BRATTLEBORO — Like many cities and towns along the Connecticut River, Brattleboro turned its back to its waterfront.
From the 19th century onward, the riverfront land stretching south from the Hinsdale bridge had been reserved for the railroads and for industrial use.
Today, Brattleboro is no longer a busy railroad town, and the mills and factories that used to be by the river are long gone.
A group of planners, designers and architects say that with the decline of the past uses of the Brattleboro waterfront, there are opportunities to come up with new visions and a new relationship between Brattleboro and the Connecticut River.
Under the auspices of The Center for Creative Solutions - which is affiliated with Marlboro College - an interdisciplinary “design studio” has been created to explore ways to change Brattleboro's relationship to its waterfront.
They've put together an exhibit at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, “Renewing the Riverfront,” to show area residents what they have been working on and to solicit ideas for possible uses for the land near Union Station.
The town of Brattleboro is set to tear down four buildings on a 1.3-acre plot across from the train station off Bridge Street - the old gasworks building, a coal scale house and the former Bob's Auto Repair.
“Once those buildings come down, people are going to get a view of the river that haven't had for about 150 years,” said Charlie Cannon, an architect and planner who teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. “That's what makes this exhibit so important - to help show the possibilities of what could happen with this land.”
Together with Wilmington artist and designer Michael Singer and a group of students from Marlboro College, Cannon said the team hopes to take ideas from other cities and towns that redeveloped neglected waterfront areas and combine them with locally-generated ideas to come up with a plan for Brattleboro.
The BMAC exhibit is part of the process. On the walls are illustrations of riverfront parks in other cities, as well as suggested uses for the proposed Brattleboro park that range from a community garden to skateboarding to performance space.
Included in the exhibit are ample spaces for visitors to draw or write their ideas and visions.
Bringing students, professional planners and the public together to solve problems is “an idea we've been working on for years,” according to Marlboro College president Ellen McCulloch-Lovell.
McCulloch-Lovell said the college established the Center for Creative Solutions in 2006. “We're trying to create a center that would take arts, architecture and the public imagination and create ways to help communities with projects like what we're doing in Brattleboro.”
McCulloch-Lovell said this is the center's second project. It had previously worked on a community visioning and planning project of former mill properties in Bellows Falls.
“It's fascinating to see the interdisciplinary approach in action and the talents that the students have brought to this project,” she said.
For Singer, what's exciting is that “we're bringing together young professionals to address a real project and offering their creativity to the town.”
Singer agrees with Cannon that the pending demolition of the buildings on the site mark an important turning point for a project that has been nearly a decade in the making.
“Once the buildings come down, we arrive at a moment where the town can make real decisions about where it wants to go,” Singer said. “Combine that with the energy of the students, and this is a dream.”