Author: oscar

As a firm, we use the term “Traditional Neighborhood Development” quite often. But what does it mean? And why is TND important to the economic and environmental sustainability of our region?

This marks the first in a series of blog posts about TND and its role in the southern Vermont and New Hampshire region.

Traditional Neighborhood Development is a planning concept that models new development on historic forms of development: dense residential neighborhoods, mixed-use downtowns, and streets designed around pedestrians rather than vehicles.

Why do we encourage our clients to use TND concepts when they’re planning new developments?

First, because we’re biased: a lot of us live and work in downtown Brattleboro, and find our quality of life to be quite high thanks to the walkable, dense nature of our community. We have the kind of historic downtown that TND concepts seek to emulate.

Second, we find TND offers a lot of benefits, from community building and civic engagement to lowered fossil fuel use and increased local economic development.

There are a lot of reasons for this, which will be explored in future posts, but the bottom line is that people—us, our clients, and residents—feel comfortable in and drawn to TND.

See some of our TND projects here.

Congratulations to the Brattleboro Food Coop, which recently won the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Award for Smart Growth Achievement for Main Street or Corridor Revitalization.

What does that mean? According to EPA, “The Smart Growth awards are given for creative, sustainable initiatives that better protect the health and the environment of our communities while also strengthening local economies.” In other words, EPA is rewarding projects that promote walkable downtowns like Brattleboro’s.

Of the Coop project, EPA says,”The Brattleboro Food Co-op, the town’s only downtown food store, made a commitment to remain at its downtown location by constructing an innovative, four-story green building on Main Street with a grocery store, commercial space, offices, and affordable apartments. The Main Street location provides healthy food, new jobs, and housing within walkable distances of downtown businesses and public transit.”

Stevens & Associates provided civil engineering for the project. More on that in another post.

Route 7 runs down the west side of Vermont from Burlington to Bennington, at times widening to 4 lanes. Up in Shelburne (just south of Burlington), development has turned into suburban sprawl. Citizens and the town government are now hoping to fight back with form-based codes, which control thelook, feel, and pace of development.

According to the Form-Based Codes Institute, “Form-based codes address the relationship between building facades and the public realm, the form and mass of buildings in relation to one another, and the scale and types of streets and blocks. The regulations and standards in form-based codes are presented in both words and clearly drawn diagrams and other visuals.”

In Shelburne, local officials hope to keep a Vermont village aesthetic–which also allows local businesses to thrive. Working with a team of architects, they developed a plan (PDF) for Route 7 in 2011. Now they have to decide how to implement that plan.

Many thanks to Vermont Public Radio for the story on this one. Photos VPR/Kirk Carapezza.

The group of investors planning to restore the Brooks House has announced that Bread Loaf, out of Middlebury, Vermont, will serve as the construction manager and contractor for the project. The group still plans to complete the purchase of the building this fall and begin construction in December of this year.

Over the next several months, Bread Loaf will work with the investors and our design team to develop accurate cost estimates, secure bids from subcontractors, and finalize a construction schedule for the complex project.

We are currently finalizing floor plans with the aim of returning some of the building’s grandeur. A two-story atrium and grand stair will greet visitors entering from Main Street through the former Adagio restaurant entrance—the building’s original main entrance. The open entry will house a coffee bar and allow visitors to enter all retail spaces from inside the building. These stores will also have exterior entrances on Main Street and High Street.

Two stories would be added onto the rear, single-story portion of the building, creating additional office space and giving the building more of a distinct presence in Harmony Lot. A stair tower, added outside the rear of the main building, offers another distinct architectural element.

Stevens & Associates is also creating park-like elements in the portion of Harmony Lot closest to the building and the tunnel from High Street. Vehicular traffic through the tunnel will be maintained, but a planted courtyard will offer outdoor seating and more attractive pedestrian access to the Brooks House and neighboring buildings.

More information on the project, including detail on preleasing, is available at the project’s website. (Photo: Zachary P. Stephens/Reformer)

Brattleboro’s Union Station is the entrance to town for the dozens of people who come here on the Amtrak train from New York, Boston, or Burlington. Over the years, it had fallen into disarray, with old buildings, a run-down parking area, and poor pedestrian connection to downtown.

Stevens & Associates redesigned the parking area, added green space a and a bus turnaround, and added a timber-framed bus shelter created by a local artisan, Monica MacNeille.

Landscaping has yet to happen, but with green space, better parking, and a brand new restaurant across the street, Union Station presents a much better face to visitors and residents alike.

Dot’s restaurant is under construction! The building was removed from its foundation so we could get in and rebuild (and floodproof) the foundation. It will be lifted back into place and renovated.

The Brooks House has received a Smart Growth Housing Endorsement from the Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative and Vermont Natural Resourcs Council.“This is an exciting project that will bring the Brooks House back to life after it was gutted by fire in April of 2011,” said Kate McCarthy, VNRC’s Sustainable Communities Program director. “The project helps ensure that this historic building remains part of the downtown, while at the same time bringing the building into the 21st century with LEED certification to reduce its energy use.” LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a certification of energy efficiency granted by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The Smart Growth Housing Endorsement Program was established in 2002 to recognize residential development projects that incorporated smart growth principles into their project design. Those principles include locating projects in existing settlements, providing transportation options to residents, and promoting a mix of housing types. Since 2002, 17 projects, comprising more than 700 dwelling units, have received endorsement.

