Quechee
The most unusual thing about the project is the design, according to Gary Neil, who bought the plaza off Route 4 in 1988 and has been amping up the quirk of the place ever since.
Neil explained his latest idea while sitting on a stool in the plaza’s diner last week, eating a hot dog and flipping through a handful of vintage comic books.
“It would be a bowl,” he said. “Kind of submerged.”
Neil would like to excavate a bowl-shaped depression in the field, using the removed soil to build up earthen walls that would create a kind of natural amphitheater.
When he imagines it, he pictures an evening scene, the walls containing a dome of blue light and music in the surrounding night. Inside the bowl, audiences would crowd the sloped sides, looking down at performances that could include anything from a symphonic orchestra to a fiddling competition.
He said he was inspired by the aesthetic of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who famously blended manmade structures into their natural surroundings.
Neil finished his hot dog and headed toward the field, first walking past the alpaca pen.
“The noise wouldn’t bother them,” he said.
Entrances into the event bowl would allow vehicles to drive along the inside edge of the bowl, and to access the performance area, which Neil said would allow event workers to erect a temporary stage.
He stood in the middle of the grassy field and pointed out some low berms along the treeline that he’s already made out of some dirt and stumpage that he otherwise would have hauled away. The sandy soil, he said, provides a natural “amazing drainage” that would be able to handle rainfall.
“Right after Irene, you could walk right through here,” he said.
The venue, Neil said, could draw thousands of visitors to a wide variety of events — as examples, he mentioned Shakespeare festivals, live radio broadcasts, regional musicians like Portsmouth-based blues and country singer Tom Rush, charity events, car rallies, fiber fairs, one-act plays and a spirits festival at which attendees could imbibe samples of beer, gin and rum.
Creating an events venue at the Quechee Gorge Village is a natural extension of Neil’s long-term efforts to nudge the property away from the sale of generic retail goods and toward an experience-based economy.
“Retail properties are destined to become vacant unless they can create renewable traffic,” Neil said. “You have to constantly refresh your audience, and it’s not easy.”
With this in mind, Neil said he’s worked to maintain an eclectic mix of small businesses at the plaza — antiques, a blacksmith, spirits, handmade soap and a regular flea market, among other attractions.
If a family interacts with the live alpacas outside the Vermont Alpaca Store, he said, “they remember it forever.”
Neil said a local solar company approached him with the idea of filling the field with solar panels, which would generate enough electricity to improve the bottom line for the rest of the plaza. But he said he’s pursuing the event bowl instead, because it has the potential to enrich the Quechee Gorge Village experience.
“My job is to fill the parking lot and make sure the restrooms look decent,” he said.
In order to move forward with the project, Neil first has to address community concerns.
The project is only separated from the neighboring Quality Inn by a treeline, and also is relatively close to a few residential neighbors to the south and west. It’s also near Quechee Gorge itself, the deepest gorge in the state and one of Vermont’s top natural tourist stops.
As a preliminary step to an application, Neil and an events producer pitched the idea to the Hartford Planning Commission and the Hartford Zoning Board earlier this month.
In both cases, minutes from the meetings show that committee members expressed a variety of concerns — one is that holding concerts and other performances could make too much noise for the neighboring properties.
Because Neil is seeking a conditional use permit that would allow him to create higher noise levels than is allowed under current law, he hired the White River Junction-based Resource Systems Group to do a noise modeling study. He’d like for the permit to allow music events to run until 11 p.m., one hour beyond the town’s current cutoff for nighttime noise in the area.
Quechee State Park officials said they were open to the idea of the music venue.
“It sounds like an interesting concept, but like anything, you need to review the details,” said Mike Fraysier, a director with the state Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, which manages the Quechee Gorge as part of the state park.
“There’s a potential for it to be a complementary resource for the state parks,” he said. “But at the same time, there might be noise and traffic concerns.”
Fraysier said he hoped Neil would involve the department with his plans, and that representatives would be likely to participate in the conversation during public hearings as the music bowl project moved through the town permitting process.
A summary of the noise modeling study shows that noise levels at the property line shared with the Quality Inn would be above what currently is allowed under Hartford town ordinances, and under Act 250, the state law that governs large developments.
The maximum nighttime noise level allowed under town ordinance is 40 decibels — comparable to the background noise of a library, according to noise comparison descriptions used in academic and industry studies of noise. The maximum daytime noise level is 45 decibels, comparable to the sound of bird calls.
While Act 250 considers noise impacts at the site of the receiver, the town considers impacts at the property line. The RSG study shows that at the property line of the Quality Inn, the noise impact would be 70 decibels, the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner. At the property line of other nearby residences, the study predicts sound levels of about 45 decibels, which is within the daytime limits, but above nighttime limits.
Hartford’s zoning administrator, Jo-Ann Ells, said on Wednesday that she is still reviewing the document submitted by Neil.
Before he can make his event bowl happen, Neil also will have to address other concerns raised by committee members, including how to handle the potential traffic impact, and to ensure that emergency services will have access to the site during events.
During the Planning Commission meeting, Ells told Neil he’d need a letter from the Vermont Agency of Transportation, as well as a photometric plan that would map out the light impact.
Standing in his field last week, Neil said he’s actively working to address those concerns. He’s met with Hartford Fire Marshal Mike Bedard, and has begun reaching out to neighbors. He’s drafted preliminary emergency access plans, and begun work on a traffic study. He says the Quechee Gorge Village’s existing 250 parking spaces would be enough to accommodate event attendees.
Neil argued that the businesses around Quechee Gorge, and the town as a whole, will benefit from a venue that has the potential to fill hotel beds, attract customers to area businesses, and boost tax revenues.
But if the obstacles to the project become too great, he does have other options, he said, even if they don’t excite the imagination.
He shrugged.
“There’s always a solar field.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.