BRATTLEBORO — With plans still uncertain about the future of the Brooks House, it will be a while before changes along the first-floor storefronts occur, says its owner, Jonathan Chase.
As workers begin repairing the historic building, seriously damaged in a five-alarm fire on April 17, sounds of deconstruction can be heard behind the pumpkin-orange plastic barrier, and burnedout window frames and an absent roofline along the Harmony Parking lot frame the skyline.
At the street level, foot traffic now passes underneath scaffolding topped with plywood between the Book Cellar and Dragonfly Dry Goods, on the corner of Main and High Streets.
The reality of a fire does not sink in immediately. Many of the affected business owners, along with local and state officials, are still in the process of determining what exactly the fire means, both emotionally and financially.
Chase says that he has the support he needs at the local and state levels to make the inevitable choices he faces easier, but that support makes it only marginally easier to deal with the effects of the fire from day to day.
Chase returns at least 20 calls daily, and he takes meetings all day long to “bring the Brooks House back from the major challenge she just endured.”
“As much as possible, we want to bring this historic 140-year-old landmark property into the 21st century,” he says. “Also, very importantly, we'll now have the opportunity to utilize more current, energy-efficient building materials and systems to heat, cool, and light the building than we had before. To the extent we can incorporate these aspects into the redesign, we will.”
That all takes a lot of time, a lot of planning, and a lot of work.
Chase's thinking is still very much in the early stages, and he has yet to determine hisfunding sources. Local and state officials have vowed to help him cut through as much red tape as possible.
Brattleboro Selectboard Chair Dick DeGray notes that the “building is important to Main Street” and that “we want to maintain a good relationship” with Chase.
To that end, “We are going to be working with the governor, state, and congressional leaders” to find resources to help Chase “build anew.”
“It's exciting. He has the opportunity to do any of a multitude of things now that he couldn't before,” DeGray says.
At a recent meeting with the Town Arts Committee, several people suggested that artists be able to use the space even before the deconstruction is finished and the reconstruction begins. [See story, this issue.]
Chase is all in favor of the idea, saying that “there were a number of exciting ideas and potential projects that would involve the Brooks House. I found all the suggestions exciting and ones I could support.
“From my perspective, as the property owner, the sooner the better, as long as, whatever the project, [it] doesn't get in the way of the deconstructing and reconstructing process we're undertaking right now,” he adds.
The Putney experience
While a community's response to a disaster like the fire sets the tone for recovery, affected business owners, community leaders, and state agencies, say it's inevitable that some businesses will not reopen.
Insurance coverage cannot replace the lost revenue or the time it takes to reestablish a business somewhere else.
Years of sweat equity and building a business into a local institution - as in the case of the Book Cellar, which has operated in the same location in the Brooks House for 55 years - cannot be replaced, nor can the individual modifications to the bricks and mortar of the building by tenants over the years.
While community support, hope, and a can-do attitude are the underpinnings of recovery from a fire such as this one, the economic realities have yet to unfold, and may continue into the years ahead, well beyond the completion of any reconstruction and business startups.
A complicating factor is the current recession and its effect onsmall businesses.
But how long might it take the community to recover from the loss of businesses that drew foot traffic along the street - in this case, along the “sunny side of the street”?
Business owners in Putney say that in the two years following the first fire that destroyed the Putney General Store, their revenue dropped significantly, and has not recovered since the business was last open in 2008.
Putney Town Manager Chris Ryan says the general store used to “see 300 people in and out of there in a constant stream, every day.” He notes far less foot traffic without the store to draw people.
Whether this change is due to bad economic times or the fire is up for debate, some store owners say. The reality remains that economically, business has not recovered.
“I would say it was a huge [loss of business],” says Penelope Wurr of Penelope Wurr Glass. Her shop was situated in the building next to the Putney General Store and was among those lining Kimball Hill Road.
“When a restaurant changes hands and is handed over to a new owner, a certain amount of good will moves forward with the sale. When [Kimball Hill] experienced two fires back to back, that was lost.”
With the loss of the General Store, what drew people over to the north side of the street ceased to exist, and foot traffic became incidental.
Since the fire, Silver Forest, one of the businesses in the same block, has gone out of business, and Wurr moved across the street next door to the Front Porch Café where, she says, she has had to change the way she does business.
While she frames the move across the road as a choice, she also admits that if the fires had never occurred, she would “more than likely still be” in her old space near the General Store.
Not all the economic news is bad, though.
Tugci Okumus, co-owner of Putney Village Pizza with her husband, Erhan Oge, says, “We're seeing more local faces we haven't seen in a long time. Maybe they are staying here instead of driving down to Brattleboro.”
Okumus and Oge owned the Putney General Store before selling the building to the Putney Historical Society after the first fire.
One of the hidden costs of businesses being forced to move following a fire are exactly what Wurr has discovered – the higher cost of rent and having to reestablish good will.
Good will, in general, can be measured by the difference between what a business can generate after three years versus what it can generate starting from scratch.
“I have loyal customers,” she says, “but I'm having to cater to whole different spectrum of customer” in the new location.
When Wurr's rent doubled, she had to adapt.
The pressure was on for her to “be open more hours during the week,” and she has had to offer items not her own “that appeal to a wider public, and are more affordable,” she says. As a result, she adds,“My customers are different.”
Maintaining loyalty
Ana McDaniel, the manager of The Book Cellar, says the store has loyal customers, but “we can't just plop down anywhere. We need a storefront location, and there just isn't much available” that fits that criteria in Brattleboro.
The Brooks House location is considered prime downtown retail space.
The Book Cellar's lost inventory will be covered by insurance, and McDaniel says that the store has a “loyal following” consisting of people who shop both online and in person. Many of the store's regular customers have pledged continued support.
