BELLOWS FALLS — A coalition of economic-development agencies is beginning to step up efforts to spur the state of New Hampshire to repair the Vilas Bridge, closed since 2009.
At the request of Francis “Dutch” Walsh, the development director for Bellows Falls and Rockingham, Mary Helen Hawthorne, the new executive director of the Bellows Falls Downtown Development Alliance, has composed a letter to Governor Peter Shumlin.
The letter asks the governor to meet and discuss strategies to reopen the bridge.
Walsh, who also sits on the BFDDA board, asked Rockingham Selectboard Chair Thom MacPhee and Bellows Falls Village Trustees Chair Roger Riccio to co-sign the letter.
The New Hampshire Department of Transportation has removed the bridge entirely from its 10-year plan, a status change that has Walsh worried about both safety concerns and the economic impact of its continued closure on downtown businesses.
Walsh said previous efforts to involve the Vermont Agency of Transportation in reopening the bridge, which needs an estimated $6.5 million in repairs, had not elicited a positive response.
Walsh noted that downtown businesses were showing signs of thriving prior to the closing of the bridge by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.
He hopes a meeting with the governor and congressional delegation will result in state officials seeing how important the Vilas Bridge is to the vitality of business growth in Bellows Falls, which, Walsh emphasized, is in line with ongoing state pushes toward downtown revitalization efforts.
The closed bridge cuts off direct access from New Hampshire to Bellows Falls, a village that has received heavy economic development investment from the state and federal governments in the form of downtown tax credits, Vermont transportation grants, and Downtown Enhancement Grants.
In 2006 and 2007, the Creative Communities program of the Vermont Council on Rural Development pointed to Bellows Falls as an example of successful revitalization efforts of main street businesses in Vermont towns.
Walsh also noted that efforts to restore the Vilas Bridge to traffic dovetail with plans for revitalizing the Island, the region between the Bellows Falls Canal and the Great Falls of the Connecticut River.
The Island is the setting for a wide assortment of commercial and private interests, but no real long-term plan for the district's economic development. And without the bridge, which connects directly through the Island to the downtown, economic growth there is stunted no matter what plans are in place, Walsh noted.
In the letter to Shumlin, Hawthorne noted that business revenue has dropped approximately 30 percent since the bridge closed. While businesses might be attracted to the downtown area, many have come and gone, as evidenced by revolving empty storefronts around the Square.
Walsh sees at least some of this economic vulnerability tied to the lack of traffic that, with the Vilas Bridge open, would route through the Square. In an already tough economy, not having the traffic the Vilas Bridge provided makes a huge difference to local merchants' survival, Walsh implied.
Walsh hopes that Vermont officials will step up and open talks with New Hampshire to see how the project can be accomplished. The state had made a similar effort with New York, when the Lake Champlain Bridge connecting the two states was closed for safety concerns in 2009, resulting in a replacement bridge completed in 2011.
The Vilas Bridge also supports a sewer main between Walpole, N.H. and the Bellows Falls Wastewater Facility, which, Walsh said, could becomes an environmental issue if the bridge is allowed to deteriorate.
Walsh also noted the safety issue of response time from New Hampshire emergency personnel responding to mutual aid calls in Bellows Falls. The current detour over the Arch Bridge or through the Westminster Station Bridge and underpass adds approximately 15 minutes to travel time, a critical time factor if a fire should again occur in downtown.
Island plans
Walsh said that while nothing has been decided yet, BFDDA's option to buy the Robertson Paper Mill is going ahead later this fall, and the first thing on the agenda is to get an environmental assessment.
It is unknown if the Robertson Paper Mill building can be salvaged in part or in whole, Welsh said. Over the years, the 1890s-era building has been used to store barrels of unknown chemicals, which are still in the building. Residue from other activities in the building over the years might require brownfield cleanup.
Walsh said he has had various architects come in to assess the building, and “they all said” - in one form or another - that it “may cost more to replicate it” than to renovate the building, because it has gone so long without being maintained.
Acknowledging the building's historical importance to the town and the Island, Walsh said he wants to continue to support the business of Green Mtn Specialties, a specialty paper company in the building, now owned in trust by members of the Dawkins family.
“That is, of course, the whole purpose” behind revitalization of the Island and downtown, Walsh said: creating a supportive environment for businesses to establish themselves and grow.
But these processes take a long time to walk through, and nothing is decided as to what, if anything, would happen with the Robertson paper mill building.
A development feasibility study, commissioned in 1984, has guided the town's economic decisions about the Island until this year. This April marked the completion of a growth plan funded with a municipal planning grant awarded to the town of Rockingham by the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development.
Comprised of business, civic, and citizen participants as well as Walsh, former Municipal Manager Tim Cullenen, and Planning/Zoning Administrator Ellen Howard, the Island Project Committee retained Mullin Associates Inc. and the Berkshire Design Group to come up with an assessment.
The firms identified 10 goals:
• Determine appropriate land use with business revitalization in mind;
• Review current zoning with the intent to encourage business growth;
• Analyze the existing infrastructure and make recommendations for improvements;
• Analyze and make recommendations as to better connectivity with the downtown Square;
• Maximize and increase “green principles” and “smart growth” on the Island;
• Create means and methods to integrate new and old structures;
• Compile data on likely costs of new and old structures;
• Gain public insight about and ideas for growth on the Island;
• Develop a comprehensive plan that addresses all of the goals above, including maps of possible outcomes.
The results of this assessment ended up identifying four areas of interest:
• Potential land uses.
• Potential footprint.
• Potential mobility options.
• Potential attractors to the Island.
The lengthy assessment, available online through the town website, suggested three options with varying degrees of complexity and “reparcelization,” with accompanying maps and drawings, ranging from $2.5 to $3.5 million to $13 to $16 million.
Walsh said, however, that these options were starting points and are in no way set in stone.
And, Walsh emphasized, “we're talking five to 10 years” of moving step by step through the lengthy process it will take to revitalize the Island.
But first, “you have to have a plan,” he said. And plans change as you move through them, he acknowledged.
Walsh noted that the revitalization of the Square in Bellows Falls occurred over several decades, and while the town, the village, and its business community are currently experiencing difficulties laid at the foot of the Vilas bridge closure added to a downturned economy, the downtown has experienced a significant increase in revenue since the river mills shut down in the 1970s.
He also hopes that a reopened and repaired Vilas bridge will spur greater outside interest in development of the Island as a further extension of downtown business revitalization.
The letter will be sent to the governor's desk this week.