Winooski's New Face

Vermont Business Magazine, Apr 01, 2004 by Kelley, Kevin

Vermont's biggest-ever urban redevelopment project gets under way this month as construction crews start to transform dreary downtown Winooski into a bustling mix of shops, homes and businesses.

The 10-year, $185 million effort is intended to fill the void at the city's core. The parking lot and defunct shopping center adjacent to the Champlain Mill will be replaced by a new network of streets and several stone-and-brick buildings, including the headquarters of the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation. More than 1,000 new residents, many of them students, are to be housed in what is envisioned as a mixedincome neighborhood extending east along the Winooski River.

It's going to be a great place to live and work," says Burlington Mayor Peter Clavelle, who served as Winooski, city manager in the 1970s and who grew up in the historic mill town. Downtown redevelopment is beginning again after "a gestation period of more than three decades," Clavelle notes. "The neighborhood that was there was removed in the name of urban renewal with a vision of being replaced by a more vibrant neighborhood, and now it's happening."

The master plan for the project seeks to "provide a human focus for the downtown," says Bill Truex, the Burlington architect who drew up the design. VSAC's offices, which Truex's firm is also designing, will be compatible in materials and form with the renovated mills and with the Winooski Block on East Allen Street, he says. At the same time, the new buildings "will definitely be in the context of the 21st century."

The plan includes creation of a traffic roundabout on Main Street near the bridge linking Winooski and Burlington. This combination traffic-circle-and-park will serve, Truex says, as 'a central point saying, 'This is downtown Winooski'."

But the 35,000 motorists who daily cross the bridge will first have. to endure jams stretching far into the future. Winooski City Manager Gerry Myers acknowledges that the commute is "not going to be pretty" in the months ahead.

Economic development is already taking place, however, in, anticipation of this month's groundbreaking. A five-story office building is rising on the west side of Main Street near Sneakers Bistro.

As part of the redevelopment project's initial phase, 100 townhouse-style apartments accommodating 400 University of Vermont students will be built near where the Higher Ground concert venue now stands. The presence of so many students "will create 24-hour activity within the community," Truex says.

"I don't think the area will be dominated by students. They'll be part of the mix, as in Burlington."

Hundreds of other residents will add diversity to downtown, says Myers. About 12S units of moderately priced housing are to be built with funds from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development and other sources. Luxury homes are also expected to go up along the river bank.

Recent approval of a $24.3 million HUD loan ensured that the project would finally get going after years of planning. Federal officials agreed to provide the money after Governor James Douglas pledged that the state would guarantee the loan.

"I believe the Winooski Falls Riverfront Redevelopment Project can work," Douglas says.

Other elements in the plan include an office building, an eastward extension of the existing River Walk and a sevenstory, 950-car parking garage that, according to Myers, will not be visible from the streets bordering the redevelopment site.

A decade hence, downtown Winooski will have a radically different appearance. The Champlain Mill will be the only current building remaining on the site, and it too might take on a whole new identity.

Ray Pecor, whose family owns the mill, says that the Massachusetts-based HaIlKeen real estate company has an option to buy the building when the first phase of the redevelopment project 'is completed in about two years. The mill might then be converted into housing, says City Manager Myers. But if HaIlKeen declines the option, Pecor says he will renovate the mill as an office and retail complex.

Most principals and close observers of the overall project expect it to be a great success. Pecor, for example, says "it should be spectacular for Winooski."

But a similar degree of optimism prevailed some 30 years ago when downtown Winooski first began to be transformed in accordance with the precepts of the federal Model Cities program. And that undertaking ultimately proved disappointing in many respects.

"Downtown became a disaster," says Dan Higgins, a teacher and photographer who has lived on Center Street since 1969. "A lot of businesses have gone bankrupt over the years," he notes. The new scheme will probably bring improvements, Higgins says - if only because, "I don't think you can hurt downtown anymore."

The Model Cities approach to urban renewal was predicated on the belief that "Winooski had to be torn down and built anew," Higgins recalls. Scores of homes and small businesses were demolished, and a longstanding community disappeared.