[W]ith a five-story, 84-room hotel under construction as a backdrop, Gov. Peter Shumlin announced tax credits for an $11 million project that serves as the latest step in the revitalization of downtown St. Albans.
“We’ve got a vibrant downtown that is the heart of community, which is where we grow to know each, love each other, and take care of each other in Vermont,” Shumlin said at press conference Thursday.
The event on Lake Street was held to highlight a total of $2.25 million in tax credits for 21 projects across the state, including the St. Albans hotel.
Projects receiving tax credits announced Thursday ranged from upgrades to the Waterbury Center Grange for use as a community arts center to work at the Royalton Memorial Library to improved accessibility.
The governor said the new Hampton Inn at St. Albans project will allow the city to receive $103,492 in sales tax reallocation credits. The $103,492 comes from sales taxes generated on the construction materials associated with building the hotel, which will be reallocated to the city to fund infrastructure improvements, including new sidewalks, landscaping and lighting upgrades.
The hotel project comes on the heels of other downtown developments in St. Albans in recent years, including construction of a parking garage and state office building,
“Ten years ago we could only dream it, we could only imagine it, today, we can celebrate it,” St. Albans Mayor Liz Gamache said. “None of this could happen without a community that came together to see the possibilities and overcome barriers.”
PeakCM, the Williston-based project developer, started work on the hotel in April, with an expected completion date of next April, just in time for Vermont Maple Festival, one of the biggest annual events in the region. American Resort Management will operate the hotel.
The city contributed $1 million from its redevelopment fund for the hotel’s construction, with the developer repaying St. Albans over five years at 3 percent interest.
“It’s not city tax dollars,” St. Albans City Manager Dominic Cloud said before Thursday’s event. “It’s private dollars that the city has assembled through our development activities.”
The city manager said that when funding issues threatened the project, the city’s contribution served as a “catapult” to move it forward.
In many cases, Cloud said, developers chose to pursue projects in the suburbs because they don’t want to take the risks associated with work in a community’s downtown, which can range from dealing with brownfield sites to parking issues.
He said those who support efforts for downtown developments need to take steps to not only “level the playing field, but tilt the playing field, and that’s what we’ve done here.”
Jeff Davis, PeakCM vice president, said after the event Thursday that the city’s assistance in the project, including the $1 million contribution, were vital.
“It made it possible, that investment,” he said. “We’re paying them back over time.”
Davis said the project was “a little ahead of schedule,” and on budget.
He also said his son, Jerry Davis, the company’s president and CEO, could not attend the event as he was trying to finish up other work before heading out of town Friday.
The hotel construction in St. Albans comes at a time PeakCM has been struggling to get paid for work it did in Northeast Kingdom developments that ended in fraud allegations against the developers, William Stenger, former CEO and president of Jay Peak, and Miami businessman Ariel Quiros.
State and federal lawsuit filed in April accuse Stenger and Quiros, owner of Q Resorts, a holding company that includes Jay Peak, of misusing $200 million in money through the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program.
Jeff Davis said the St. Albans hotel project, as well as other developments underway, helps the company move forward and keep people working, including about 40 to 50 a day at the Lake Street site.
“We’re about ready to ramp up because we’re going to get the roof on,” he said of the hotel, adding that will boost the amount of workers at the site to as many as 75 each day. “We’re going to have people working outside and inside.”
In addition to the hotel project, other developments in St. Albans were awarded tax credits Thursday, including $202,500 in tax credits for a $1.3 million project to rehabilitate the Prior Block building at 12-16 North Main St. The money will help fund work to the 1925 structure to provide accessible ground-floor commercial space and housing units to the upper floors.
Also, $154,947 in tax credits were awarded to a $1,248,938 project to improve the historic Franklin County Savings Bank and Trust Building at 6-10 North Main St. That project includes installing “”historically appropriate” windows, putting in an elevator for greater accessibility, and converting upper floors into “market-rate” housing units.
“We’ve come a long way,” Shumlin said Thursday to the crowd of more than 50 people, including many St. Albans business and community leaders. “Without the downtown tax credits and the entire mosaic of this community pulling at every little thread, it wouldn’t have happened.”
