North County

The Sterling Academy of Gymnastics has received a $50,000 microloan from the North Central Massachusetts Development Corp. for working capital for pandemic-related relief and recovery, as well as to help start a remote education program, NCMDC announced on Tuesday.

United Solutions, a Leominster manufacturer of buckets, bins and other storage goods, has paid more than $4 million for a sprawling warehouse just down the street from its current operations.

Fitchburg State University will end the fall semester remotely in light of fast-rising coronavirus cases both in Fitchburg and more broadly, the school announced Friday.

Mark Daigneault, a Leominster native and former men's basketball assistant coach at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, has been named the head coach of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.

Finance and development agency MassDevelopment has issued a $17-million tax-exempt bond on behalf of the Doctor Franklin Perkins School in Lancaster, for constructing a new middle school building and dormitory, according to a joint press release issued Monday.

Fidelity Bank of Leominster will dedicate $45,000 over three years to the Massachusetts nonprofit Entrepreneurship for All, known as EforAll, which launched a Worcester branch on Oct. 1, the bank announced on Friday.

Colleges in New England were already on the lookout for an expected drop in high school-age graduates locally, and struggling in some cases to balance high costs with keeping education affordable for students.

Restaurants are bringing in far less money for food and drink during the coronavirus pandemic – and it’s showing both the hit the industry has taken this year as well as the financial toll declining tax revenue will have on cities and towns.

From the high-end Natick Mall to Solomon Pond Mall to the Mall at Whitney Field and elsewhere, retail plazas already struggling with closing chains are now facing an even more uncertain future because of the pandemic.

When it comes to main streets in Central Massachusetts, town officials uniformly agree: A healthy main street is where foot traffic is king.