BELLOWS FALLS — The recent decision of the Great Falls Regional Chamber of Commerce to vacate its home in the Waypoint Center on the Island and move to new digs came as a shock to many on the Waypoint Center Board, including Selectboard Chair Tom MacPhee and Chamber president Deborah Murphy.
The lease is a four-party agreement between the town of Rockingham, the village of Bellows Falls, the Bellows Falls Downtown Development Association (BFDDA), and the COC. According to MacPhee and Murphy, negotiations were in play at the time of the meeting discussing a better lease agreement that are more in line with the Chamber's mission of promoting businesses in downtown.
However, during a regular November meeting that Murphy was not able to attend, Chamber Executive Director Roger Riccio was given permission by the board to pursue other options. Many of those present at the meeting felt the lease agreement with the town of Rockingham no longer served the organization's purposes.
Chamber secretary Michael Smith confirmed that Riccio had signed a lease for the space formerly occupied by the former Hula Cat secondhand shop in the Staircase building just off the Square. Smith said the move will occur “hopefully by February.”
Murphy said that while she was not aware of the intent to move before the meeting, her understanding of the new lease in the Square was that “it would be more expensive for the Chamber.” She noted renovations, utilities, rent and maintenance were either expenses they did not currently have, or were higher at the new location.
The Chamber's monthly rental fee of $300 at the Waypoint Center was waived by the Selectboard for the first two years it was in that space. The Chamber was supposed to start paying rent again in July 2010, but MacPhee said they have not “seen a nickel of it.”
Interim Town Manager Francis “Dutch” Walsh said he expected to have more discussions with the Chamber with regard to its notice to vacate the Waypoint, and noted that he was not second-guessing their intent or decisions.
Smith noted Riccio had told him before leaving on vacation that a registered letter had been sent to the town notifying officials of the changes, on Nov. 29.
A federal case?
Tangled up in all this is use of the remaining $1.3 million dollars of a Federal Transit Authority bus and bus facilities grant.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy's office recently gave an extension of the grant to the town of Rockingham, and the final proposal for using is still being negotiated with the FTA.
The FTA and Leahy's office confirmed that the Waypoint Center is being considered as an intermodal center and recipient of $1.3 million for renovations, upgrades and accessories related to bus transit and bus facilities.
BFDDA president Gary Fox said that Greyhound has a daily stop at the Bellows Falls train station. Green Mountain Railroad owns the station, the current home to the intermodal center.
Amtrak also uses the station for the Vermonter, the daily passenger train between St. Albans and Washington, D.C.
“We need to be open and the space needs to be maintained,” Fox said. He said he understands the Chamber's concern with meeting those daily requirements all year long.
According to Murphy, meeting those proposed maintenance, upkeep and hours of operation requirements at the Waypoint Center compatible with an intermodal center were troublesome to the Chamber, whose purpose of promoting downtown businesses is not directly related to keeping a visitors' center open, cleaned and staffed. She said those points were in discussion via the Waypoint committee, and lease changes.
At this point, with the de facto chamber move, Fox said he wants to be certain he has fulfilled his contractual obligations with Green Mountain Railroad. Once that is achieved, using the Waypoint as the intermodal hub would make sense, he said.
Murphy - who also serves as the passenger rail manager for the Vermont Rail System, the owner of the train station - also agreed it was a good idea to “consolidate things into an intermodal center and a welcome center.”
Acknowledging she did not really want to lose tenants in the train station, she said any decision about Amtrak moving its stop to the Waypoint Center will “ultimately rest with them.”
“It's a nice package,” Murphy said of the Waypoint Center. “It needs to be marketed, though. If this is going to happen, we need to sit down and plan how to market it,” Murphy said. “It could make a great conference area. It's great for events now.”
FTA representatives stated they were awaiting a more defined proposal from Walsh as to how the $1.3 million would be used at the Waypoint Center, and that eligibility for using the funds rested on it being a bus transportation facility-related proposal.
According to the FTA, the concept is to create a waiting and ticketing area for bus patrons, and the agency would like a better understanding of the purpose of proposed improvements and see how they related to bus riders, whether local or Greyhound.
The grant funds are required to be used for bus transportation, but the FTA noted that services beyond bus-related activities would be OK at the intermodal center. For instance, the FTA said it would not consider a coffee shop or any other type of shop alien to the purpose of the center.
The FTA hopes to have everything finalized on how the money was going to be utilized “by the end of the calendar year.”
As yet, a time has not been established for a meeting with the FTA to discuss the final proposal for the town of Rockingham's grant funding. The agency hopes to wrap it up “by January.”