Category: News

We’re rounding up our Wetlands series with the final four functions of a wetland. It’s important to remember that wetlands affect all development projects, not just rural development. Wetland areas exist in downtowns, too, or adjacent to them. They also protect our downtowns from damage during storm and flood events.

Exemplary Natural Community: Essentially, this is a category for super-special wetlands that contain rare habitats or species. Dwarf shrub bogs, alpine peatland, and red maple-black gum swamp are some types of these exemplary wetlands. Their function is preservation of species and wetland ecology.

Education and Research: Wetlands are amazing places to learn about and study ecological systems, in part because they are discrete systems with boundaries. Unlike forests, which can range for hundreds or thousands of miles and share fuzzy borders with other ecosystems, wetland species cannot survive outside the specific conditions of a wetland. So scientists can learn a lot about ecosystem interconnectivity.

Erosion Control: Wetlands along streams, rivers, lakes, and ocean shorelines help prevent the loss of soil to erosion during storms and floods. This, in turn, helps prevent damage to human settlements
during those same events. During a hurricane, for example, the roots of wetland plants will hold on to soil even as fast-moving water rushes over it, preventing loss of land and silt damage farther downstream.

Surface and Ground Water Protection: Wetlands act as gigantic sponges for pollutants, soaking them up and detoxifying our water supplies. This is true for sediments, chemicals, and excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous). This keeps our water clean and prevents problems elsewhere in the ecosystem.

Photos: Vermont Wetlands Program

 We’ve been talking about wetlands for the last couple of weeks, and continue this week with the next three functions and values defined by the Vermont Wetlands Program

Open Space and Aesthetics: In Vermont, we very much appreciate the value beautiful, open spaces bring to the state. They are a major tourist draw, and tourism is a major element of the Vermont economy. Total tourist spending in the state totals $2.2 billion and generates 23% of employment in the state. In parts of the state with more development, the open space provided by wetlands is more valuable.

Storm and Flood Water Storage: In the wake of Hurricane Irene, we may consider the flood-mitigating effects of wetlands to be their most important asset. During snow melt, rain storms, or hurricanes, wetlands can temporarily store excess water, keeping it from flooding developed land or lessening the severity of a flood. After the storm, the wetlands slowly release the stored water, lessening the likelihood of downstream flooding.

Endangered and Rare Species: According to the Vermont Wetlands Program, up to 43% of the nation’s endangered and threatened species rely on wetlands in some way for survival. These species are dwindling, largely because of human development. Without fully understanding how these species interact with each other and what they contribute to the ecology of a place, we cannot understand what might be lost with their extinction.

Photos:

Top: Map Turtle, Wikimedia Commons User Dger, CC license

Bottom: Wetland during/after a rain event, Vermont Wetlands Program

When the Windham Foundation approached Stevens & Associates about coming up with concepts for redeveloping the Retreat Farm property out on Route 30, we knew if would be a fun project. At this stage of design, which you could call the “dream” stage, there are few limits to what you can explore. We keep budgets in mind, but we also encourage our clients to dream big. Sometimes, a design that seems impossibly expensive will come to fruition through creativity and innovation.

On to the details: for the Windham Foundation, we looked at repurposing existing farm buildings to create a retail and manufacturing cluster to add to Grafton Village Cheese’s existing facility. We looked at adding parking to the site and making it easier for pedestrians to enter and explore the site and access the Retreat Trails toward the back of the property.

Most exciting for us is the possibility of turning Route 30 into a boulevard, with a bike and walking path separated from the road by a planted strip. A planted strip would also separate the traffic lanes. Both of these things lead to better pedestrian and cyclist safety, since they visually cue drivers to slow down and watch for traffic. Such a boulevard could become a grand entrance to Brattleboro from Route 30.

It’s important to note that this is just a first pass at a conceptual design, and there is a lot of hard work before any of it would become reality. Further study will tell us where the wetlands are on the property and what effect development would have on them. It will also tell us if there are archaeological resources that need to be protected, and how best to control stormwater. We will look more closely at the buildings and what it would take to renovate them and adapt them to new uses. And then we will look at how much all of these ideas will cost.

Smart Growth American and the National Complete Streets Coalition have issued a report, entitled “Dangerous By Design 2014,” looking at the causes and frequency of pedestrian deaths and injuries on the nation’s roadways. It’s worth a look, especially in light of recent pedestrian accidents in the Brattleboro area.

