Although Linden Square in Wellesley is still just a few years old, developer Federal Realty has gradually been sprucing up the shopping area to give it more of a village feel. The latest changes include new signs, flowers and a courtyard area, complete with fire pit, that will serve as a gathering spot for events targeted at kids, adults and in-between (imagine these pictures with people in them having fun and holding shopping bags…I took these at 6am-ish).

Events this weekend include kids’ activities on Saturday, such as face painting, a musical performance and S’mores at the fire pit, and “tween” activities on Sunday, including a 3pm concert by The Varsity Girls. A sidewalk sale and more are scheduled next week.

(By the way, one reader was asking about why the flowers in the new Linden Square islands got yanked. The town says the medians were made wider than they were authorized to be, so the contractor is reworking them. The flowers should return after that.)

While Linden Square has won some (Bonsoir, Staccato) and lost some (Isabel Harvey) of late, the merchants there seem pretty upbeat compared to some in Wellesley Square, which continues to struggle to fill empty storefronts, including the recently vacated Rosie’s Bakery space and the soon-to-be vacated Neena’s space (also see a recent Townsman report on the state of the Square). One local realtor and longtime Wellesleyite, Bill FitzPatrick of Wellesley Real Estate, has also taken to the blogosphere to rant against the changing nature of Wellesley Square, which he dreads will get a Panera Bread shop. (Not to say the Square hasn’t had some new life breathed into it via the openings of Old School Pizzeria and J.P. Licks.)

Monday night’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting addressed the issue of forming a study committee to figure out what to do about the square, and included much discussion of whether the town should move to  a split tax rate, according to a Wellesley Patch report. Businesses and realtors, naturally, don’t want any part of increased business taxes.

One Swellesley Report reader who attended the meeting said no one seemed to have any answers regarding the future of Wellesley Square and that town Executive Director Hans Larsen even alluded to Linden Square’s rise as contributing to Wellesley Square’s issues.

A  spokeswoman for Linden Square said businesses there have spoken of metaphorically building a bridge between Linden Square and Wellesley Square. Another physical bridge might not be on the way between the two squares, though one Swellesley Report reader has emailed us from time to time pushing for a literal pedestrian/bicycle underpass at the extension of Everett street (north of railroad tracks at Jimmy’s restaurant) that would come under the tracks  at the Town Hall park.  “Think about the benefits: Park your car once at Linden St for dinner at Jimmy’s…walk over to listen to a summer concert or get some ice cream at White Mountain or JP Licks.”

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A schmantzy new sign installed today at Linden Square ensures that no will will ever get confused about where they are when at the Wellesley shopping area.

The sign is part of an effort to beautify the area, which is gaining a courtyard and lots of trees.

Linden Square will celebrate the courtyard opening with special events in May, including a sip & shop event on May 18 from 6-8pm.

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Our first stop was Second Time Around, located at 574 Washington St. Actually a consignment shop, not a thrift store, this was our most high-end used-clothing experience of the day. You won’t find many Gap or Old Navy labels in this all-women’s clothing store. It’s more of an Ann Taylor and Michael Kors kind of place. You can also find nice styles sporting labels you’ve never really heard of but saw at Anthropologie, so you know they must be cool.

The Schofield Elementary School moms have got it going on in their PTO-run thrift store, Shoppers’ Corner, located in the basement of the school at 27 Cedar St. We found the Banana Republic orange sleeveless top and a very nice pair of white jeans (pictured) for $3.00 each. They get their inventory of clothing for the whole family through either straight-out donations, which are tax-deductible, or by consignment. Shoppers’ Corner is open Wednesdays, 8:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. and the first Saturday of each month, 10:00 a.m. – noon. Their half-price sale is Wednesday, June 1 and Saturday, June 4; their final blow-out sale before they close up shop for the summer is Wednesday, June 8. Grab a coupon here.

Next, comforted by the “Wellesley” in Newton-Wellesley Hospital, we dared to cross the border into (gasp) Newton and check out The Thrift Shop in the Alan-Riddle building on the hospital campus at 574 Washington St. I hit them on their big winter clearance sale day and things got a little competitive there when it came to the Giorgio Armani pants. Everything was 75% off, and their spring merchandise is moving in on Thursday, March 31, the one Thursday that the shop is closed in the spring. The shop, which sells clothing for the whole family and household odds and ends, depends entirely on tax-deductible donations and is run by the Newton-Wellesley Auxilary. Proceeds are used for the development of Hospital services and facilities. Regular hours during the spring are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

So the next time you’re tempted to buy a $100 t-shirt at one of the many fine boutiques in town, consider one of the lower-priced alternatives…they do exist.

