2024 Robert S. Bowditch Economic Development Award

Kathryn “Katie” Krock

The WBDC is pleased to announce the 2024 recipient of the Robert S. Bowditch Economic Development Award: Kathryn “Katie” Krock.

Katie Krock is indeed a remarkable woman in business and a wonderful role model for women given her many talents and incredible contributions here in the Heart of the Commonwealth. She earned her undergraduate degree in fashion design from Drexler University in Philadelphia, and soon thereafter used her talent on a new trajectory when she became interested in and passionate about her family's business—developing, redeveloping and managing key buildings and properties in Worcester, MA.

In a relatively "short" period of time, Katie has brought her creative talent, vision and positivity to her development work. She has tackled some of the most complex projects with hands-on tenacity, determination, and a "get-it-done" approach while juggling competing demands from construction and financing, to project management, business development, and all while raising two adorable kids with her husband. Together, they are great life and business partners; they are kind and generous, industrious and accomplished.

The WBDC has been so fortunate to have worked on many complicated projects with Katie. Over recent years, it has been our distinct pleasure to get to know Katie through the many phases of her project. She has an incredible intuitive approach to her business. She is passionate, committed, honest, kind and generous, funny, intelligent and hard-working. She has an admirable "give and take" approach; she is willing to listen, is flexible and responsive, and she has an uncanny ability to juggle many demands from business to family. We are very fortunate to have her energy and drive here in the City.

Katie has been involved with development in the Worcester area for the last 20 years. Her first successful project was developing a spirits and wine tasting venue KJ Baaron’s. She has managed several buildings owed by her family including the Commerce Building at 340 Main Street and successfully completed the historic restoration of the Central Building at 332 Main Street into 55 affordable apartments with 7,000 square feet of ground floor retail to include a much needed child care facility. These types of uses are critical to the ongoing development of downtown Worcester into a neighborhood—a vision that Katie is keenly focused on.

Katie is a huge fan of Worcester and serves as a role model for women and for peers in local development by contributing her time, talent and resources to help make her community a better place for all. She is fearless and has taken on the redevelopment of not just one historic building on Main Street, but several blocks in Worcester’s Central Business District that include historic preservation, complete “gut-rehab” work, anchoring the North Main Street/District Court House area, and repurposing several significant, long-standing properties into new commercial, retail, office and housing spaces. She concurrently has supported entrepreneurial businesses, such as Maker to Main, established a day care center for tenants and employees, and builds facilities with attractive, contemporary amenities from work spaces for start-up businesses to food establishments and services for downtown residents and employees.

Building upon her vision, Katie acquired the vacant Unum/Paul Revere building at 18 Chestnut Street utilizing the first federal Economic Opportunity Zone financing in the City. The WBDC was so inspired by her vision and happily agreed to help with this important and complicated project. The project consisted of a fully renovated 200,000 square foot building which has been reimagined into Worcester’s first “Non-Profit Center”. This project has delivered quality, accessible, and centrally-located space for Worcester’s most critical non-profit agencies for years to come while concurrently creating a large downtown development opportunity for the Worcester Redevelopment Authority (WRA).

Six long-standing local non-profits moved from the Denholm building, due to its significant decline, to Chestnut Street. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Mass & Metro West, Center for Living & Working, Inc., Easter Seals Massachusetts, Mass EdCo, United Way of Central Mass, and Worcester Community Action Council now call 18 Chestnut Street home.

Another example of her community support shone brightly at the start of the Pandemic, when Katie and her family immediately stepped up with a very large donation to the Worcester Together Fund.

From revitalizing downtown, being responsive to tenants’ and service providers by addressing critical needs to include discounted space, and addressing gaps in the overall City development agenda, to her philanthropic contribution to our most vulnerable, the WBDC is pleased to award the Robert S. Bowditch Economic Development Award to Kathryn “Katie” Krock. You have clearly “exceeded” Mr. Bowditch’s expectations for success in the area of economic development.

Past Bowditch Award Recipients