Juicygreens closed at 305 Washington Street on June 30. For a few weeks the space sat the way empty storefronts in Islington always seem to sit: blinds down, a taped-up sign, foot traffic from the library and the pizza shop next door walking past without much of a glance. Anyone who has lived in this stretch of Westwood for more than a decade has watched that pattern before. A tenant leaves, the space goes quiet, and the corner waits.
What's different this time is who is filling it. Ron's Gourmet Ice Cream, a family business that has been scooping in Hyde Park since 1976, is opening its third location in that exact spot, expected late summer 2026. The Select Board approved the Common Victualler license earlier this year, and Ron's announced the move on social media; WhatNow quoted the team saying, "We've been keeping a pretty big secret."
Ron's arrival marks another stage in Islington Center's redevelopment. After nearly a decade of planning, rezoning, and rebuilding, the center is preparing to welcome a new family business.
A Redevelopment Written Into One Town Meeting Vote
The corner of Washington and School Streets didn't get its CVS, its library, or its condominiums by accident. The Islington Center Task Force formed in September 2015 to study the block. A Request for Proposals went out in 2016. Petruzziello Properties was the only bidder. And on May 30, 2018, Town Meeting approved three warrant articles in a single sitting that decided almost everything about what the block would become: an anchor CVS, eighteen two-bedroom condominiums with underground parking, a relocated home for the Mothers Morning Out preschool, a new municipal parking lot, and an expanded Wentworth Hall to house the Islington Branch Library, Youth and Family Services, and the town's recreation programs.
The town's projections set out the financial case for the project. The effective value of the town-owned parcels involved was projected to climb from about $615,500 to roughly $2,769,000 once the project was complete. Annual tax revenue on those same parcels was projected to rise from just over $62,000 to about $481,000 a year, netting the town close to $424,000 annually after covering service and operating costs. The Board of Selectmen spent three years negotiating with a single bidder.
Not everything survived the plan. The Blue Hart Tavern, a historic building the redevelopment was supposed to preserve and relocate, could not be saved and was demolished by its owner in March 2019. The rest of the build, a 55,000 square foot mixed-use building with those eighteen condos, a 14,000 square foot commercial retail building, the renovated library, and a new playground, went up largely as designed.
By 2019, in other words, Islington Center's bones were set. What the town could not vote on was who would want to run a business inside them once the construction fencing came down.
Businesses Joining Islington Center
The mix of businesses has grown one storefront at a time. Neroli Ristorante settled in at 282 Washington Street, an Italian kitchen where executive chef Mario Lepori built a menu of house-made pasta and imported ingredients around a small, warm room a few doors from the library. Islington Pizza and Sub Shop, at 315 Washington, has been a fixture even longer. Maria Tassiopoulos runs the business her family opened back in December 1995, well before anyone was drafting task force meeting agendas. Both businesses are part of the existing mix of storefronts in Islington Center.
WhatNow reported Ron's expansion timeline, from Hyde Park to Dedham Square and its planned Islington location. Ron Covitz opened Ron's Ice Cream and Bowling in Hyde Park in 1976. The company waited more than two decades before adding a second location, in Dedham Square, in 1999. That location just went through a major renovation and reopened in late May of this year. Now, fifty years after Ron Covitz first opened his doors and with his son Jay running the business today, Ron's is choosing Islington for location number three.
The CVS was included in the town-led redevelopment, which involved parcel assembly, a developer agreement, and a financial case. Ron's announced a third location at 305 Washington Street after its earlier shops in Hyde Park and Dedham Square.
A New Storefront for Islington Center
Here is the shift worth noticing if you live nearby and have mentally filed Islington Center under "still figuring itself out." The infrastructure question was answered in 2019. The library, the parking, the condos, and the CVS have been sitting there for years, doing exactly what the 2018 vote intended. What remained to be determined was who would occupy the ground-floor retail, which no zoning amendment could guarantee. Juicygreens was the storefront's tenant until closing in June, after which the space sat empty for a few weeks.
Ron's will occupy the space Juicygreens vacated in June. The company has locations in Hyde Park and Dedham Square, and Islington will be its third location. The shop will join the businesses and public amenities already described in Islington Center.
For anyone who walks this stretch of Washington Street on the way to drop off library books or grab a slice at Islington Pizza, the practical change is a small one. There will be a place to get a scoop of ice cream on the same block, run by people whose ice cream business dates to 1976. Ron's opening adds another business to the center the town redeveloped.
If you're curious what a decade of deliberate village center planning does to property values and demand in a neighborhood like Islington, that's exactly the kind of on-the-ground context Anne Kennedy brings to conversations about Westwood real estate. Reach out for a free home valuation and a look at what's actually happening on your block.