Many of the hallmarks of “dangerous design” are present in our region, including state highways and thoroughfares with pedestrians and cyclists sharing roads designed for high vehicle speeds. (Think Route 9 between Marlboro and Brattleboro, or Route 30 coming into town.)

There’s a ton of data in the report, but what struck us was a small case study about West Jefferson, North Carolina. Apparently, the main street of the town is also a state highway, which had been designed for large trucks and high vehicle speeds.

Working with the state, the town eliminated traffic signals and replaced them with four-way stop signs, painted high-visibility crosswalks, increased on-street parking, and extending curbs to lessen the length of pedestrian crossings. Traffic slowed and people started walking again.

Within a few years, new stores opened up in previously vacant storefronts (dropping vacancies from 33 to 5). The downtown renewal prompted $500,000 in renovations and investment, the opening of 10 new businesses , creation of 55 new jobs, and a 19% increase in tourist visits.

The point is this: pedestrian safety is good for business, good for downtowns, good for the grand list, good for just about everyone and everything. There are several plans for the Brattleboro area that incorporate these measures; let’s work to get them built.

(Photos from visitwestjefferson.org)

We’d like to welcome Ham Hodgman to the team here at Stevens & Associates. Ham worked for us quite some time ago, and then moved away down South. But now he’s back, bringing his civil engineering expertise with him.

To quote his resume:

“Hamilton (Ham) Hodgman has worked as a civil engineer in Vermont, North Carolina, and South Carolina for over a decade. His work has included schematic design, design development, state and local permitting, and construction phases for residential and commercial construction. He is well-versed in public presentations and client relations.

In addition to his civil engineering and design work, Ham has extensive experience providing construction services, including technical review, geotechnical engineering, inspections, and materials testing on projects for industrial, institutional, and commercial facilities clients.”

Want to read what we’ve been reading? Read on…

“In Cape Town, Urban Design Reduces Violence”

From the American Society of Landscape Architects comes a blog entry about an urban design project in Cape Town, South Africa, that has reduced murders (an insight into overall violence) in one of the city’s townships by 22% overall. How? A group of planners, landscape architects, and architects created four “safe nodes” throughout the township. These nodes provide well-lit pedestrian malls, wide walkways, and other elements that promote safe walking routes. New public facilities, including community buildings, parks, and a sports complex provide spaces for community events, get-togethers, and play.

“Search for Ash Borers Turns Up Termites in Vermont”

Termites in Vermont? Well, maybe. WCAX reports that traps set for invasive ash borers have found one infestation of subterranean termites near the town of Wells.

“Do We Need Affordable Housing or Affordable Living?”

Housing is getting more expensive, here in Brattleboro and everywhere else. Blogger Dan Zack at Better! Cities and Town offers the opinion that housing itself is only part of the problem, and argues that we should be focused not on affordable housing alone, but on affordable living. He breaks the issue down into two parts, talking first about the combined cost of housing and transportation, which is approaching roughly 50% of average household income. This is largely because to get to cheaper housing, you need to go further away from the city, where the jobs are, making commutes longer and transportation costs higher.
There’s a tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technology called the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index. There’s not enough data for Brattleboro specifically, but the surrounding towns all hit that 50% mark or higher for costs. We live in a rural area, and most people drive for work, groceries, and other things.
The second part of Zack’s article talks about the size of living spaces. He points out that smaller living spaces cost less, and that an investment in public spaces would make smaller private spaces more palatable.

(Capetown Photos found here.)

We’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our team, Bob Speck, PE. We are very excited to have him on board, because he brings with him years of structural engineering and design experience as well as a passion for and deep commitment to sustainable design.

Over the past ten years, Bob has pursued several passions, among them the design of custom, efficient, timber-framed homes and barns for builders throughout New England and upstate New York. Clients included The Wadsworth Company, Vermont Timber Frames, and Vermont Barns. During this time he also consulted with Engineering Ventures on timber frame engineering, building sciences, and sustainable design. He is known for his ability to develop design solutions that integrate efficient structural design with sustainable, time-tested building practices and architectural goals.

Bob began his career with 18 years at Ryan-Biggs Associates, where he began as a project engineer and became a business partner with leadership roles in hiring, staff development, and quality improvement. His engineering work while there included hospitals, parking structures, schools and colleges, historic buildings, restaurants, office buildings, residences, and specialty structures. His leadership work while there included serving as president of the Mohawk-Hudson section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. His research work on drifted snow loads on buildings, performed while completing his master’s degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is still referenced in building codes.

