White River Junction property owner seeks town support for redevelopment project

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The Hartford Selectboard is considering providing public support — potentially millions of dollars — for the redevelopment of the Hotel Coolidge in downtown White River Junction.

In “the first of what is likely to be many meetings,” as Selectboard Vice Chairman Mike Hoyt described it, the board unanimously agreed to move on to phase two of the newly designed public private partnership, or PPP, process for the redevelopment of the 100-year-old hotel block.

A PPP is a “collaboration between a government entity and a private enterprise, often on very large infrastructure projects,” according to materials submitted for Tuesday’s Selectboard meeting. The goal is to support large projects that also have public benefits.

The proposed development, called the Junction House project, would be rebuilt on the site of the Hotel Coolidge and include about 95 apartments, a public plaza and about 14,000 square feet of commercial space intended to “cater to smaller, locally owned businesses” through the size and rental costs of the units.

The brick hotel with its two rooftop towers on either end sits in the heart of downtown White River Junction. A hotel has existed on the site since 1850. Today, the building holds 30 guest rooms and several storefronts along South Main Street and Gates Street.

Longtime owner David Briggs and developer Adam Grounds are asking for the town’s financial support to do site work for the development and build new off-site parking or a parking garage. They also requested 10 years of tax stabilization after construction, and that the town waive water, sewer and permitting fees.

“The redevelopment of this site as a purely private enterprise is simply not feasible,” Grounds told the Selectboard at its Tuesday meeting.

Grounds is a principal at Boston-based development firm Copper Acre. He graduated from Dartmouth in 2016 and has family ties to Hartford, where he said his wife’s family has lived for 60 years. His personal ties to the area are the “driving inspiration for this project,” Grounds wrote in a presentation.

The commitment from the town of Hartford to support the redevelopment could be as much as $21 million between parking and site preparation costs, Grounds said. That figure is based on early estimates, though he said he plans to conduct more feasibility studies to solidify the requests.

The PPP process for developments in Hartford involves multiple “benchmark levels.” At Tuesday’s meeting, the Selectboard had to consider what the plan for the project is, the qualifications of the developer, what public benefits it will provide, how it aligns with town planning documents, what support the developer is asking the town to provide and what risks are associated with the project.

In the developer’s eyes, the public benefits include the housing increase, a boost to the grand list, more public parking downtown, retail space, community gathering space, a co-working space and that the development would enable Hartford to pursue geothermal heating.

The board approved the development to move on to “benchmark level two” Tuesday night, which doesn’t commit the town to the project, but clears the way for further discussions and allows Grounds to start the site plan review and permitting processes.

The board also left Grounds with several questions to address about the specific impact and benefits to taxpayers.

One of the first things that has to be decided is how much parking could be built in parking-strapped downtown White River Junction to accommodate the project. Any parking structure would also include public parking spaces.

There are about 400 parking spaces in downtown White River Junction. Parking has long been a hot topic in town, including in recent discussions about installing parking meters to increase space turnover. The most recent town plan, written in 2019, identified parking as an issue that needs to be addressed as development in the village continues to increase parking demand.

Last summer, the town updated the South Main Street parking lot to increase the number of available spaces.

The proposed options for parking in the Junction House project include creating an underground parking garage below the development with about 100 spaces, which would cost about $13 million, or building a parking garage on one of the existing public parking lots downtown with about 150 spaces for $4.5 million. Both of these options could be used by the public.

Though he is “really excited about the public space aspect of the project and the housing makes sense,” Selectboard member Erik Krauss said he is skeptical about supporting new parking development in downtown White River Junction.

“I think the direction that we need to move is away from cars,” Krauss said. “We’re not going to get rid of cars and we’re not going to do any transition rapidly, but we’re talking about a major long-term investment.”

The Selectboard requested more information about the parking plan, including asking Grounds to look at other possible locations.

Though she approved of moving the project to phase two, Board Member Miranda Dupre said when Grounds comes back before the board she is “hoping we’ll have maybe some more research or options for parking.”

The parking decision creates a “little bit of a chicken and egg situation” because the amount of available parking “scales” the development by the number of possible rental units, including how many stories the building could be, and the amount of retail space the developers can build, Grounds told the board.

He noted that the cost and parking estimates provided in his presentation are “necessarily a little bit vague,” but he plans to conduct more feasibility studies as the planning continues.

Selectboard member Ashley Andreas also questioned how the development would impact downtown White River Junction during construction. Grounds assured her that businesses in the neighboring Gates-Briggs building, such as Tuckerbox and Junction Arts and Media, would not be impacted.

Still, businesses located in the Coolidge building would be affected. The first floor of the building is home to multiple art galleries, Junction Frame Shop, Lampscapes and the Valley Flower Company.

“The Coolidge Hotel represents a substantial amount of businesses in White River Junction, so it will inherently be disruptive, especially for the businesses that call it home,” Grounds said.

At the meeting, some members of the public also weighed in, mostly with concerns about the cost and tax impact of the project.

Though he said he was excited about Grounds working on the project and “I think it’s a great step forward,” White River Junction resident Tim Fariel said he was “trying to temper that enthusiasm with economic reality.”

“You have to really get a lot more data and details around the economics in terms of the value of the project and the potential for taxes,” Fariel told the board.

Members of the public can submit feedback on the project to the developer at https://bit.ly/3IrpPYJ.

Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.