“We’re very excited about this award—we believe strongly in Smart Growth principles, and believe that dense, mixed-use development is vital to the continued vitality of our downtown and our state,” said Bob Stevens, a partner of Mesabi and principal at Stevens & Associates, the firm designing the project. “Stevens & Associates seeks to use these principles in all our projects, and it’s great to have a building that embraces Smart Growth so fully.”

The Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative is a diverse partnership of Vermont nonprofit organizations working together to promote development strategies in Vermont that build on our state’s traditional landscape.

For more information about the collaborative, visit www.vtsmartgrowth.org. The Vermont Natural Resources Council, which merged with Smart Growth Vermont in July 2011, is a founding member of the Vermont Smart Growth Collaborative.

In August 2011, Dot’s Restaurant in Wilmington fell victim to Hurricane Irene. The owners, John Patty Reagan, hired us to look at ways to rebuild the restaurant. After seeing the preliminary feasibility study, they have decided to move forward with the renovations, and have hired us to complete the design.

The building sits on the Deerfield River, and was inundated with 8 feet of water during the hurricane. Our design for the new building raises it several feet with a new foundation, and provides flood proofing to protects against floods like those we saw during Irene. In addition, a new kitchen will be added on, increasing the size of the restaurant. In addition, the layout will be rearranged to make it more efficient and give diners excellent River views.

The Brattleboro Retreat, a Brattleboro, Vermont, psychiatric and addiction hospital in operation since 1834, is constructing a series of new patient courtyards on its campus. The first of these, located adjacent to the Tyler building, is currently under construction.

Stevens & Associates has designed the courtyards to provide safe and secure outdoor spaces for patients at the Retreat. The Tyler courtyard features a sitting and dining area, benches, a perennial garden, and large shade trees. A staff and visitor entrance to the Tyler building, located outside the perimeter of the new patient courtyard, is also being redeveloped with added seating and landscaping. Lighting around the entire project is also being improved.

Earlier in its history, the Retreat had “airing areas” to complement its indoor facilities and allow patients to benefit from being outdoors. “We are extremely pleased to be adding these courtyards,” said Julia Sorensen, senior director of marketing, communications, and strategic planning at the Retreat. “The addition of safe, inviting outdoor spaces will greatly enhance the overall patient experience.”

Two more new courtyards are being planned for other parts of campus. Construction on the Tyler courtyard will continue throughout the spring and is slated for completion in June or early July.

The improvements to Union Station–including increased green space and improved parking and pedestrian access–are being made. Construction crews are out on site, preparing the site.

This video shows the demolition of the Gasworks building. While we are sad to see it go (it’s an old building, after all), we are excited about the prospect of green space right along the river.

Whenever possible, we like to keep old buildings (even those not designated “historic”). They have history, they’re part of the fabric of our towns and our communities, and they have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of life to give.

In this case, however, the building was in very bad shape, contained hazardous materials, and would have been nearly impossible to rebuild with the community’s resources. The hazardous materials, unfortunately, meant that the building materials could not be reused–hence the demolition instead of deconstruction.

What will replace this building will serve as a community resource: a park bordering the river with easy access to downtown. Visitors to Brattleboro will be welcomed by green space; those returning home will see the river that’s defined this town since it’s beginning. We are excited for the future even as we mourn the loss of this part of our past.

Alex Wilson, the founder of BuildingGreen and executive editor of Environmental Building News, has written the first in what I believe will be a series of blog posts about resilient design.

He’s been on sabbatical for the last nine months, thinking deeply about this issue, and has a lot of smart things to say. Alex argues that we should be designing buildings and places to allow humans to survive increasingly intense storm events, global climate change, and energy and water insecurity. Green building (Alex’s area of expertise) plays a large part in that resilience.

Neighborhood and community design (our area of expertise) also plays a part. As gas prices increase and transportation becomes potentially unreliable, walkable communities will become more important. At the same time, we’re going to have to design our sites to survive more extreme floods, our buildings to withstand higher wind stresses and flood waters, and our infrastructure to survive uncertainty.

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, our firm has been working with a lot of folks who are rebuilding and wondering how to make their homes and businesses safe. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be talking about some of those techniques, and providing case studies of a few buildings that made it through the floods just fine.

(By the way, the picture to the right was taken by Alex on his bike ride through the West earlier this year. His blog archive about that trip is well worth reading.)

Long-awaited improvements to the waterfront parcel of land by Union Station are moving forward. The Town of Brattleboro Selectboard approved a bid by Zaluzny Excavating to perform the work needed at the site, which will start with the demolition of two buildings in December 2011.
The work to the site, designed and overseen by engineering firm Stevens & Associates, includes pedestrian and parking improvements on the east side of the railroad tracks. Two buildings will be removed to make way for open green space along the river. Depot Street will house 17 parking spaces for train riders, with space for possible expansion to 28 spaces. A vehicle turnaround will be added at the north end of the site, near the Merrill Gas building.

