Groups convert old buildings into housing
Toolbox
By GORDON DRITSCHILO Staff Writer - Published: January 29, 2006
As Vermont communities look for ways to meet skyrocketing housing demands, one answer might be right under their noses.
In recent years, area housing agencies have had a number of successes renovating long-vacant historic buildings and converting them to affordable housing, and officials say they think the approach has a bright future.
The Tuttle Building in Rutland is one of the most widely known of such projects. Neighborworks of Western Vermont, which provides home loans and funds for housing projects in Rutland, Bennington and Addison counties, has completed one in its home base of West Rutland and is planning another in Brandon.
"We're just getting a grant to study Brandon High School on Seminary Hill," Neighborworks director Ludy Biddle said. "It was built in 1916 and later abandoned. It's been vacant for 20 years."
Biddle said the three-story, 17,000-square-foot building shows a lot of promise, and her organization is considering converting it into condominiums.
"It's 10 strides from downtown, across from a playground," she said. "It's wonderful."
Biddle said she was encouraged by Neighborworks's success at the Kazon Building, a former dress factory the group converted and opened as offices and apartments in 2004. In the past year and a half, Biddle said, the apartments have mostly been full.
"One person moved out, so we have a vacancy this month," she said. "Some have been here since we opened. There's been a steady demand."
Biddle's counterpart in the Barre-Montpelier area is Tim King, director of the Central Vermont Community Land Trust. King said his group is involved in a similar project in Bradford and recently converted a seminary building in Waterbury Center into apartments.
"They're doing very well," he said. "They're not dissimilar from the rest of our rental portfolio in terms of ease of management. A conversion costs a lot, but if you do it right, it becomes like a new construction project in terms of maintenance."
King and Biddle question though whether renovated historic buildings can meet most of Vermont's housing needs.
"I don't know that a significant portion can be met," Biddle said. "There are other forms of housing that need to be in the mix, but the historic buildings can certainly play a role in meeting the demand."
King said the expense of the approach is a barrier to wide implementation.
"The private sector tends not to do this," he said. "You cannot produce new units of housing in really old buildings for what the cost of new construction would be. Public funds need to be spent to make that possible. You're not going to get the rents in the private sector to make this worthwhile."
Indeed, Biddle said public involvement was the only way the Kazon building could have been saved.
"This building had 65 steel-frame windows," she said. "A commercial developer is not going to be able to invest in the preservation of these beautiful features."
Which is not to say restoring historic buildings is always a losing proposition for private developers. Charles and Darlene Atwater of Andover recently converted a massive old house on Clarendon Avenue in West Rutland into four condominiums.
"It was gorgeous," Darlene Atwater said. "You looked at it and said 'wow.' Redevelopment has its pitfalls. You open up a wall, you don't know what you're going to find. It was worth it."
One of the condos has sold and Atwater said there's plenty of interest in the others. She also said affordable housing is a better investment than some might think, especially now, when the housing market could be peaking.
"We could build million-dollar homes on the mountain or do something long and steady," she said. "When the market shifts downward, this place will still be solid."
Where the public is willing to make the investment, King believes it will pay off.
"I think it could be a huge dent in affordable housing demand," he said. "Historic buildings generally lend themselves to some multi-family use, because they tend to be big. It could go a long way toward solving the affordable housing crisis."
Historic buildings have another selling point, Biddle said. They tend to be located in downtowns and business centers.
"You're accomplishing another goal: smart growth," she said. "It's putting housing near schools and workplaces and shopping centers so you're cutting down on use of land and the infrastructure that goes with creating housing in what was once a beautiful pasture."
King said that sort of development tends to be good for communities.
"It helps revitalize downtowns, bringing people there to shop," she said. "It's true community economy and the benefit and goes way beyond the value of the housing. It's solidifying the community, filling schools that might be empty, a whole host of benefits."
Kenn Sassorossi, spokesman for Housing Vermont, said it's a popular approach around the state. Housing Vermont is a nonprofit group created by the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. It works with local groups on housing projects, providing development services and help with funding.
"Those of us who do affordable housing agree it's great when we can accomplish other purposes, too," he said. "A lot of these opportunities are occasioned by fires, as has happened recently in Brattleboro, Enosburg and Hardwick."
Sassorossi said such projects are often worth doing, but that his agency does not actively seek them out.
"We wait for opportunities to present themselves rather than force them where they might not work," he said. "You have to be mindful of your market. You need to make sure you've got parking, green space, that sort of thing."
Contact Gordon Dritschilo at gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com.
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