By Dave Matlow

The Fresh Market will open Oct. 7 in the former location of Shaw’s Supermarket on Westport’s Post Road, one of the property owners said today.
Jay Kowalsky today outside the future home of The Fresh Market at 605 Post Road East. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

“The coolers, tiled floors, overhead and track lighting, and HVAC have been installed, and the deli department cases are coming in this week,” said Jay Kowalsky, president of Kowalsky Real Estate, the family-owned company of the longtime Westport Kowalsky family.

He said that the opening day festivities at 605 Post Road East will include a live music quartet and outdoor grills to prepare food samplings. 

“We’re resurfacing the parking lot, we’ll have new lighting and are planting islands with the same theme as seen on the Post Road island entrance to the Sherwood Connector,” he said.

An entrepreneurial professional twosome, Dawn Matera and Michele Isenberg, have opened a practice, A Way To Learn, at 175 Post Road West in Westport to assist children and adults who live with learning disabilities. Highly qualified educators, Matera and Isenberg worked together for several years at the Eagle Hill-Southport, a school dedicated to students with learning disabilities. With their new business, the two provide supplemental help to students and adults. “We are not a school, we are a support service,” said Isenberg. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Westport-baaed Terex Corporation today announced that it will be consolidating the manufacturing of the equipment made at its Cedar Rapids, Iowa, plant into other Terex facilities in North America. About 170 jobs will be affected.

Engineering, sales and service functions for materials processing equipment now made at the plant will be retained at the facility for the foreseeable future, the company said. These account for about 50 jobs.

“The worldwide recession has greatly reduced construction equipment orders. As a result, manufacturing capacity across the company is greater than needed to meet foreseeable market demand,” said Tom Riordan, Terex president and chief operating offficer.

“The decision to move manufacturing from Cedar Rapids was not an easy one because we know this action affects team members and their families.

Gordon F. Joseloff: sale saves taxpayers $775,000. File photoThe Town of Westport today completed the sale of $19.6 million in general obligation refunding bonds rated Aaa by Moody’s Investors Service.

“Market conditions made today’s sale better than we expected,” said First Selectman Gordon F. Joseloff.

He said the refunding, conducted through Piper Jaffray & Co., will result in savings of approximately $775,000 to Westport taxpayers.

The refunding included maturities from 2010 to 2023 at yields ranging from .35 percent to 3.52 percent.

A Massachusetts-based retailer of high-end “contemporary, new and resale designer clothing” for women, Second Time Around, will open this month at 135 Post Road East in Westport, opposite the post office. The company has 20 stores including three locations in Boston and one in Greenwich.  The site has been vacant for about a year and was previously occupied by the Garden Store, according to Laura Leeds of Westport’s Simon David real estate. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Westport once again is gaining notoriety for a financier and firm involved in a Wall Street bailout and pay-for-performance controversy.
The Nyala Farm office complex on Greens Farms Road houses Phibro LLC. File photo

This time it is Andrew Hall, the British-born trader behind Phibro LLC, the energy trading arm of bleaguered bank Citigroup. Phibro is housed in the sprawling Nyala Farm office complex on Greens Farms Road, which some reports have simply called a “former dairy farm.”

According to some accounts, Hall is in line for a $100 million payout tied to oil trading profits he made for his firm.

Back in March, there was a similar controversy surrounding Westporter Joseph J. Cassano.(See WestportNow March 18, 2009) He headed the money-losing financial unit of American International Group, the insurance company which paid millions in bonuses after a $170 billion government bailout.

Karlie Urbaniak: Fairfield U. grad. Dave Matlow for WestportNow.comThe Westport/Weston Chamber of Commerce has added Karlie Urbaniak as sales and marketing director, Lisa Thygerson, executive director, announced.

Urbaniak, a Minnesota native who holds a B.S. in marketing from Fairfield University, will orchestra marketing communications as well as assist in new membership recruitment and retention.

.“I am excited to have the opportunity to use my interest in marketing to help the Westport/Weston Chamber of Commerce grow to the kind of chamber that effectively supports and represents all of the businesses in our community,” she said.

The Chamber office is located at 215 Main St., phone (203 227-9234 and its Web site is www.westportchamber.com.

Casual Male Retail Group, a chain of specialty clothing retail stores, has opened its Casual Male XL location at 1505 Post Road East. The space was previusly occupied by the company’s Rochester Big & Tall men’s apparel store. Rochester Big & Tall had occupied the location for about a year. (See WestportNow May 15, 2009) (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo