Small Town, Big Debate in Vermont
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Dec. 11, 2009
Downtown Brandon, Vermont
Drive into the tiny town of Brandon, Vt., and you'll see a Main Street with a grocery store, inn, hardware store, and other shops. It's a downtown from another era.
Now a Massachusetts developer wants to build a strip mall in Brandon. While some residents welcome the prospect of a 53,000-square-foot development with a modern grocery store, others say it's too big for a town that currently makes do with about 5,400 square feet of retail space.
"We see [the proposed project] as a grave threat to what we have here. The scale of the project is so beyond anything that we have in Brandon; it's just totally off the charts," says James Leary, spokesman for the Coalition for the Preservation of Historic Brandon, formed in the summer of 2008 in response to the proposal. "There's a sense of community. People do their shopping; they bump into each other downtown."
At a hearing on Monday, the coalition presented three witnesses who testified that the proposal conflicts with both the town's master plan and its Land Use Ordinance.
"This is a downtown that we love because it's a downtown that really serves its own community. It's what we try to have happen in Vermont," says Paul Bruhn, executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont and one of the three witnesses who testified at the Dec. 7 hearing. Bruhn's group gave a matching grant to the coalition.
But many of Brandon's 4,000 residents welcome the new shopping center. "It's just a small group that's opposed to the project," says Eugene Pagano, who ran a business in downtown Branford for 40 years. Pagano gathered about 1,000 signatures for a petition in favor of the proposal. The current grocery store "doesn't have variety, and the pricing is not good. … If this new development can create 180 jobs, beautiful. We need the jobs in Vermont."
At a hearing scheduled for next month, developer Bill McCabe of Second Generation LLC will have the opportunity to cross-examine the coalition's witnesses. Following that, the town's development review board will approve or reject the proposal, a decision expected next year. Even if they grant local approval, the final decision lies with the state, under a statewide development program known as Act 250.
Pagano says a new strip mall won't hurt the existing downtown. "How could it kill something we don't have? All the stores are empty, and what stores are open are either art galleries or antiques shops," he says. "While [shoppers] are here, they might go into what we have left in Brandon, and it might entice someone to rent these empty stores."
To donate money to the coalition, visit the Preservation Trust of Vermont.
For more photos, stories, and tips, subscribe to the print edition of Preservation magazine.
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Comments
Submitted by Brandon Native at: January 29, 2010
The reason the stores in the "downtown" area are not thriving and there are empty store fronts is simple. They don't cater to the needs of the average citizen. The only downtown store I visit regularly is the Aubuchon Hardware and Brigg's Carriage bookstore. The new development going in on the edge of town isn't a "strip mall". A strip mall is a long chain of small stores. All that is going in is a new Hannafords, a family sit down restaurant, and one or two other small storefronts. When you have a town that has lost two of it's biggest employers last year, 180 new jobs is a good thing to bring in.
Submitted by Mark Zelis at: January 24, 2010
Hanafords has answered the question : Can the Brandon support 2 Groceries Stores. Their answer was to shut the existing store down(buy the store out) and threaten to leave the building empty if the development of the Stripmall on Nickerson is halted.
Submitted by restorevt at: December 20, 2009
Why don't we just make and sell little plastic "down towns" at Wallmart so people can put them in front of their big screen TV's and remember the good old days
Submitted by Kevin Thornton at: December 16, 2009
My friend Gene Pagano is blatantly off the mark in his description of our town. Brandon has, in just a few blocks, a book store, hardware store, florist shop, pharmacy, grocery store, town office, clothing store, hair dresser and two restaurants, all of which would be endangered by this strip mall.
Submitted by lynne at: December 15, 2009
i live in a historic neighborhood of Cleveland (Tremont) that is like a small town within the city. A 75 acre shopping center recently reclaced part of a steel mill. We certainly have plenty of other shopping nearby. The funny thing is we see our neighbors here just as often( or more) than the old shopping areas. Even the Target employees have noticed how the customers know each other.
Submitted by Willy at: December 14, 2009
The key words in this are spoken by the Mr Pagano in the article. "All the Stores are empty", there has to be a way to integrate a nice few stores that offer the variety and grocery shopping into the downtown. For someone whom ran a business for 40 years in the downtown area, how could he be in favor of this?
Submitted by Brian at: December 11, 2009
180 jobs will be created? But main street is currently empty? I used to believe in this sort of "economy stimulus", but I am beginning to see the reality of supply and demand. Where will the money come to purchase items in these new stores? That money, if it exists, will stop going where it is currently being spent. Does this mean that the next town's businesses will lose 180 employees?
Submitted by anna at: December 11, 2009
How many bad decisions have been made with the excuse of job creation... There is nothing good about a strip mall, that's why it has become almost a curse word. If the Main Street stores are empty why not fill them instead of building new ones?