A paved sidewalk will run the length of the parking area, separated from the railroad tracks by a grassy area and a row of trees. Lighting will also be added. Where Depot Street meets Bridge Street, the sidewalk will open up into a small paved and planted bus stop, with a bus shelter designed and constructed by timber framer Monica MacNeille. These improvements will increase pedestrian safety and improve handicapped accessibility to the train station and the railroad crossing.

“This project will create green space on the only publicly accessible riverfront land in town,” said project manager and engineer Cory Frehsee of Stevens & Associates. “It will greatly improve the experience of train travelers entering Brattleboro, and will provide open space for residents.”

The project also includes brownfield corrective action measures designed and overseen by New England Envirostrategies of Concord, New Hampshire, and project management by the Windham Regional Commission. Construction will begin in December, and is scheduled to be completed by July 1, 2012. Funding for the project came from the Federal Transit Authority, the State of Vermont Agency of Transportation, the State of Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, CVPS, and the Town of Brattleboro.

Seven months after a fire destroyed much of the building, plans are moving forward to rebuild the historic Brooks House in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont. A feasibility study and conceptual design has been completed, and owner Jonathan Chase is currently exploring funding options for the project. He hopes construction can begin in 2012.The design and construction of a project of this size is a complex process, requiring architectural and engineering services and funding from multiple sources. Chase sees the fire as an opportunity to reimagine the building and its uses. “We have the opportunity to do this right and make the building everything it can be,” he said.

One of the goals of the design team is to restore historic elements of the Brooks House, including the storefront facades and a two-story porch on Main Street. The building’s ballroom, from its days as a hotel, would remain a large, open space in the conceptual design, and would be used as a coworking space for local entrepreneurs.

The conceptual design for the Brooks House also includes market-rate and high-end residential units, office space, and retail space. An addition to the first floor would improve circulation among the retail spaces, providing an indoor mall area. It would also provide indoor seating for a restaurant; outdoor seating would also be provided behind the building.

Stevens & Associates’ conceptual design also features a pedestrian mall behind the building in the Harmony parking lot. A portion of the land on which the parking lot sits belongs to Chase, as does the tunnel entrance to the lot from High Street under the Brooks House. The preliminary plan for the lot includes closing the tunnel to vehicular traffic, extending landscaping between the Brooks House and the one-story building on the other side of the parking lot (formerly a pizzeria), and providing outdoor seating for town residents and the restaurant located in the Brooks House.

“The Harmony Marketplace, as we’re calling it, would provide more green space for downtown,” said Bob Stevens of Stevens & Associates. “It would also provide a pedestrian-friendly area that would support the businesses around Harmony Lot and would give Brooks House residents an important amenity.”

Chase is working with Tom Appel of New England Management Company to develop funding sources for the project. As a historic building, the Brooks House is eligible for restoration tax credits on both federal and state levels. It is also eligible for the New Market Tax Credit program, which supports investment in downtowns.

Pulling together funding sources can take some time, says Chase. “This is a complex process,” he said. “There are a lot of elements to consider.” However, he hopes that a final design can be developed over the winter and construction can begin in the spring.

The conceptual design includes:

Approximately 80,000 square feet of space
41 apartments, including studios and one-bedrooms
7 high-end apartments with loft space in the penthouse
Artist apartments with studio space
Office space, including a coworking space in the former ballroom
9 retail spaces with an indoor mall area
2 restaurants with indoor and outdoor seating
1 separate restaurant/retail (formerly the pizzeria)
A fully rehabilitated bar downstairs (formerly the Mole’s Eye)
A pedestrian mall area in the Harmony Parking Lot
A new lobby that restores the historic lobby entrance on Main Street
Handicapped accessibility throughout the building
A two-story porch on Main Street; rehabilitation of storefronts, multiple private decks for residential units
Green building features, including solar hot water, energy-efficient heating and cooling, and LEED certification as a goal

It’s official: Adam Hubbard, ASLA, is now a licensed landscape architect in the state of Vermont.

Adam has over 15 years of experience with landscape and site design as well as community development and urban planning. Prior to joining Stevens & Associates, Adam was the vice-president of a landscape design and contracting company in the Brattleboro area. His work in our office includes site design, master planning, environmental permitting, and landscape design.

His projects have included the Springfield Area Parent Child Center, the Hilltop Montessori School (shown at right), the Daly Shoe Building, and many others.

We are happy to announce that Cory Frehsee, one of our civil engineers, has joined Bob Stevens and Brud Sanderson as a partner in Stevens & Associates.

Cory joined the firm in 2005, and has been involved in many of our projects ever since. He’s filled the project manager role on several high-profile projects, including the Brattleboro Food Coop, the Union Station site redevelopment, and many others.

Cory, along with Bob, is also a LEED Accredited Professional, meaning he has a working knowledge of LEED, the country’s leading green building rating system. He values sustainability and green design, and works it into projects whenever and wherever he can.