Our Vision: To improve our community and region by investing in valuable projects, building connections, and empowering entrepreneurs.
—Mill Town Capital website
Tim Burke grew up skiing at Bousquet Ski Resort and working out at Berkshire West Athletic Club. After graduating from St. Joseph’s High School, he left the Berkshires to study business at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., and admits, “I didn’t think I’d ever come back.”
However, after several years of working with large global companies (such as United Technologies) in corporate finance and a few more in the biotech industry, he decided to leave Boston in 2015. “My wife is also from Pittsfield, and our friends were starting to move back,” he notes, adding, “We always looked at it as a great place to live and raise a family.”
He now serves as CEO of Mill Town Capital—an “impact investment platform” aimed at making Pittsfield and the surrounding region a better place to live, work, and play through traditional investments, impact investments, and philanthropic community work. “I met Dave Mixer (Mill Town’s founder and chairman) as he was formulating his plan and I was still living in the Boston area,” Burke explains. “He offered me a job to help him launch Mill Town and I accepted and moved back.”
Mixer had a similar story. After working in corporate finance for most of his career, he wanted to “come back to Pittsfield and do something.” Using his experience starting companies, spotting talent, and being an entrepreneur—first in Washington, D.C., then in Providence, R.I., and finally in international finance—Mixer created a fund to invest in the Pittsfield community.
“No one in our generation looks at Pittsfield the way it is often viewed today, as a GE [General Electrics] clean-up site,” Burke points out. Believing in Pittsfield’s potential to rise from the ashes, these investors looked beneath the tainted soil and found fertile ground for carefully planned investment and development.
“Dave’s idea of charity work wasn’t just writing a check and going away,” Burke notes. “He wanted to build things that would be productive and contribute beyond the initial investment.” Beyond philanthropy, Mixer’s goals included improving the quality of life by “driving economic development and job growth, stabilizing the population, and creating new housing and educational improvements.” When Mixer and Burke started looking at the landscape and meeting with people nearly a decade ago, both believed “This could work.”
A place-based vision with a three-pronged approach to growing the portfolio
Mixer’s mission in founding the company in 2016 was to drive positive business development and community impact not only in Pittsfield but throughout the region. “Is this project good for the region? Is it good for the local economy? Does it have the chance to spur economic development or other potential investment, and if so, how can we make it work?” These are the questions the Mill Town team has asked itself since the beginning when exploring investment opportunities. “Finding the right fit is key for both the community and the investors,” Burke explains.
Although both Mixer and Burke grew up here, the fact that they lived somewhere else for so long meant they were “not from here” in many minds—until they proved themselves. “People were skeptical at first,” Burke acknowledges. “It took four or five years for them to fully trust our vision.”
Recognizing that change is the one constant you can rely on, Mill Town kept looking for new ways to create value. As Burke notes, Mill Town’s work generally falls into three categories: traditional investments (aimed at making market rate returns), impact investments (long-term projects that are important to the community or connect to other pieces of the portfolio), and pure philanthropy (community-minded collaborations).
Creating housing and a better place to live
Mill Town’s first area of focus was real estate/housing and entrepreneurship to address the longstanding housing crisis. “We have a lot of very old infrastructure built years ago when the population of Pittsfield was 65,000. A lot of real estate needs to be repositioned, including both the buildings and the utilities,” Burke explains. That’s no easy feat as an investment strategist when the cost of contractors, materials, and interest rates keeps rising. Still, they have accomplished much—mainly using private funds, enhanced by TIF (tax increment financing, which spreads out taxes over the years).
The real estate portfolio includes 230 units of residential housing in Pittsfield, some market rate and some affordable (including 60 new units in the Tyler Street neighborhood, improved single-family homes, multi-family rental units, and mixed-use properties). “There’s always concern about gentrification, but there is such a dire need for housing,” Burke continues. “We’ve worked hard to build new developments and acquire existing units while keeping tenants’ rents roughly the same.” To maintain them well, Mill Town established its own long-term property management company (Blueprint Property Group)—with facilities expertise, project management talent, and maintenance service for residential and third-party rentals/leases.
