Successful Community Development
Salisbury Square is a mixed-use brownfield redevelopment project in the historic village center of Randolph, Vermont. The 4.4-acre site was moderately contaminated due to its prior use as a furniture manufacturing facility, and its redevelopment presented numerous challenges, both legal and strategic. The former Ethan Allen furniture plant lay abandoned for nearly 20 years after closure when the company agreed to donate the site to the Randolph Area Community Development Corporation (RACDC), a community-based housing and economic development organization. RACDC envisioned a new downtown neighborhood where the blighted site stood. RACDC and its development consultants at the Hartland Group retained SRH Law to help them navigate the process.
Working closely with our clients, we first helped secure an approved Corrective Action Plan from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources under Vermont’s Brownfields Program, which was critical for successful cleanup of the polluted parcel. We then helped the developers obtain local zoning and Act 250 permits for the project, which called for relatively dense redevelopment to support the desired mix of market-rate and affordable-housing units. As part of this process, we also helped address state historic-preservation issues related to the existing buildings and structures on the site.
The first phase of the project is currently under construction. The project will ultimately provide 22 single-family homes and duplexes and 14 affordable-housing apartments for families in the community, renovate an historic building, and help to support and revitalize the historic village center.
We’ve handled similar project development, land-use permitting, environmental remediation, and real estate work for a wide range of other clients.