The iconic Yellow Barn in Hardwick, now refurbished and occupied by a Cabot Creamery retail store. Photo by Kristen Fountain/VTDigger
At long last, the Hardwick Yellow Barn project is almost complete.
On Sept. 14, Cabot Creamery held a grand opening for its new retail store in the historic and newly renovated barn just off Route 15 and the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail.
The store is just one part of the $8.3 million project. “Yellow Barn 2.0” involves both rehabilitating the iconic barn on the northwest side of town and building the shell of an adjacent 22,000-square-foot “accelerator” space that project organizers say will serve as a critical piece of the local food system. Project leaders say they also hope that the space will serve as a place for locals and visitors to shop and be a point of interest to rail trail users.
The public-private effort has been in the works since 2017 and received support from numerous government organizations, donors and lenders. According to the project’s website, the barn rehabilitation is “substantially complete” and the accelerator shell is close to completion.
The two tenants for the accelerator space include Greensboro cheesemakers Jasper Hill Farm and the Hardwick-based Center for an Agricultural Economy, a nonprofit that works to strengthen the local food system by facilitating the flow of local products across the state, as well as providing infrastructure and educational outreach. Both tenants need to fit up each of their space’s interiors.
According to the project’s website, Jasper Hill plans to use its space to consolidate its inventory from scattered locations across the state and expand its e-commerce fulfillment, while the center plans to expand its capacity to aggregate and distribute locally produced food in a space called the “Food Hub.”
According to Jon Ramsay, the 20-year-old center’s executive director, its goal is to start operating out of the solar-powered, net-zero Food Hub in January. The total cost to outfit the center’s space is $4.1 million, a fundraising goal it has yet to hit.
Adjacent to the refurbished Yellow Barn in Hardwick is a 22,000-square-foot ‘business accelerator’ space to be occupied by Jasper Hill Farm and the Center for an Agricultural Economy. Photo by Kristen Fountain/VTDigger
“The new Food Hub will provide a vital link between farms producing local food and markets for their products which is essential to their long-term viability,” Ramsay said in an email, adding that products from over 100 farms and food businesses are expected to flow through the center’s space.
“Our farms producing local food are vital to the health of the regional economy and to the health of Vermonters,” he said. “They provide jobs; they provide healthy food to Vermonters and they preserve the state’s working agricultural landscape.”
The Food Hub is expected to free up space at the Vermont Food Venture Center, a space where food businesses can process their product in a shared-space commercial kitchen, as well as allow “more breathing room” for the Center for an Agricultural Economy’s Just Cut program, which processes produce that is sold to schools, hospitals and food shelves.
The center plans to hold an open house to showcase its new space as well as its two other Hardwick locations on Oct. 5.
According to Yellow Barn 2.0’s website, all three tenants can commit to 25 full-time-equivalent jobs created or saved as a result of the venture. The property is owned by the Town of Hardwick, which contracted with the Northeast Kingdom Development Corporation to manage and operate the Yellow Barn project.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Hardwick Yellow Barn project nears completion.