In addition to investing in housing, they are also greatly enhancing the surrounding community. “We own enough property in the neighborhoods that our investments impact not only housing but also parks, community projects, and elementary schools,” Burke shares. For example, partnering with Morningside Community School and The Mastheads, Mill Town is currently working to address literacy and bring teaching artists to elementary public schools.
Making the Berkshires a better place to work
To ensure that these neighborhoods and the Berkshire region remain a place people are proud to call home, they’re boosting local enterprises, too—investing in restaurants and retail establishments, broadening access to amenities, and creating job opportunities. These improvements are changing the quality of life for residents, business owners, and visitors—and creating long-term sustainability that doesn’t rely solely on tourism.
Their investments include well-known businesses like Greylock Storage, Drifters Bar & Restaurant, The Central Downtown Inn & Suites, Gateways Inn, Green Apple, and Framework Pittsfield Coworking. And since 2020, Mill Town has been investing in and supporting entrepreneurs and companies with scalable concepts across all stages of company development—from idea generation to business development—both in the Berkshires and beyond. Their venture capital investments include Access Parks, Artistory, Dive Technologies, Health Helper, Marty’s Local, Ready Responders, Sustaine, and VidMob.
How has Mill Town’s investment influenced the broader economic landscape? As Michael Coakley, business development manager for the City of Pittsfield, states, “They’ve invested more than $20 million in the Tyler Street/Morningside neighborhood and were instrumental in the city getting an additional $3.5 million grant for the redevelopment of site 9 in the William Stanley Business Park.” By serving as the “imminent developer,” Mill Town enabled the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority (PEDA) to secure a state grant, which will fund 100,000 cubic yards of clear fill to make the old General Electric 16.5-acre parcel a viable option for future tenants. Once the area is greened over and has service roadways and utility corridors (by October, they hope), redevelopment can begin.
Coakley praises their countless other investments as well (St. Mary’s Church, North Street, Bousquet Mountain, and Bousquet West, among others), noting, “Dave and Tim both grew up here, and most of their employees did, too, so they’re very familiar with Pittsfield. We’ve seen a lot of good things so far and feel like we’re on a roll… things are only going to get better!”
Making the region a better place to play
Mill Town’s third area of focus was recreation. “We began meeting with the owners of Bousquet Mountain and Berkshire West in 2016, but it took several years to close the deals,” Burke points out. The Bousquet renovation involved both long-term patient capital and impact investment. “Preserving Bousquet was important for the social return,” Burke states, and the Pittsfield city government and state representatives played a part.
After agreeing on a deal, the first priority was renovating the ski area, stabilizing the investment, and making it sustainable for the next generation. “The infrastructure needed a lot of attention—the extent of the work was pretty severe,” Burke recalls.
Expanding the Bousquet complex for year-round offerings made it more valuable for the local crowd, not just seasonal tourism. Focusing on season passes, junior passes, learn-to-ski programs, and a tiered pricing structure that includes discount pricing in March and payment plan options allowed them to “keep pricing competitive and at a level that would make it last long-term.”
After acquiring Berkshire West—the 1970s-era athletic center across the street from the ski resort—they rebranded it as Bousquet Sport. It is undergoing a 15,000-square-foot expansion plus extensive renovations to the facility, including areas dedicated to tennis, pickleball, fitness, yoga, and golf. “Bousquet Sport is 80 percent complete and is expected to be finished by late fall. We definitely see the older demographic joining for tennis and pickleball, but we’re also starting to see the 20-to-40s age group joining the gym,” Burke points out.
