Cannabis and kid’s books: New developments coming to Waterbury Center
Aug. 18, 2022 | By Lee Kahrs | Correspondent
Two prime spots along Waterbury’s busiest stretch of road are being developed for two very different and uniquely Vermont purposes.
Lynette Vallecillo and Robert Owen of Stowe bought the former convenience store and gas station known as Emery’s at 3627 Waterbury-Stowe Road (Vermont Route 100), directly across from Cold Hollow Cider Mill. They plan to open one of Waterbury’s first dedicated retail cannabis shops named Good Fire, hopefully by the end of the year.
Just down the road to the south at 3579 Waterbury-Stowe Road, The Children’s Literacy Foundation, or CLiF as it’s commonly known, will soon be under construction to build a dedicated headquarters after operating for almost 25 years out of founder Duncan McDougall’s garage at his home on Loomis Hill Road.
Retail weed
In an interview last week, Vallecillo and Owen said they bought the former store and gas station property last fall. Last month, demolition was completed and construction began soon afterward.
The one-story building will contain a 1,200-square-foot shop featuring kiosks where customers can peruse the store’s products, order what they want, and complete their purchases. For new customers who are unsure, staff members will be available to help select the type of cannabis product that is right for them, the couple said.
Good Fire will also feature high-level perimeter security with 24-hour monitoring, Owen said.
Vallecillo and Owen have a draft application for a retail cannabis license filed with the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Pending approval, they plan to be open by December. Nellie Marvel at the state cannabis board’s office confirmed the application status.
The Vermont Legislature approved retail marijuana sales in 2020 with the passage of Act 164, and the state’s Cannabis Control Board has been moving slowly toward establishing the retail market for adult use (21+) ever since. The board is now poised to start issuing retail cannabis licenses on Oct. 1.
Waterbury is one of 74 Vermont towns where voters decided to allow retail cannabis establishments within the town limits. Under the state law establishing the marketplace, municipalities were asked to opt-in to determine in which communities cannabis businesses would be allowed. Waterbury voters in March 2021 voted 60% in favor of allowing the new commercial trade.
“The state won’t issue the license until the business is ready to operate,” Owen said. “So they are now accepting applications for retail licenses for dispensaries but we're probably not going to be ready to have a license issued until we get our (certificate of occupancy) from the town and the state. We’ve been assured there is plenty of time, we just want to make sure that everything's in order.”
According to the project plans submitted for a town building permit and site plan approval, the Waterbury Development Review Board granted a request to change the minimum front setback from the required 50 feet to 25 feet. By doing so, the new building will conform to other buildings in the area and allow setback compliance on the other three sides.
Architect Joe Greene of Joseph Architects in Waterbury designed the Good Fire building specifically for its specialty retail purpose. Owen said there will be a vault where cannabis products will be stored and cooled at lower temperatures to prevent mildew and mold.
“Higher temperatures can dry out cannabinoids and terpenes, compromising potency,” Owen wrote in an email. “The cannabis at Good Fire will be stored in a controlled environment with humidity controls. Keeping cannabis freshest in storage ensures it maintains its color, consistency and flavor.”
Terpenes are naturally occurring chemicals in plants responsible for aroma, flavor, and color.
To address concerns from adjacent property owners over how the shop would affect traffic in the area, a traffic study was done by Wall Consultant Group of Salt Lake City, Utah. It estimates that the cannabis shop will generate an average of 260 vehicle trips per day, as opposed to the 1,030 average vehicle trips generated when the property was a convenience store and gas station.
The project plans call for 15 parking spots and eliminating the huge curb cut along the Waterbury-Stowe Road that allowed vehicles to enter and exit all along the property’s frontage. It will instead create a 22-foot-wide exit-only onto the state highway. There will be an entrance only to the property from Sunset Drive, creating one-way traffic flow on the property.
The DRB approved the waiver and the project at its Dec. 15 meeting with several conditions, such as installing exterior lighting that’s shielded and downcast, and adding screening along the rear of the building.
Other key conditions were:
• The Vermont Agency of Transportation must approve the access driveway to Rt. 100.
• The applicants work with the Town of Waterbury to fund and construct the widening of Sunset Drive from the entrance into the site to Waterbury-Stowe Road to meet the geometric standards in the town highway ordinance.
“The former Emory's store at the corner of Sunset Drive and Route 100 has been vacant for a long time and it's a great location,” said Waterbury Planning and Zoning Director Steve Lotspeich. “It's great to have a new building going in. I think the neighbors are generally in support of the project and we had some issues around traffic that we’ve kind of worked through.”
Uncharted territory
Once the permitting and construction is complete, Vallecillo and Owen will have a new business to run and, as with many entrepreneurs looking to enter the new Vermont cannabis marketplace, this will be an entirely new venture.
Vallecillo owns and operates Hire Initiatives Inc., a recruiting and staff management firm. Owen owns 12 Super Cuts hair salon franchises in Vermont and upstate New York.
Why cannabis retail?
