MIDDLEBURY — For four years, parts of downtown Middlebury have been closed off or under construction for the Middlebury Bridge and Rail Project, as workers replace two aging rail bridges with a tunnel and revamp town green spaces in the process.
The project will finally be completed Aug. 17, according to Middlebury community liaison Jim Gish.
The focus remains on construction and landscaping of Lazarus Park in Printer’s Alley, Gish said. The park is named after the Lazarus family, who ran a department store there until the 1990s. The building that housed the store was demolished in 2015.
Plans for Lazarus Park include a paver labyrinth, funded by the downtown Episcopal church, that Gish hopes will “create a combination meditative space and playful area for kids.” The park will also include a rain garden, according to Gish, and renderings on the Vermont Agency of Transportation website show grassy landscaped areas and benches.
Across from the Lazarus Park, workers have expanded Triangle Park and planted new trees along Merchants Row.
But, as Gish wrote in a post on his Middlebury Bridges blog, some of the trees appear to be struggling. In an interview with VTDigger, Gish blamed the drought. One of the trees will be replaced, he said, and they’re getting watered more often.
“Even in a drought situation here, we’ll be more on top of watering the new plantings here so that they survive and thrive as we open up the new parks,” Gish said.
Apart from the green spaces, Gish said workers are wrapping up construction on the rail corridor. The concrete cap that sits at the top of the precast south wall near Otter Creek is being redone after a new method for applying the concrete did not result in a cap that met VTrans’ quality standards, Gish said.
Despite continued construction, freight traffic through the downtown corridor is operating normally, with one northbound train running in the morning and another headed southbound in the afternoon, Gish said. The downtown corridor was constructed in 1849 as part of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad. Middlebury does not currently have passenger rail service, though a new platform is on its way.
The passenger rail stop, a separate VTrans project that will connect Middlebury to the Amtrak’s Ethan Allen Express line, is slated for completion this fall, Gish said. VTrans is also adding stops in Vergennes and Burlington. The line currently extends from New York City to Rutland.
Gish said VTrans has not put forth a specific date for when Amtrak will begin services to the new stations, but he said it is expected to start at some point next year.
Though the passenger station is part of a separate project, Gish considers it related to the Middlebury Bridge and Rail initiative.
“The improvements to the rail corridor as it passes through Middlebury were the kind of starting point for what had to be done to pave the way for Amtrak service through Middlebury,” he said.
Construction disruption
In September the town celebrated the completion of a new rail tunnel that runs beneath parts of Main Street and Merchants Row. The two roads were closed, and freight traffic was rerouted for 10 weeks last summer to accommodate 24/7 construction.
Many of the downtown businesses, especially those closest to the construction site, felt the impact of the project. The Vermont Book Shop, which has been in its Main Street location since the 1950s, was “at ground zero” during the road closure last summer, according to owner Becky Dayton.
“We had a Porta-Potty and wash station and a chain-link fence right outside our front door,” Dayton said.
Even beyond the two closed roads, the project disrupted regular business. John Wetzel, owner of the Stone Leaf Teahouse in the Marble Works District, said foot traffic slumped. Construction cut off one of the paths to Marble Works, Wetzel said. The walkway has since reopened, and Gish said there will soon be an ADA-accessible pathway between Marble Works and Main Street.
Anticipating the impact the construction would have on businesses, a group of community stakeholders — including St. Stevens Church and Better Middlebury Partnership — formed Neighbors Together to help businesses weather the project, especially the 10-week closure from July 13 to Sept. 18.
“We were not expecting Covid, of course, at the same time, which just created a kind of double whammy for us,” said Karen Duguay, executive director of Better Middlebury Partnership. “But we also had been prepared for a pretty disruptive summer, so to that end we were actually maybe a little bit further ahead than some of the communities that got hit with Covid disrupting everything too.”
The town government hired the partnership to lead Neighbors Together, Duguay said, and to channel grant money from the Vermont Agency of Transportation. The group ran classes and workshops in empty storefronts, organized markets for local artists and ran promotions for Middlebury businesses.
“I feel really strongly that communities struggle the most — downtowns really struggle — when there’s apathy and when people don’t really pay attention to what’s happening or don’t care,” Duguay said. “In my mind, I felt like we could get through anything as a community as long as we maintained that connection to folks.”
Downtown vacancies
Main Street and Merchants Row both have a handful of empty storefronts. Duguay said each closure resulted from a unique set of circumstances, and they cannot all be attributed to the economic impact of the pandemic or construction.
But she thinks many spaces likely remain unfilled because of the construction. While there is always some turnover downtown, spaces typically do not remain empty for long, Duguay said.
Pandemic aside, “it’d be really hard to have somebody come in and open a brand new business right at the beginning of this massive construction project,” Duguay said.
Though the passenger rail station is not slated to begin operations until 2022, downtown business owners hope it will bring more visitors from New York City and other stops along the Ethan Allen route. Wetzel hopes the platform’s location will also expand the scope of what people consider downtown to the area beyond Main Street.
But some business owners are skeptical about the impact the station might have. Though she hopes it will bring more visitors to town, Dayton is not convinced the Middlebury station will be connected to Amtrak service.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said.
Even with connection to Amtrak still far in the future, the end of work on the bridge and rail project in August and the completion of the platform this fall may still be a boon for businesses. Wetzel said he thinks the construction near Marble Works keeps people away. Even so, he is excited for the updates to downtown.
“It’s a good change,” he said.
Gish, who has devoted nearly six years to the bridge and rail project throughout the planning and construction phases, said he is not sure what is next for him, though he joked about “two weeks on the water in Maine.”
“It’s a combination of things coming to an end at the right time,” Gish said, referring to the construction and the pandemic. “So it feels like we will have passed through a challenging time in the history of the town of Middlebury and have readied ourselves for the next phase in our town life.”