In addition to his work in engineering, Bob has 40 years of experience in the snow sports industry, having served as a program manager of the Mountain Sports School at Stratton Mountain and as a training coordinator at the Adaptive Sports Foundation. He continues to enjoy promoting the health and wellness benefits of fitness, yoga, and outdoor adventure. He lives in Manchester, Vermont, with his wife Jo Kirsch, co-owner of Heart of the Village Yoga Studio.

(From top: Bob Speck; Barn Frame, Vermont Barns; Home Addition, The Wadsworth Company)

Brattleboro-based firm Stevens & Associates, known for its structural and civil engineering and landscape architecture and planning services, has merged with Alan Berry Architect to expand its architectural offerings. The architecture department, headed by architect Alan Lindsay Berry, adds four employees to the Stevens team: Berry, Frank Balla, Timberly Hund, and Stephen Jarosak.  Denny Frehsee, formerly of Williams & Frehsee, has joined the team as a consultant to help with business development, design, and construction oversight.

The architecture team will focus on environmentally sustainable and traditionally inspired design. As members of the Congress for New Urbanism and the U.S. Green Building Council, Stevens & Associates has always valued smart growth and traditional neighborhood design that fits into the historic context of New England’s towns and villages. The firm now brings those values to the architectural realm. “Traditional designs are all around us, and have stood the test of time,” said Bob Stevens, founder of Stevens & Associates. “Most of our clients want buildings that pay homage to the historical context in which they will sit.”

Alan Berry brings over thirty years of experience to Stevens & Associates. His previously Rhode Island based firm, Alan Berry Architect, was known for its emphasis on historic preservation and adaptive reuse as well as the use of energy-efficient technologies. His projects have varied, ranging from civic and liturgical designs to hospitality, recreation, and museum quality restorations. “Regional vernacular and traditional architecture is based on local traditions, needs, and materials,” says Berry. “We are building on the knowledge base of the generations who came before us.”

Offering a full suite of design services will allow Stevens & Associates to give clients a more comprehensive package, according to Stevens. “With everyone under one roof, we can offer better value for the design dollar,” he said.

Stevens & Associates has several architectural projects already underway, including the Brooks House redevelopment in Brattleboro, the Dot’s Restaurant redevelopment in Wilmington, and an art barn renovation and addition for Hilltop Montessori School in Brattleboro.

The 17-unit Algiers Village Housing project in Guiford is nearing completion, with construction set to finish this summer. Owned and developed by Windham & Windsor Housing Trust, the new construction will house income eligible tenants. Stevens & Associates worked with Duncan Wisniewski Architecture, providing civil and structural engineering for the project.

The project site was originally classified as a brownfield due to a small amount of contamination from previous uses. The nonprofit group Friends of Algiers, which owns and is renovating the Guilford General Store, held the property and restored it to health before selling it to WWHT for development.

Stevens & Associates’ involvement in this project coincided with our work on the Algiers waterline project, which extended a waterline from Brattleboro to the Algiers village area. The new housing would not have been possible without the added waterline.

In part 4 of our blog series, we explore what makes a neighborhood walkable. In previous installments, we’ve covered what TND is, why we as a firm encourage it, and how density and scale contribute to “human-scaled” environments.
Walkable areas include an appropriate street grid and providing pedestrian amenities such as landscaping, benches, and appropriate lighting.

Dead-end streets, cul-de-sacs, and large parking lots all make an area feel less walkable to pedestrians. Walkers need streets to go somewhere and to connect to other streets that go somewhere. Grid-like patterns of straight streets are the easiest to navigate as a pedestrian. Long, unnecessary curves and circuitous routes make people want to use their cars.

Think about walking in downtown Brattleboro. People skip through parking lots, over landscaped areas, and across non-crosswalk-marked parts of roads to get where they are going as quickly as possible. And that’s in a fairly compact, grid-like downtown!

Pedestrian amenities also make an area feel more walkable. Benches to sit on, shade trees to sit and stand under, and well-lit pathways all make areas feel friendlier and safer for pedestrians. Such elements are somewhat missing in Brattleboro at the moment—the sidewalks aren’t quite wide enough downtown because of street widening. But walk along the Whetstone pathway (by the Food CoOp), and you will find benches and lighting, and a pleasant view of the Brook (and our resident ducks).

When you make new developments—or extensions to existing ones—feel like historic downtowns, they encourage walking instead of driving. That improves the environmental profile of the development and, some suggest, the health of residents.