But even were the Book Cellar to find another spot, the reality is that bookstores are struggling, and that the Book Cellar built its business up during a period of 55 years in its Brooks House location.
The store is owned by Lisa Sullivan, who also owns Bartleby's in Wilmington, another independent bookstore.,
Sullivan, who has been on vacation during this transition, is “doing just fine,” McDaniel says, confirming that there are no plans for change in Wilmington.
“It's the silver lining [in] this disaster,” she adds. “But the loss of business [overall] has been dramatic. The business of selling books in a bricks-and-mortar store is challenging, to say the least. I don't think we could get up and move to a shopping center and expect our following to come with us.”
McDaniel says that Sullivan still has not decided whether to reopen the Book Cellar in another location. However, McDaniel notes that the two bookstores maintain an online business, and that she plans to focus more on building and promoting that side of the enterprise.
She says that, while the five other Book Cellar employees either work second jobs or have spouses whoare employed, none has found other jobs yet.
“With [11] businesses just gone [from Brattleboro], there are even less jobs for them to find in a small town,” McDaniel says.
A daunting task
Joss Besse, director of the Division of Community Planning and Revitalization at the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Affairs, points out the stark realities of how long it can take a business to reopen after a disaster, even with financial help to soften the blow.
“It takes a while to sort out insurance and for the owner to explore options to decide what to do next. Meanwhile, the businesses are shut down,” Besse says. “[A fire like the Brooks House fire causes] disruption of revenue, loss of cash flow, and loss of inventory.”
“It's an extremely disruptive event,” Besse adds. “The sales losses do not come back.”
Bridge loans may become available, Besse explains, as businesses move through the period of determining insurance coverage and what to do next to continue to meet monthly bills.
Those same loans may be used to move into a new place.
However, loans at a time of lost revenue and uncertain business futures, as well an economy that is already stressful to small businesses, might not make sense in the long run to a business hit by the fire.
The physical reality of having a burned-out building on Main Street can also act as a drag on business overall, Besse says.
“Typically, the norm is that people don't walk along large stretches of unpleasant [visible structural damage to building],” he says. “You can watch people turn around and go the other way.”
“A continuous wall of storefronts draws people along a walkway,” Besse says. “[Brattleboro] will be missing that for a while.”
That reality will affect businesses adjacent to the Brooks House fire on both Main and High Streets. And, Besse notes, “It's such a big building, one of the landmark buildings [in downtown].”
Besse says that other towns dealing with coming back after a major fire, like Randolph, Barre, and Springfield, have “taken a hit” in business revenue.
But he notes that, in those cases, all parties have chosen to rebuild the structure affected by fire, even “though it takes time” to complete the restoration and rebuilding necessary.
Brattleboro Lister Russ Rice says thatno one has come forward yet to ask for adjustments as a result of loss of business downtown.
The Brooks House building and property are assessed at $2,355,000. The property is valued at two-thirds of that total. Rice says that the fire likely halved the assessed value.
He adds that Chase and others involved in helping the recovery effortsare still assessing “what percentage of the building is left usable, and what basis there is for rebuilding. In reality, it will cost more to demolish it.”
“We are in the very early stages of determining what we have to work with after the fire, how much it will cost to ready it for reconstruction, and then ultimately rebuild,” Chase says. “And because of the magnitude of this project, it will take considerable time to plan, and then actually put the Brooks House back in her rightful place, at the crossroads and center of our beautiful downtown.”
Besse says that the seeming frequency of incidents of fire in downtown areas are due mainly to the fact that, in Vermont, most downtown buildings were constructed at a time when the building codes were more lax.
In 2006, tax credits were established for “rehabilitation projects in designated downtowns” around Vermont, to include covering the cost of sprinkler systems.
“The cost of installing sprinkler systems is cheaper” than the costs associated with the loss of building from fire, Besse says.
The Brooks House suffered significant fire damage to the fourth and fifth floors, while the first three floors escaped relatively unscathed, but for smoke and water damage. The extent of the damage to the building is still being assessed.
The primary damage to businesses affected by the Brooks House fire was damage to inventory associated with water, not fire. The cost of rebuilding is still unknown.
Positive thoughts
Every person interviewed for this story, including business owners, has taken a positive approach to dealing with the fire. Each expressed gratitude for the support they had received, hope for the future, and cautious optimism that the fire, in the long run, will turn out to be an opportunity in disguise.
McDaniel says she is lucky. She will continue to have a job building the website business, and the Book Cellar has a clientele that she hopes will follow them online or travel to their sister store in Wilmington.
But Karen Nadeau's three-year dream, embodied by her hair salon, Ultimate Expressions, on High Street, will have to wait.
Nadeau is now working for her friend and former employer, Linda Enright of Enright and Company, who recently relocated her business from the Brattleboro Food Co-op plaza on Main Street to the Price Chopper plaza on Canal Street.
“I told her she and her girls were welcome to come over and work,” Enright says.
“I think she called me at 8 o'clock the next morning [after the fire],” Nadeau adds.
“It's definitely a dip in the road,” Nadeau admits, but it is not permanent.
Nadeau does not know what she can salvage or how long it will be before she can reopen her business elsewhere.
“I hope to have another location in the future,” she says.
On the bright side, the Book Cellar will still host a book signing for Rick Riordan, author of the popular Percy Jackson series, for his new book, The Kane Chronicles, Book Two: The Throne of Fire on May 6 in the River Garden, a location that was generously offered as an alternative venue, McDaniels says.
And DeGray says that the Strolling of the Heifers will continue as planned.
The economic realities of recovering from a fire in Vermont are immense, but the way to the other side is a good dose of common sense, New England perseverance, and the support of the community, both local and state, all of which Brattleboro has in abundance.
As Besse notes, recovery will happen, - “but it takes time.”