BELLOWS FALLS — “Very preliminary” talks are under way with Chroma Technology Corp. to explore a possible move to the Island.
Rockingham Development and Bellows Falls Area Development Corporation (BFADC) Executive Director Francis “Dutch” Walsh and Municipal Manager Willis “Chip” Stearns III told Rockingham and Bellows Falls officials at a joint meeting last week that bringing the employee-owned company downtown is a “once in a lifetime” economic development opportunity, and that passing it up may be something the town and village would come to regret.
Chroma manufactures products that include precision filters for lasers and medical equipment. Since 2003, it has operated in a facility on Route 5. The company employs more than 100 and has offices in Europe and Asia.
Chroma Co-founder Paul Millman said the company needs a “campus that helps our image in the local community, and in manufacturing services and scientific building communities.”
And the company needs more space. Considering a second building just did not make sense, and once the BFADC purchase of the Robertson Paper Mill building was all but secured, Walsh and Millman started talking a few weeks ago.
Millman said that by “putting 106 people into the town of Bellows Falls, and a company that has shown that it is successful, that it will be an economic stimulus” to the downtown.
“Other companies will move in, people will buy houses in town, and maybe there will be a continuous spark [affecting] economics and developing new businesses,” he added.
Concerns voiced by residents and board members about tax breaks, aesthetic and historical concerns, and existing property owners' right with regard to eminent domain were addressed.
Stearns said it was too early to tell, but tax breaks for the company were a possibility, and while eminent domain was unlikely, that would be a last resort.
Millman said Chroma would be looking into new-market tax credits for urban area business development.
He added that the company uses a lot of electricity for manufacturing, and hoped that a move would allow it to hook into hydro power from the nearby TransCanada-owned hydroelectric facility.
Building site
Of concern to some was preservation of the Robertson Paper Mill, now in the process of being purchased for an undisclosed amount by the Bellows Falls Area Development Corporation, Walsh said. The papers are scheduled to be signed on July 18, he told the boards.
The 1.67-acre property is valued at $89,000, and the building's assessed value is $156,000.
Stearns said past-due taxes were paid last fall, presumably by BFADC, though Stearns would not confirm that. Dawkins Family Trust, the owner of the property, will sign the final papers with BFADC on July 18, Walsh told the boards.
Brownfield studies have been done, but are still in draft form, Susan McMahon, associate director of the Windham Regional Commission, told The Commons. She characterized the site as typical for a former industrial site.
“It will need some remediation, but nothing horrible was found,” she said.
Millman noted that at the point when the building and site design are considered, Chroma will be “for sure” looking at preserving the façade of the late-1800s Robertson Paper Mill building. A final design will come as a result of first hearing from the community, he said.
“What we said to Dutch is we didn't want to squeeze a building in between buildings,” Millman said. “Being among other buildings in various stages or disrepair was not appealing.”
Several additional properties would be affected under the three possible footprint options for the Chroma development:
• A 0.43-acre property at 0 Island St., valued at $26,000, owned by the Island Corporation.
• A 1.38-acre property owned by Scott Selvidio of West Chesterfield, N.H., valued at $503,000, for both property and building at 4 Island St.
• 30 Island St. currently owned by Sustainable Valley Group, and valued at $140,000 for a 0.3-acre parcel with a building that was renovated last year.
• 22 Bridge St., assessed at $207,000 for 0.19 acres of land and a building, and owned by 22 Bridge Street LLC; and next door, David and Ingrid Buckley's 0.13-acre property with a building, valued at $288,000 last year.
“For the most part the owners of [the Island] properties seem to be willing to sell them,” Millman said.
Business relocation
Sustainable Valley Group, which owns 30 Island St., has renovated the building and located several “green” businesses there, including SEVCA's textile recycling facility. SEVCA Executive Director Steven Geller said he was not opposed to moving that operation.
Walsh told Geller and other business owners that his office would help with any businesses that needed to be relocated.
