Brattleboro region picking up foot and hoof traffic

Vermont Business Magazine, May 01, 2004 by Brush, Cassandra Hemenway

With a red hot real estate market, a new 305-space parking garage, and a slow but steady occupancy in industrial space, Brattleboro might just be on the mend after last year's economic doldrums.

Higher end homes are selling like the proverbial hot cakes in Windham County.

"All real estate, especially it seems the higher end housing, has really experienced a significant increase in appraisals," said Kurt Isaacson, Executive Director of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation.

"There's just not a lot of open available land that can be developed, so that's driving the costs higher," Isaacson opined. "There's not a huge inventory of high end homes, so those that are available are going for top dollar."

Tom Franks, Building a Better Brattleboro's new Executive Director noticed the region's vastly improved real estate market when he moved to the area from Montpelier last fall. He said he looked at one house, but it had been snatched up by the time he checked back on it.

"The market was tight, expensive, and very fast. I suspect people are doing well," he said.

"We keep hearing over and over again about residential properties that barely get listed and are gone overnight. The market is so hot right now. Prices are high," said Jim Matteau, Executive Director of the Windham Regional Commission. "It seems to have increased a fair amount over last year."

In fact, Matteau said people in the construction trades are cashing in on the glut. In such a feast or famine industry, the feast is on.

"If your average contractor is looking at more work than they can get done in a year, they're going to go for the $300,000 or $500,000 home, as opposed to the $120,000 home," Matteau said. "So it's what's not getting its fair share of attention in this kind of hot market is what most of us would term affordable housing."

The good news for locals is that the high end market is drumming up so much business for contractors, that local building supply stores seem to be thriving, even after Home Depot moved into the former Ames Department Store site in January. While Home Depot created 90 jobs, it did not apparently suck business from the niche-oriented local industry, according to Matteau.

"I had a conversation with a building supply manager just last weekend when I was buying tools for my use at home," said Matteau, "He said he's cutting back on the different tools he carries, but what he is carrying is responding to the contractors he's serving. That's the way businesses have to deal with a Home Depot or a Wal-Mart. They find a niche."

Commercial Real Estate Is Slow and Steady

Although expensive homes are selling well, commercial real estate is 'flat or declining" according to BDCC's Isaacson. Last year Brattleboro saw one of the largest commercial real estate vacancies in years, with over 1 million square feet of space empty. Commercial space is slowly filling up, but incrementally, and mostly due to growth and expansion of local industries, he said.

ROV Technologies is buying and moving into the old 51,000square-foot Northeast Cooperative building, although the "new" 167,000 square foot NEC building on Technology Drive remains empty. Chroma left its leased Brattleboro space for a new 24,000-square-foot facility in Rockingham; BDCC's building, the "Book Press" is less than half full, with an extra 180,000 square feet of space available. Nonetheless, several new businessesmoved in over the past year, including: Northampton Plumbing supply, Granite City Electric, Crofter Moving and Storage, Vermont Interactive TV, and New Chapter.

"We're never going to see a large company that's going to move to town and create 200 jobs overnight," Isaacson said. "What you will see is this incrementalism of Crofter needing more storage, and Northampton Plumbing needing to expand into this market, and New Chapter expanding..."

C&S Wholesale Grocer's Inc. the region's largest business with $7 billion in annual sales, and 1,400 employees - is still planning to move its corporate offices to New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Isaacson noted that C&S closed two warehouses in New England recently.

"We are hoping that some of those jobs will migrate this way," he said.

Northeast Cooperative was bought out by United Natural Foods, which moved operations to their Chesterfield, NH, location just across the Connecticut River last June, leaving that building empty, "but we've had some interest from a few different sources."

The Cotton Mill complex remains at a high occupancy rate, with 87 percent of its space filled by "an eclectic mix from artisans to machine tool manufacturers."

All told, Isaacson said between closings and new businesses, the area has about 25 new jobs, and a few new or expanded businesses, such as: a new Japanese and a new Thai restaurant; expansions in New Chapter, Candle in the Night, Vermont Bread,, and Omega Optical.

Two major construction jobs that had clogged up Brattleboro's downtown have finished, clearing the way for easy access to downtown parking, not to mention a refreshing availability of parking spaces.