Center's Starbucks Closing June 22 For Renovations

Ten days of repairs on Leonard Street begins a day after summer begins.

You won't be able to celebrate the first full day of summer with a cooling  frappuccino in Belmont Center. Due to issues with its plumbing and refrigeration units, Starbucks has pushed up by nearly two months the scheduled renovation of its store on Leonard Street. The location is now scheduled to close on Friday, June 22 for 10 days, opening the week of the July 4th holiday. The coffee shop at 47 Leonard St. is a decade old and was placed on the list of locations across the country to undergo a near-gut rehab and be supplied a new updated look. But since the news came out, the store has had to closed one of the two restrooms due to plumbing problems as the refrigeration equipment has been needing frequent repairs. Rather than committing …

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Belmont Savings Rings In on Wall Street

Belmont-based financial institution at the closing bell at the NASDAQ in the Big Apple.

Robert Morrissey, chairman of BSB Bancorp, Inc., the holding company for Belmont Savings Bank, presided over the NASDAQ Stock Market Closing Bell on May 8 in New York City to celebrate the organization’s continued momentum as a fully public-owned company. The Bank recently celebrated a new branch opening in Waltham.   At the NASDAQ podium, Morrissey was joined by members of the Belmont Savings Bank management and Board of Directors, including: Bob Mahoney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Belmont Savings Bank, and Hal Tovin, Chief Operations Officer of Belmont Savings Bank.   A video of the closing bell ceremonies can be viewed here.

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Transforming Precious Metals into Lasting Beauty

Alchemy 9.2.5, Belmont Center's newest jewelers, is co-owned by Belmont's Munya Upin.

In the 1930s, anthropologists dug up a matched set of sea shells in a South African cave. The ocean, they noted, was many miles away and the type of mollusk not a food source. The scientists assumed that whoever brought them back must have found the shells beautiful. Seventeen of the shells had been perforated, as if to be strung. The holes in the shells also showed wear from twine or leather. The conclusion: 100,000 years ago, one of our ancestors collected the shells for a necklace, to wear or give to someone else. The scientists suspect that the find is the earliest example of jewelry. As anniversaries, birthdays or holidays like Mother’s Day approach, shoppers will be looking for symbols of esteem and affection beyond what they can …

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Coiffeur to Caffe: Center Barbershop Transforming to Coffee Shop

"Family" store across from Macy's will be before Zoning Board for hearing.

It was before 9 a.m., Monday, May 7, and Miroslav Rahnev had already finished with one customer and had two others waiting their turn at his small barbershop, KOCA Barbershop, located at 80 Leonard St. in Belmont Center. The master barber, who has operated his business for the past four years, said he has a successful operation at the busy commercial center. Rahnev is now looking to use his entrepreneurial talents and open a new coffee shop in his current store directly across for Macy's near the corner of Alexander Avenue. The Belmont resident will come before the Zoning Board of Appeals tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Beech Street Center to seek permission to open a "family-run" shop run by his wife, Maria, at the location of the barbershop…

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August Renovation Set for Belmont Center's Starbucks

Part of nation-wide program to spruce up long-opened stores.

Coffee aficionados who congregate at Starbucks' Belmont Center location will need to find some other place to get their Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino fix for at least a week-and-a-half in August as the location undergoes extensive renovations, according to Starbucks staff. The coffee shop at 47 Leonard St. in the heart of Belmont Center is more than 10 years old and is on a list of locations across the country to be given a near-gut rehab and a new updated look. Customers and residents will be greeted with new wood-like chocolate-colored flooring and large coffee murals along the wall. A large supporting pillar near the serving area will be pushed back and the working area will be expanded so servers have room to work. There will be new…

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Belmont Savings Extends Reach, Opens In Waltham

Branch opening coincides with release of first quarter results.

A branch of Belmont Savings Bank will open for business today, May 1, in Waltham, the first located outside the bank's traditional Belmont/Watertown home. The bank, at the Shaw's supermarket at 1070 Lexington St., is a full-service branch with two ATMs and a night drop box.  The branch, the first expansion by the Belmont Savings in more than a decade, coincides with the bank releasing its first quarter earnings in 2012, showing net income of $447,000 as compared to net income of $1.5 million for the first quarter of 2011. Since the beginning of the year, Belmont Savings' assets have increased by $49.7 million or 7.4 percent to $718.7 million. Looking at the numbers, the bank has seen net loan growth, including loans held for sale, of $29.5…

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Photo Gallery: Breaking Mooos: Moozy's is Open

Businessman and BHS Ice Hockey coach brings back ice cream to former Brigham's location.

When Dante Muzzioli was 16, he rented an ice cream truck. "It was kinda fun cause we would hit the sites around here so I did it my senior year also," said Muzzioli, who turned that entrepreneurial spirit into a successful landscaping and general contracting business in Belmont. Yet he always remembered that first truck and also about the good times he and many people had in Belmont where everyone came for ice cream. "I remember coming to Brigham's since I was a young kid and how people had such happy times here," the long-time boys' hockey head coach said of the old-style ice cream shop at the corner of Belmont and Trapelo that served town residents since the 1930s. So when he heard last year that the Belmont Brigham's was closing, …

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Letters to the Editor

Neighbors, Residents Question Scale of Cushing Village

Cushing Square Neighborhood Assoc. release list of 10 areas to consider about the proposal.

Despite press coverage indicating the contrary, there are actually broad areas of agreement on the redevelopment of Cushing Square amongst all parties.  All groups want the vacant lots controlled by developer Chris Starr to be redeveloped with a mixed-use infrastructure of a somewhat larger scale than structures now in other parts of Cushing. There is broad support that increasing property taxes to the town is important. Were the proposal in line with what the developer, residents and town officials envisioned during the negotiation and passage of the Cushing Square Overlay District By-Law (CSOD) in 2006, there would be virtually no opposition to the plans. The core disagreement lies in scale: Structures covering nearly the entire site, at…

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Rojas Resigns From Planning Board

Course of Cushing Village now in the hands of developer: continue or re-start review process.

The wait is over. Newly-elected Belmont Selectman Andy Rojas resigned yesterday, Monday, April 9, from the Planning Board. But while he will no longer be a voting member, Rojas will continue to follow the board's actions as the Selectmen "has agreed to have me serve as their (Planning Board's) liaison," Rojas told Belmont Patch in an email today, April 10. Rojas' resignation would appear to throw a monkey wrench into the review of the Cushing Village development proposal which the Planning Board has been holding meetings for more than a month. With a reduced board, the development team – lead by Smith Legacy Partners' principal Christopher Starr – could risk having a divided board which would frustrate an already contentious process. But …

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