking, a theme that has been well-documented in these pages over time. A few years back, we ran a full cover story on &quot;Our God-given right to parking.&quot; More recently, we were part of the weeks of media coverage over the fact that there wasn&#39;t enough free parking within walking distance of the new courthouse. Only in Worcester; any other city, such a parking situation would be expected. This is the city where people complained about the Common Outlets/CitySquare parking garage fee when Berkeley proposed raising it from 99 cents. The mall had been abandoned long ago; doomed, some say, by the fact they charged for parking at all.

Heck, there&#39;s still enough &quot;cheap stuff&quot; cachet in town that the big guns, in the guise of Wal-Mart, in many ways the bastard progeny of Spag&#39;s, have finally realized we exist (somehow we&#39;re not as excited as when Starbucks found us). They&#39;re building a Super Center (their version of a combined grocery and department store) in Quinsigamond Village of the city, their third such facility planned for Worcester County. Statewide the retail giant has gone from three Super Centers to six, either opened or in the process of opening in the past year. They also have 39 retail stores across the state.

So yes, we recognize that regardless of the number of businesses that move in, the truth of the matter is that the Spag&#39;s mentality &mdash; in some form &mdash; is embedded in the region&#39;s culture deeper than Spag&#39;s itself. o

&mdash; S.Z.