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Groupon, the popular online group buying website, made big headlines earlier this month when it reportedly rejected a buyout offer from Google for more than $5 billion (yes, with a “b”).  While Groupon may be the best known company in the booming social e-commerce/group buying market, a national company called BuyWithMe that was founded last year by Wellesley’s Andrew Moss has developed a major following of its own (not to mention $22 million in funding from Bain and Matrix)  in a market that everyone from AOL to Microsoft is crowding into.

BuyWithMe offers a new local deal each day and users have up to a week to pull the trigger. The website spells out how big a savings the deal gets you and counts down how many days longer the deal will be offered (the merchants get new customers and good advertising). When you sign up for free with BuyWithMe you then get an email a day about whatever the latest deal in your area is — today in the Boston area it’s a romantic couple’s massage in Quincy. You can also get a $10 credit for each person you refer (Click Here! Click Here!).

I recently caught up with Moss, who moved to Wellesley with his family in 2007. He now serves on BuyWithMe’s board, where he provides strategic insight to the company, which has spread to 12 cities nationally and has more to come.

What sparked the idea for BuyWithMe?

The recession and my use of Facebook. I was keen on using social media in some form to bring wholesale pricing to average people. I had previously helped conceive Customink.com, and worked at Giftcertificates.com and that drove some of my thinking. After researching many approaches, I chose this formulation because it was so simple and seemed easy to test.

In a nutshell, what does BuyWithMe do?

We view our core objective as essentially matchmaking on a local level, delivering high quality consumers to high quality merchants. One of the founding principles was rather simple but very hard to execute daily: showcase deals that we actually personally want to buy and share within our own social circles.

Wellesley isn’t exactly known as the bargain capital of the world: How do Wellesley businesses — and local, non-chain ones in particular — fit as potential business customers for BuyWithMe?

Proud to say, we’ve run exceptional Wellesley businesses, including: GrettaCole, Bella Sante, Alta Strada, Upper Crust Pizza, Zoots, Ardan Spa, Id Salon, SkinHeath Centers and others. I believe we’ll be promoting the new Papa Gino’s Pronto, soon, too.

Wellesley has great businesses and we know them well because we live here, so we approached them and they were quite receptive to working with us.  BuyWithMe is pretty well known around Wellesley now — we’ve often been passed around on email groups like Wellesley Newcomers Club, Linden Square’s twitter feed and local friends circles. We are also the ‘deal of the day” on Boston.com every day.

Since you ask for people’s zip code when they sign up, I assume you have a sense of activity by people community by community. Can you shed any light on how active Wellesley residents are in using BuyWithMe? Does Wellesley fit the profile of the type of buyer community BuyWithMe is targeting with its vouchers (as opposed to coupon clipping service)?

We have always been very focused on high quality consumers, and staying away from “couponing”.  Our offers are exclusive group discounts, where you pre-pay for a voucher. There is no coupon. We ask our consumers to tip on full value of vouchers and we hope they have a great experience and go back at full value, tell friends, etc.

We do know a fair amount, and as we develop the product we will do a much better job of personalizing. Wellesley residents are very active — they are ideal consumers for the businesses we try to work with like good places to dine out, shop, see things, spas, etc. The average buyer has made over 4 purchases (7+ vouchers) at an average price of $44/transaction. Wellesley users skew older: The average age is 40, while the average age of our Boston subs is early-30′s. Wellesley users skew a bit more female: 79% of users are female while overall Boston is 76% female. Wellesley users love restaurants: Food & drink makes up 50% of all purchases for Wellesley residents, while they make up 42% of overall Boston purchases.

There’s a pretty mixed bag out there in terms of how local Wellesley businesses are exploiting social media in general. How important do you think it is for local businesses to get a clue social media-wise? Are you seeing any particularly interesting uses of social media by businesses in Wellesley?

This is hard to answer without risk of a lot of over generalization. But, overall, I don’t think businesses in Wellesley do much with social media, to be honest. The reason is probably simply that running a business is a lot of work, and marketing a local business takes focus and savvy that many owners don’t have time, interest or experience to maximize. The return on social media for a local business is likely low. It is not unique to Wellesley.