Mill Town also created Camp Arrow Wood—a new sleep-away summer sports camp for kids ages nine to 16—on the former Lakeside Christian Camp site on Richmond Pond. Work there began during COVID and gradually finished earlier this summer, when they ran three- and six-week summer camp sessions on the property.
“It’s been a dream of mine for over 30 years to build a camp—a place that blends the goodness of sports with all the amazing traditions of camp, and a place where we can impact people’s lives forever,” Camp Arrow Wood director Matt Linick shares. The programming combines traditional camp activities with sports to empower kids to develop their passions and explore new interests.
Mill Town Foundation—meaningful impact through philanthropy
Through Mill Town Foundation (MTF), the company has invested in countless local and regional nonprofits. Supporting sustainability, conservation, education, and vibrant arts and culture experiences, they’ve extended their reach with the goal of “improving the quality of life in the Berkshires one neighborhood at a time.” Their foundation’s nonprofit collaborations include a Berkshire Natural Resources Council (BNRC) project called the High Road connecting towns and villages across the Berkshires via trail networks, and the 2020 Berkshire Outdoor Recreation Plan, created with Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC) and other local partners—out of which grew berkshiresoutside.org, a go-to guide for hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, fishing, and other activities by BRPC and 1Berkshire.
“I remember sitting down with Tim Burke in 2017 as Mill Town was just establishing itself in the Berkshires,” recalls Roots Rising executive director Jessica Vecchia. Because of the nonprofit’s deep community work, Burke reached out to connect and learn about the local landscape. “We were about to launch our first Farm Crew that summer and Tim and Dave came out to the farm to see our crew in action,” she continues. Mill Town Foundation chose Roots Rising as one of its first nonprofit partnerships and has been a loyal supporter ever since.
“In a region with over 1,000 nonprofits but limited funding sources compared to bigger cities, consistent and significant support from organizations like Mill Town Foundation is critical,” Vecchia states. Mill Town supports many cultural organizations—including Barrington Stage Company and Berkshire Theatre Group, Berkshires Jazz and Lenox Jazz Stroll, Berkshire Museum, Hancock Shaker Village, Jacob’s Pillow (On the Road and Wandering Dance Society), Love Pittsfield (including Tanglewood in the City and 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival), and Shakespeare & Company (Fall Festival and Shakespeare and the Courts).
Meeting the growth challenge and sharing the model
Mill Town Capital has established an impressive track record over the past six or seven years. With a core team of 15 people, they now employ 120 people in the region during the summer and over 300 during the winter through the investment company and its businesses.
So far, their plan to focus on the local region and make it a better place to live is working. In 2023, the team received 1Berkshire’s “Putting the Berkshires on the Map” award. This May, Downtown Pittsfield, Inc. (DPI) awarded Mill Town the 2024 Downtown Pittsfield Community Award for “their continued commitment to the downtown through capital investments and their support of DPI and organizations that promote growth and activity in the district.”
“We are able to invest in projects at a scale that’s enticing for businesses to bid on,” Burke notes, “but we’re at a point of pressure right now to get this right. All of us feel a real responsibility to make sure it works. Building is easy compared to operating successfully.” Mixer and Burke are now expanding their geographic focus throughout New England and Eastern New York—a trend we can expect to continue in the coming years.
Their 10-year vision? “We’d like to have a robust portfolio of sustainable pieces so we can leverage our assets and maximize our ability to do more,” Burke says, adding, “We want to multiply our impact and outcomes.” Working with the Donahue Institute at UMass, they’re conducting ongoing economic development analysis to trace the multiplier effect.
Beyond Mill Town’s region-wide impact, their unique approach—blending business and philanthropy— offers a blueprint for other mill towns and communities experiencing economic challenges in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Mixer’s ultimate goal is fine tuning and using the model to inspire and empower businesses in other areas. “We’re constantly looking to grow and share what we’ve learned over the years with other communities, people, investors, and philanthropists to see if there are ways we can help them progress using what we’ve done in Pittsfield,” he says.