For more information on creating walkable communities, visit the America Walks website, where you can download a guide: Steps to a Walkable Community.

Walking in Manhattan is distinctly different from walking down a rural country lane, a suburban neighborhood, or a small town’s Main Street. Why? A lot of it has to do with setback and scale.

Setback refers to how far parts of a building are from the street or sidewalk. In urban areas, buildings are often right up against the sidewalk, whereas in rural areas they’re set way back. Conventional suburban development features big front yards, long driveways, and garages set closer to the road than houses. This set-up favors the automobile, and makes walking feel less desirable.

Scale refers to how large the buildings are. On that Manhattan street, with skyscrapers set really close to the street, you can feel like you’re walking through a tunnel. Rural areas feel spread out because the buildings are relatively small compared to the landscape, and placed far apart.

Small town Main Streets are somewhere in between—the buildings are close to the street, but usually no more than four stories tall. They feel accessible, “human scaled.”

Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) advocates narrow front setbacks (close to the street), with garages set farther from the street than the main building. Smaller buildings are preferred over skyscrapers, generally, unless you’re in a really urban setting.

In a lot of places, the zoning regulations require large setbacks and allow larger buildings—so TND requires a variance or zoning ordinance change.

(Photo: Aiyou Zho; Vintage Township in Lubbock, TX.)

Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) uses compact, mixed use development and high residential densities to achieve walkable, vibrant neighborhoods.

When they think of “compact” and “high-density” development, most people think of skyscrapers, high-rises, and millions of people: Manhattan. But that’s not the kind of density TND uses. A more useful model is downtown Brattleboro, Northampton, or Keene. Two- to four-story buildings with residential and commercial uses mixed in a central core, surrounded by a mix of single- and multi-family homes on small lots.

Technically, the minimum residential density for a neighborhood to feel “walkable” is about 4 units per acre (single-family homes on quarter-acre lots; the Round Lake Road TND at left is a little more dense than that). When you get upwards of 30 units per acre, things start to feel more urban (think Manhattan).
Putting commercial and residential properties in close proximity (apartments above retail and office space, for example) makes a downtown vibrant and useable by its residents. Ideally, some residents live, work, and shop largely in a walkable radius.

Before cars existed, people lived and worked within a much smaller radius than they do now. TND seeks to shrink that radius to pre-automobile levels, at least in part. Doing so has obvious environmental benefits—less driving means less gas—but it also has other, less tangible benefits. Residents who walk to work and errands run into their neighbors and know their shopkeepers and local officials. This leads to an increased sense to community.

That, after all, is TND’s ultimate goal: to create community.

(This is the third in a series of posts about TND. For background, read the first and second.)

Last week we covered why Traditional Neighborhood Development is important to our communities and why Stevens & Associates finds it valuable as a practice. This week, we’ll being our look at what TND actually isand how to do it.Let’s start with a list—each of these items will be covered in depth, with examples, in future weeks.

Compact, Mixed-Use Development: Think Main Street USA, with multi-story buildings that house apartments and offices over storefronts and restaurants.

Minimum Residential Density: How many residential units (houses or apartments) per acre. The sweet spot is somewhere between 4 and 30 units per acre, depending on the neighborhood.

Narrower Front Setbacks: Essentially, putting houses closer to the road and sidewalks.

Greater Front Setbacks for Garages: To get houses closer to the road, you have to put garages farther from the road (a bigger setback).

“In-Scale” Building Design: Pedestrians tend to gravitate to buildings that are smaller and human-sized. Think townhouse, not skyscraper.

Orientation of Buildings to the Street: Main Streets with street-facing storefronts, residential neighborhoods with porches and front doors make a big difference in how an area feels to residents.

Walkable Street Patterns: Basically, creating a network of streets that get people—pedestrians—from one place to another. Not cul-de-sacs, dead ends, and circuitous routes.

Village-Style Roadway Design: The streets in most New England villages and towns are narrow, designed for the slower traffic of a horse-and-buggy era. TND suggests keeping them that way to make them more pedestrian friendly.

Pedestrian Amenities: Sidewalk width, lighting, benches, and street landscaping all contribute to an enjoyable pedestrian experience and encourage residents to walk.

Design and Landscaping of Parking Lots: Putting parking lots behind or beside buildings, instead of in front, makes more room streetside for pedestrians.

Public Parks, Town Greens, and Village Squares: Our communities need gathering spaces, and have traditionally provided them with central squares and greens. These gathering spaces are critical to creating a sense of community in a place.

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.