Millbury

L.L. Bean is planning to open a shop in the Shoppes at Blackstone Valley in Millbury, the famed Maine retailer announced on Thursday.

Primerica, Inc., a Georgia-based financial-services company with several outposts in Central Mass., including Oxford and Millbury, plans to acquire 80% of Florida firm e-TeleQuote Limited, a senior health insurance distributor of Medicare-related insurance policies for $600 million.

Jushi Holdings Inc., of Florida, has reached an agreement to purchase Nature’s Remedy of Massachusetts, Inc. for $110 million, according to a Monday announcement.

Owned by friends and business partners Jay Rondeau and Jody Barton — both of whom maintain full-time jobs at TJX Cos. of Framingham — the new brewer specializes in small-batch brewing.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced Monday its award of $725,418 in Shared Winter Streets and Spaces program grants for five cities in Central Massachusetts to take initiative on challenges during the winter months. 

Nearly $7 million in state funding announced Tuesday will go toward neighborhood and housing improvements in 10 Central Massachusetts cities and towns.

A self-storage site on Providence Street in Millbury has sold to buyers in New York and Ohio.

Worcester may have improbably managed to keep shoppers coming into the city in the age of new highways and suburbanization, but it didn’t last. In the past decade or two, Worcester has seemed to lose its place as the shopping heart of Worcester County.

Several Central Massachusetts firms are among the recipients of nearly $4.5 million in grants from MassDevelopment aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of taxi and livery services in the face of the evolving for-hire transportation market.

Two Central Mass. companies have received nearly $800,000 in grant funding from the Industrial Rail Access Program, which aims to enhance rail and freight access, the Gov. Charlie Baker administration announced on Nov 19.