That is why BuyWithMe is a compelling partner for these businesses. We give them a platform to get immediate results without any cash paid out. They can focus on their business, not the marketing. While we promote them, they are tweeted, and shared all over Facebook, plus editorialized to over 150,000 high quality, highly engaged and influential consumers locally. That exposure now exceeds what they could get even by paying tens of thousands of dollars for print or radio advertising (with inferior results).

With the number of group buying sites exploding, how do you think things will shake out?  Do hyperlocal ones that focus on smaller communities have a chance?

Hyperlocal as a “focus” is not a sustainable model. That is an important element to being more relevant once you achieve scale. Only a few sites can deliver legitimate results that warrant a local business owner’s participation.

Anything else worth noting?

I’d love to encourage anyone to help. Send along ideas or questions. We’re a young, growing company trying to provide a positive experience for all involved and always really happy to hear from people. We’re also hiring, so please let us know of any interested folks for sales and marketing, etc.

Related:

Wellesley mom coaching other moms on the comeback trail

Wellesley business resources

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The Monogram Source store, located at 555 Washington St. in Wellesley, is shutting down this week.

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Let’s see if we’ve got this straight.

Women’s clothing boutique Hazel & Grace cleared out of the challenging 254 Washington St. location in Wellesley last spring to make way for detoxification treatment center Dtox International.

Hazel & Grace took its business to Newton and had an online store.

Hazel & Grace  resurfaced at 9 Crest Rd. Mall in Wellesley in November but its website is temporarily offline as it moves to a new web hosting site

Meanwhile, Dtox’s website has disappeared into thin air, its facility has been emptied and the space is for lease.

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9. Davis Museum: It’s a lost art: The Wellesley College museum lost a valuable painting by Fernand Leger called “Woman and Child.” On the bright side, people have now heard of Leger. On the dark side, he died in the 1950s.

8. Linden Square comes to life. Some stores had moved in during 2007, but it was Roche Bros.’ stroll across the street into glitzy new digs that really signaled this project’s arrival. The simultaneous arrival of designer dog food came not a moment too late for many a starving pet.

7. Hoop dreams: Boston Swelltics and Wellesley High are champs: Who says Wellesleyites can only golf and sail when it comes to athletics? Wellesley is like the new Springfield. We tried desperately to lay some claim to the Celtics championship in light of Ray Allen, Danny Ainge and owner Wyc Grousbeck all living in town.  Though of course we could legitimately lay claim to the Wellesley High Girls basketball championship.

6. Rte. 16/9 bridge/Wellesley Inn site/Grossman’s lot. Wait til’ next year: There were hopes the bridge might be finished this month, but structural and other issues emerged that have delayed it again. The Durant condos to be built on the Wellesley Inn site are now scheduled to open in 2010. The Grossman’s lot situation could see some court action come spring in light of neighbors’ concerns about traffic. Perhaps St. James the Great can spare a few of its vigil participants to set up shop at these sites.

5. Branches are back: The Fells and Hills library branches re-opened in September thanks to hard work by supporters and generous donations from backers. Stumped on something wise-ass to say about this.

4. What happens in Wellesley never stays in Wellesley: Local press went to town when Wellesley was found to be a massage hotspot. A business called Massage Envy later opened its doors offering a legitimate alternative for those who really want a rubdown. Bank robberies and a street cleaner shooting also grabbed headlines in crime-riddled Wellesley.

3. Sprague’s field of dreams, Perrin Park’s dogfight. The turf war settled down and Sprague fields came to life, including a couple of new synthetic fields. A great new accessible playground also opened (as did a refurbished Reidy field, which gave little leaguers a real thrill to play under the lights at night). But while work was still being done on the Sprague fields overflow soccer and other games were pushed to Perrin Park, where dog owners, other park users and the town got into a nasty dispute over dog leashing that’s still simmering.

2. History is history: The old Wellesley Country Club clubhouse got torn down to make way for a fancy new one. Pieces of the old one, site of the town’s birthplace, have been preserved with the idea of sticking them into other buildings around town. Ouch! Just got a splinter.

1. A tough lesson. The dog ate the School Building Committee’s homework and state treasurer Tim Cahill rapped Wellesley on the knuckles before a more modest design for a new high school gained approval from the state. Town residents overwhelmingly voted to support funding for the new school, despite a feisty effort by opponents who warned the school would sink into the ground while also being a financial sinkhole for the town’s residents.

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The USS Eymergeddon cruised into downtown Wellesley this past weekend to  promote a visit by fashion retailer Vineyard Vines at EA Davis in Wellesley. Picture courtesy of marketing company Eymer.

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