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Proctor Plan Envisions Transformed Downtown
Brent CurtisPROCTOR — The downtown of tomorrow in Proctor could look a lot like it does now, but with economic engines in a number of key places.
In the pages of a prosperity plan set for a final review by the Select Board next week are plans to bring everything from light industry to a college campus to town while leaving the timeless serenity of the historic downtown undisturbed, consultants with Bread Loaf Corp. told members of a town advisory committee Tuesday.
“Proctor is a residential community that retains the feel of a company town,” said Todd Nebraska, manager of client services for the Middlebury architectural firm. “We’ve tried to build around that principle.”
After a year of inventorying the buildings and spaces downtown and listening to input from residents and town officials, the consultants delivered a final plan Tuesday. It blends industrial development in the former Vermont Marble building with commercial spaces on Main Street, and tourism and recreational attractions tie everything together.
“Proctor has a really compact center with most residents in town living a quarter-mile away from the center,” Nebraska said. “It makes Proctor a truly walkable community.”
Or bike-able.
The prosperity plan calls for a bike path, already in the works, to run along Main Street and a footpath to run from the northern end of the Proctor Free Library parking lot to Sutherland Falls — which the consultants said is the tallest waterfall in the state.
“For people coming from outside of Vermont, this is kind of a big deal,” Nebraska said.
For people living in the town, proposals to add services and amenities — such as a bank, convenience store and gas station, restaurants and a farmers market — would give people a greater chance to shop locally.
The plan also calls for extensive redevelopment of the former marble mill, which would need about $800,000 worth of capital improvements to remove asbestos, install sprinkler systems and pay for other deferred maintenance before the entire space could be used.
But with hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially available from state and federal grant programs to help pay for those improvements, the consultants said, the town would have tens of thousands of square feet for business and office incubators.
The Vermont Marble mill building would serve as a primary economic anchor for the town, with the College of St. Joseph planning to open a campus at 61 Main St. for its physician’s assistant and radiology technician programs providing another economic fundamental — customers.
The plan envisions the construction of two buildings on an empty lot at 60 Main St. in front of the mill building. The architects said the first floors of the two buildings could be used for commercial or retail uses while the second and possibly third floors could be used for student housing.
“If there are students here, where are they going to live? With the college coming into town there’s a real opportunity here,” Nebraska said, adding that the town should begin looking for a developer interested in building on the site.
The plan also considers the future of the town’s fire station, which in the plan would move into a new building on the back side of 60 Main St. close to the mill, and the transfer of the municipal offices from its current location to the back of 39 Main St. — a building the town would share with the college.
In the fire station’s current location, the architects foresee an opportunity for a commercial, retail or restaurant space while the town office could serve as a visitor center.
To give people even more incentive to come downtown, the architects said the town should plan block parties and concerts on the town green.
The advisory committee, made up of members of the town’s Select Board and Planning Commission along with regional business planners, economic planners and local business leaders didn’t make any formal recommendation about the prosperity plan Tuesday.
But Select Board Chairman Bill Champine, a member of the advisory committee, said he liked what he saw.
“They came up with a lot of things the town needs,” he said. “Now, it’s just a matter of getting the community involved to move things forward.”
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