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Southbury Women's Club Hosts the Annual Fine Arts Festival
Annual Fall Fine Arts Festival
If you are ever around Southbury in September I would greatly suggest to check out this wonderful event. It is an event for the whole family with free admission. The Annual Fall Fine Arts Festival is a celebration of art, music and food with a focus on exposing local talent and giving back to the community. During this day-long event, different local artists and vendors get a chance to display and sell their art and skills. Other organizations are invited and allowed to partake and promote their brands. The Southbury Women’s Club is the organization who hosts and orchestrates the event. During the event, they can usually be seen facilitating different portions of it, or selling baked goods at their station. Some other individuals worth mentioning are the sponsors as well as the artists that provide the entertainment. This event has been going on years, with 2017 marking its 13th anniversary. The best part about this is that it seems to be showing no signs of slowing down. In addition to giving great exposure to local talent, this event also doubles up as a charity event. 100% of proceeds will go to local charities to help those in needs. Not only are you able to enjoy some special handcrafted artisan items, but by doing so you are helping out the community. Pretty neat I say. The Southbury Women’s Club is a very integral part of the Southbury community. They host many different events and services that affect a lot of individuals daily. Some of the bigger annual events are listed below. Some other services offered range from public education on important issues to raising funds for scholarships and charities.
Learn More About Events in Southbury such as the Annual Fine Arts Festival
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Southbury Plaza - Kmart is closing
Sears Holding Corp. the holding company that owns Kmart and Sears has been going through changes recently. The most obvious ones being the closings of hundreds of Kmarts nationwide. In early 2017 it was announced that around 180 Kmarts were going to close. Later in the year, 28 were added to the list of closing stores.
In Connecticut the latest store to be closed is the Southbury store, located in the Southbury plaza on Main St. N. The closing of this store leaves 3 stores left in CT that remain open: Milford, Watertown, and Vernon. Kmart had around 880 stores open last year; that number has now dropped down to around 600. By next year, that number is expected to drop another hundred. This behavior by Sears Holding Corp. has been happening for several years now. The reasoning behind these cuts can be attributed to the rising online market. This force has been negatively impacting a lot of other brick-and-mortar heavy establishments. One such example is J. C. Penney, who has also had to close a large percentage of stores. This shift in consumer focus has caused the Sears Holding Corp, to report another quarterly operating loss. How will they manage to hold their ground in the face of these new pressures? This downward cycle has been happening for years now. Sears used to have around 3500 stores in 2010, now that number is around 1050: a 70% decrease in stores. While Sears’s executives are claiming that they can turn this situation around, it doesn’t change the fact that the millions they are saving is nowhere near enough to offset the 4 billion of debt they are in. Not only are they doing badly in revenues, stakeholders are starting to lose faith in them, as their stocks continue to plummet. At this point bankruptcy is not a question of “if”, but rather a matter of when. In order to help offset some of its expected losses in 2018, Sears has gone ahead and freed some of its real estate in order to make it available for sale. While this will help a good amount, it still doesn’t take care of their continually decreasing revenue. Click Here for More About The Kmart Southbury Closing Southbury's Non-Profit Wildlife Preservation - The Land Trust
The Southbury Land trust is a nonprofit organization that strives to preserve farmland and natural resources in Southbury. All donations and fees derived from memberships go towards to maintaining and improving the land and the wildlife in its possession.
The volunteers of this organization make sure to maintain the properties. This can be a difficult endeavor, especially with more than a 1000 acres. On the site, there are 44 properties listed, all in varying sizes. All land trust properties are open to the public, with the exception of those that are dangerous for use, or house endangered fauna/flora. Some of the bigger locations have public trails on them, the maps of which can be found online. The Land trust acquires land by donations, or by land owners who offer their land in exchange of its preservation. In instances that money is involved, a combination of state and federal grants, individual contributions, and town funding is used to finance acquisitions. One thing that the Land Trust prides itself in is the impact it is having on the town of Southbury. The amount of preserved land in an area directly corresponds to how much that community cares about its well-being. The Land Trust also goes as far that concern for land and wildlife can be considered a measure for quality of life. Using this definition Southbury would have a very high quality of life. Not to mention that Open space and preserved land does increase the value of properties. One example of the Land Trust’s concern with the surrounding community is its commitment to educating the future generation of farmers. Southbury’s Training School allows young farmers to practice their skills. This school is led by several farmers who have been farming in this community for more than a dozen generations. The featured farmers of this initiative are: Todd Hanan, Ben Platt, Sara Blersch and Dan Slywka. It is initiatives like these that are run by money collected from the community. Another example of the Land Trust’s concern with the surrounding community, is its commitment to educate the community on dangerous and or invasive wildlife and flora. On their website they mention the different species that need to be taken seriously, and what to do if exposed. Learn More about the Southbury Land Trust The Riverview Cinemas and Playhouse in Southbury, CT
Welcome to Southbury’s new movie theater: Riverview Cinemas and Playhouse. This 8 screen, 42500 sq ft. complex opened its theater’s doors in mid-December 2017 for the Star Wars: The Last Jedi premiere. Some other venues of the complex include restaurants, retail space, and 2 apartments.
This complex, owned by the LaFlamme family, was first proposed in 2014. Since then, they have been going through counsel and zoning commissions in order to get the project started. In March of 2015 the zoning commission approved the soil extraction permit, which means that the work was able to start. In the May of 2016, work was delayed since a special Shagbark hickory needed to be cut down in order for construction to continue. The owners wanted to avoid that outcome “at all costs”. After saving the tree, and putting in efforts to preserve it, the foundation of the complex was lain. The projected date of completion for the theater was Dec 2017. As 2017 rolled by, the emphasis was placed on having several screens available for the premiere for the Star Wars film. As promised, the Riverview Theatre had two screens available for the 12/17/17 premiere. Now the real question is how much longer until the rest of the theater is completed? One issue that was raised with the complex was that it would give the town a more “urban” feel, thus taking away from the “small town” vibe that Southbury is so proud of. The owners replied to this by pointing out the number of community activities that the complex would be hosting, as well as the number of jobs it would be creating. In other words, this complex is envisioned to help build the community feel of the small town feel that Southbury is known for. Some of the proposed contributions included: working with the Main Street Theater Company to bring live theater to Southbury; holding a local film festival; show replays of local sport games; special theme nights; senior specials; and holding special discussions about movies and or live theater. Over the next few months tit would be smart to keep a look out for the new developments in the complex. As of now, the retail areas and restaurant lessees still remain unnamed. Click Here for More on Southbury's Riverview Cinemas |