“The recycling facility doesn't need to be at that site if there is a comparably favorable site elsewhere that we could move to with no additional cost to us,” Geller said. “I think it's an exciting opportunity for the town and is consistent with SEVCA's mission and vision to support and participate in, if appropriate, economic development projects of this kind that will so clearly benefit the town and surrounding area.”
Geller said that the question for SEVCA “as always, is whether, how, and to what extent low-income residents will benefit from the project.”
“Will they have access to training and employment opportunities that will be created as a result of Chroma's move and the expansion that it may enable to occur?
“Will the accompanying benefits to other businesses in BF create new job opportunities for unemployed or underemployed residents who have been left out of the workforce to date?”
“Also,” Geller added, “will it do no harm to, and perhaps benefit, any existing services or resources that may be in the way of Chroma's new facility? E.g., Our Place and SEVCA's Textile Recycling facility at 30 Island St.”
“The commitment articulated at the meeting is to facilitate and support the relocation of those services if necessary, and even to support and perhaps house Our Place and the warming shelter at the new site.
“If those commitments are kept, then the negative impacts of the project would be minimal or even none, and there could even be positive impacts,” Geller noted.
With a corporate mission statement that calls for it to be “an active and caring member of the community in which we live,” Chroma has long been a supporter of Our Place and the Greater Falls Warming Shelter, and Millman told the boards that part of the plan for any building would consider inclusion of both of these entities.
“There has been very vocal opposition in town,” Millman later told The Commons, particularly in relation to the location of a warming shelter. Millman said that locating these services within the “protection” of its property and company “would silence that opposition.”
Creative design
Village Trustee Charlie Hunter noted that “all things being equal,” the possibility of Chroma relocating to the Island represents “someone coming in and providing over 120 good-paying jobs, where they are encouraging people to walk to work, which means home ownership in town is encouraged and, unfortunately, trumps aesthetic and sentimental issues,” said Hunter, who had raised the question about the preservation of the Robertson Paper Mill.
Hunter said that his being on the board for a year and becoming acutely aware of “the pain that the citizenry is in economically, the economic doldrums” have convinced him that it would be “foolish to sacrifice what really could be Bellows Falls' future for purely aesthetic reasons.”
But the artist in him is hopeful that Chroma will “try to utilize the façade of Robertson Paper as they work on designs.”
“Lacking that, I would urge them to build a new facility symbolic of the the existing structure,” Hunter said.
Multiplier effect
Millman told The Commons that besides the hazardous waste and brownfield cleanup issues that would need to be assured by the BFADC, which is negotiating the deal, ultimately, site acquisition and financial considerations will determine the final outcome.
But, Millman emphasized, it was too early to tell any of those outcomes. He said he plans to continue meeting with Walsh to parse out some of these details and issues.
What Chroma wants to build “is something open and inviting and looks like it is progress,” he said. “If you want to build an impression of a plant on the community, and customers who come to visit, you want to have profound appeal. The kind of impression we make is really important for the town.”
He said the question becomes: “Can you [have an] affordable design and build a building that captures the character of the early 20th century?”
Millman said he sees Island development as part of the creative economy initiative in Vermont.
“It's not really about selling a painting,” but about the “multiplier effect,” he said, citing projects like the Exner Block, which is home to artists and galleries, that “will bring in another tenant, maybe an artist, and people who create spaces where people like us want to live.”
Creating an environment that encourages progress and businesses “has the economic multiplier effect of encouraging the surrounding community to upgrade in its wake,” Millman said.
He said places like the Bellows Falls Opera House are one of the reasons he and Chroma employees want to live in the community.
“Whether it's us, or a series of smaller businesses, or it's a park, that island is going to define Bellows Falls,” Millman said.
“And if that island is going to define Bellows Falls, then I want that island to be impressive. There are lots of things to do, but you want [whatever is done] to be impressive.”