Wayland

Wind River Environmental, a group of septic services companies based in Hudson, has bought a similar company in Pennsylvania that will boost business about 30 percent, Wind River's co-founder and top executive said Friday.

Legacy Warrior LLC has sold its portfolio of office condos in Wayland for $1.3 million, according to Greater Boston Commercial Properties (GBCP), which handled the transaction for the sellers.

Boston-based mobile software company Drizly is working hard to make doorstep alcohol delivery the latest convenience for consumers living in a push-button world, and the MetroWest suburbs are its latest frontier. The startup offers its mobile app to retail liquor stores in four major cities, including Chicago, New York City (plus the Hamptons) and Los Angeles. But bringing the services to MetroWest towns that include Natick and Wayland, to start, will test the viability of the Drizly app on suburbanites, a departure from the urban dwellers Drizly has catered to since launching last year.

A company specializing in home furnishings for real estate staging purposes will occupy the building at 321 Central St. in Hudson following a $2.1-million sale on June 18, according to Wayland-based R.W. Holmes Realty.

The minimum wage in Massachusetts would increase from $8 an hour to $11 an hour by 2017 under a deal announced Wednesday night by top House and Senate Democrats.

Setting out on what they say will be a long campaign, lawmakers are seeking to pass legislation that would tax carbon at $5 per metric ton.

When it comes to demand for rental housing, as Boston goes, so goes MetroWest, and developers are planning new apartment complexes throughout the region to take advantage of a rental boom.

Business tenants looking for commercial office space often look to MetroWest as an affordable alternative to Boston that's still highly accessible and close to all the right amenities.

An office building formerly occupied by BJ's Wholesale Club in Natick has been sold and will be converted into executive office suites, according to R.W. Holmes Realty of Wayland, which brokered the deal.

Cost of living in the nine-town stretch of MetroWest between Hopkinton and Natick ranks above that of Boston, according to a report released last week by Framingham State University. The school's MetroWest Economic Research Center (MERC) issued its cost of living index – which it gathers and shares with a national organization called C2ER that tracks national prices – last week at its 21st annual conference at the Verve Crowne Plaza in Natick.