Will North is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
Developers and local leaders in two towns say they’ve been able to get new housing projects rolling and, with help from the state, navigate the ever-looming tight budgets and high construction and land costs they entail.
Bennington’s Hale Resources and Northfield Village Development won $1.5 million and $94,500, respectively, as part of a state grant program to revitalize brownfields, or properties abandoned because of pollution or contamination, Gov. Phil Scott and the Department of Economic Development announced Sept. 16.
The grants will help cover remediation of two project sites and “help Northfield and Bennington redevelop vacant sites, create housing units and bring jobs to their downtowns,” according to the press release that day.
Northfield Village Development plans to build a 30- to 35-unit apartment complex at 11 North Main Street, right outside the town’s village. A gas station, then a granite cutting shed, once occupied the land there.
The market-rate apartments will be a mix of single, two-bedroom and studio units, said company co-founder Hugh McLaughlin, and will include laundry services, a weight room, parking, door and fire alarm systems and new appliances. Without the state funds, McLaughlin said, the project wouldn’t have happened.
“That $94,500 grant opened up $4 million in development for housing stock that probably has a 50-year lifespan on it. That’s a pretty good investment,” he said.
McLaughlin plans to present concept drawings to the town in mid-November, and with any luck, he said, break ground on the expected yearlong construction process in the spring.
About 115 miles south, a public-private partnership between Hale Resources and the Town of Bennington is in place to redevelop the former Bennington High School at 650 Main St. Asbestos, lead paint, PCBs and more have contaminated the site.
“We’re really excited to find out that we were awarded the full amount. It’s a huge contribution to the project,” said Zak Hale, a Bennington native and CEO at Hale Resources.
Hale said 17 of the 39 proposed units will be perpetually affordable housing units — which, in Vermont, are mostly for households earning 60% or lower of an area’s median income. A few units, he said, are meant for people facing homelessness.
The remaining 22 will be priced at market rate, he said. The building is also set to house an expanded senior center, the town’s Meals on Wheels program and a gymnasium that will sponsor programs with the Berkshire Family YMCA — all space that will be leased by the town.
Offices for the University of Vermont Extension and the Southwestern Vermont Council on Aging, as well as a public meeting space, are also slated to go in the building, Hale said.
Bennington Town Manager Stuart Hurd explained that the town has looked at the former school for many years to not only preserve a historic building but also to create additional housing. Now, with sufficient funding and a partner in Hale Resources that shares the town’s vision for the project, “We’re very excited that we’re finally at a point where we think we see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
Hale said he expects the project to start on Jan. 1, 2025, and open its doors in July 2026.
The projects in Bennington and Northfield come at a time when housing concerns are prevalent for many Vermonters.
“Housing is the center of everything right now,” said Tom Davis, Northfield’s economic development director. “All issues that communities in Vermont face — with the exception of flooding and things like that — start with housing.”
McLaughlin seconded that statement, calling the town’s housing situation a “total crisis.”
“The housing stock is very limited and somewhat in decay,” the developer said. “So to be able to provide a brand new, one-bedroom, two-bedroom unit with all the amenities, I think there’s a big need for that.”
Davis added that with the “Walmartization” of America and people moving out of downtown areas, “it’s definitely no question that the goal here is to strengthen and revitalize the infill portion of our downtown.”
“Our goal is to do that with a number of projects we’ve got going on right now and a lot of investment in the town,” he said.
One such project is a renovation previously completed by Northfield Village Development at 70 Depot St., in a building that once served as the oldest railroad station in Vermont. The building now has four apartment units upstairs and a Folino’s Pizza location downstairs that Davis said should be ready to open in October or November.
Increasing restaurant variety is needed in Northfield, Davis the economic development director said, “particularly when you’ve got 2,500 college students less than a half-mile away.”
A Norwich University alum, McLaughlin wants to see both the school and Northfield grow together, and these ongoing and upcoming developments, he said, are a continuation of that process.
“I think that Norwich is going to prosper more in the long run if Northfield is an equal partner,” he said. “There’s a marriage there: The town of Northfield does better if Norwich does better, and Norwich does better if the town of Northfield does better. It’s a win-win.”
In Bennington, Hale said the town faces similar challenges. “We have a really hard time with quality housing that can attract and retain professionals who are coming to Bennington,” he said.
“That’s a huge hurdle, and it’s costly to bring new units back online, and not just units but quality units back online, which is what we need to retain people,” he said.
The Bennington High School project is a cornerstone to a broader redevelopment project Hale Resources has been conducting on Pleasant Street, adjacent to the school. Hale described how the street contains 120 units of large, single-family housing inefficiently cut up over decades in a 0.2-mile radius — three times more dense than anywhere else in Bennington, he said.
Although Hale Resources has purchased and renovated about 56 mixed-income units on the street over the last 10 years, Hale said stymied work there had been holding the firm back from “being able to get over the stigma of the area,” which he said people associate with crime and poverty. The new funds and the start of remediation, he said, will help overcome “the hump of bringing prosperity to this neighborhood.”
Now, Hale believes the project will not only attract other developers to Bennington but also “help redevelop this neighborhood and hopefully give people a better feeling about the environment that they’re living in.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Housing plans in the works for Bennington, Northfield.