Neither the use nor the economics of the 1 Taylor Street transit center have been determined, but that didn’t stop a flood of Montpelier residents from showing up Tuesday night to discuss the latest update on the city’s development proposal.
More than 75 people filled the Barre Street Senior Center’s meeting room to consider proposals and add their perspectives on the future of Montpelier’s city-owned Carr Lot.
City officials and Redstone developers led a nearly three-hour discussion of general and conceptual aspects of the riverside development, which will include a transit center, some public access space and a privately funded development that will be either residential, office space or a hotel.
Architect Greg Gossens presented four possible design schemes, with variations in the size and design of public and park space, parking area, type of river access, building location and public bus access.
The city received an economic analysis for each of the three projects just hours before the meeting, City Manager Bill Fraser said. Officials had not reviewed the document thoroughly enough to present the findings to the public, but the report should be available online this week, Fraser said.
The next public meeting will be held June 25 to take input on building use before a final decision is made by the Montpelier City Council on July 9. On July 30, architects will present preliminary design sketches of the development.
The idea for the Carr Lot project was born nearly two decades ago.
A committee was formed in the mid-1990s to consider purchasing the 1.16-acre parcel for a transit center. After the city secured a brownfield assessment in 2001, the site was found to contain contaminants and was placed on a list of hazardous sites. Since then, previous owner Allan Carr cleaned up the site and Montpelier purchased the land for $1.4 million this year. In January, the city invited development proposals and had three respondents. Redstone was eventually awarded the job.
If all goes as planned, Redstone will break ground in the spring of 2015 and complete the project the following year.
“This whole area hasn’t had a whole lot happening for a while,” Montpelier’s community development specialist Kevin Casey said. “This will change the whole face of the downtown — for the positive. That’s exciting.”
The first floor of the development will house a transit center for Greyhound and GMTA/CCTA buses, funded by $1.9 million from the Federal Transit Administration and $5.1 million from the Federal Highway Administration.
Three proposals remain on the table, Redstone principal Larry Williams said at the meeting.
An office space, the smallest building and the proposal least likely to generate revenue, would cost $4.7 million to develop. A residential building on the property would include 41 dwellings, mostly one- or two-bedroom apartments, and would cost slightly over $7.5 million. The final possibility, a hotel, would have 80 rooms, cover 50,600 square feet, and cost close to $15 million to develop.
The hotel, which is Redstone’s preference, would likely generate the most revenue, though it’s also the most divisive within the community. “And,” Fraser said, “we don’t like being divisive.”
Some residents have questioned the need for more hotel rooms that would be located directly behind the existing Capitol Plaza.
After the initial presentation Tuesday, the gathering broke into small groups to discuss the proposals. Despite the jumble of disparate voices and at-times vehement opinions, some common themes arose from the public discourse: a preference for buses to park off the Taylor Street lot, a strong emphasis on green space, interest in public plazas and some type of river access.
Several residents voiced questions about the need for the building in the first place.
Mayor John Hollar took the mike to clarify. “(Buying this property) has been a goal of the city for a long time,” he said. “The plan was to finance that through commercial development — we’ll need a revenue source to pay for it.”
Parking has also been raised as a concern, with spaces already at a premium in the downtown area. The 1 Taylor Street development will eliminate 120 parking spaces leased by the state. Next week, Fraser said, he will present a plan for a parking structure across Taylor Street. The state plans to add 90 spaces behind the Department of Labor building to offset those losses.
All in all, Fraser deemed the Tuesday night meeting a success.
“I think we did get some messages about preferences for the building, about processes for the design,” he said. “We’re lucky in Montpelier to have interested and intelligent citizens. If we’re hearing others’ ideas and working through problems, it’s a success.”
“The hotel is controversial and that brings people to the meetings,” Montpelier resident Erica Garfine said after the meeting. “It’s a dynamic process and that’s what’s so good about it.”