Both said they wanted to go into business together, and that this a good time to get in on the ground floor of Vermont’s retail cannabis market.
“We’re looking to get married next year and we wanted to do something together, some type of business relationship,” Vallecillo said. “We were home and the bill had just passed and Bob had been looking at the cannabis industry for some years, and we decided we were going to take this route.”
While admittedly neither of them has cannabis experience, Vallecillo did take a course at the University of Vermont last year on the medicinal and scientific properties of cannabis. She said she is also a believer of the healing qualities of CBD, a natural chemical found in hemp that may help relieve pain and symptoms of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, mental health disorders and other conditions.
“I am a believer in CBD and cannabinoids and how it impacts our health, so I am a huge proponent of it,” Vallecillo said. “While I haven't had experience out in the field, I certainly have done a lot of reading and testing of products.”
Vallecillo and Owen said they plan to hire six to 10 employees to run Good Fire and they are actively recruiting now, particularly for an experienced store manager.
“Neither one of us have any cannabis background, so we recognize that we want to bring in someone that has some expertise in this and will make sure that we hire people who are well versed,” Owen said.
He gave the example of his Supercuts salons.
“I am not a hairdresser,” Owen said. “I don’t know the first thing about cutting hair, and I’ve operated these Supercuts for 20 years. So we feel very comfortable with this direction given how we’ve operated in the past.”
Good Fire’s business plan is designed to make cannabis veterans and beginners alike feel comfortable and also to educate.
“We want our guests to feel welcome to feel like they can ask questions because this is new to a lot of people,” Vallecillo said. “ And there's so much talk right now in magazines and newspapers and on the television about the benefits of the cannabinoids, so we want to be able to educate and make them feel comfortable and provide them with the information. Then at the same time, we have people that are experienced and know what they want – and they want to come in and out – and so we want to be able to serve these customers as well.”
A cause that is near and dear to Vallecillo and Owen is the Last Prisoner Project, which seeks release for thousands of inmates in the U.S. serving time for minor cannabis-related arrests. The goal of the nonprofit is cannabis criminal justice reform and the federal decriminalization of marijuana. Good Fire will be aligned with the Last Prisoner Project, and Vallecillo and Owens intend to promote the nonprofit in their business.
“Because we are fortunate enough to be benefiting from the legalization of cannabis, there is kind of a moral obligation to assist those who have been impacted when the regulations were in place,” Vallecillo said.
This rendering by Black River Design Architects shows the new headquarters for the Children's Literacy Foundation.
Same mission, new digs for CLiF
The nonprofitChildren’s Literacy Foundation was formed in 1998 with the mission to support and inspire literacy in children from birth to age 12 who live in rural Vermont and New Hampshire communities.
Now it is aiming to break ground Sept. 1 on a 3,000-square-foot headquarters on 1.3-acres along Route 100. The property is the site of the former Flatow House, an historic brick home that contained the CC Auction House. The building was destroyed in an arson fire on Oct. 27, 2017.
The project was aided by a change in Waterbury’s zoning regulations that allowed the plan to progress without Act 250 state land use review.
Lotspeich said that the town’s zoning regulations enacted in 2013 kept a one-acre threshold for which non-residential projects would require Act 250 land-use permitting review. That meant that any commercial project over an acre in size would be subject to Act 250. The select board voted in November to rescind that ordinance making the new threshold 10 acres. It went into effect early this year.
“I think the CliF project is great as well,” Lotspeich said. “There was an historic house there that tragically burned down and it's sad that that's gone, but it’s a great site for them, and I think, a good project, well supported through permitting, and I’m happy that we succeeded in getting the Act 250 change so they don't have that expense. I think that was a big accomplishment.”
Construction, then a hand-off
Duncan McDougall, founder and executive director of the Children's Literacy Foundation, at the building site on Rt. 100 in Waterbury Center. Courtesy photo
Completion of the building project will also signal McDougall’s departure and usher in a new era for CLiF under a new executive director, the search for whom is now underway.
“It just happens to coincide with my 25th year with CLiF,” McDougall said. “I told the board at our 20th anniversary that I would be stepping down as executive director and that we should look for a new leader. And so we've already started the leadership transition process. We've hired an executive search firm and by next spring, we will have not only a new headquarters, but we'll have a new executive director as well.”
The mission of the nonprofit will remain the same, MacDougal said, but the organization will grow in the new space.
“The mission will not change,” McDougall said. “Over time, once we move into the new building, our hope is that our staff will increase because we've just maxed out our space here above our garage, and we're really looking forward to having much more space. Not only for our staff members but also for our fantastic volunteers.”
McDougall said he currently has six staff members and roughly 15 regular volunteers.
“We have a number of volunteers who helped us process and sort and sticker and ship a million dollars worth of brand new children's books every year to kids all across Vermont [and] New Hampshire. So, we're looking forward to providing them with a much larger, more comfortable and better-organized space.
A centerpiece of CLiF’s programming is its book giveaways where it provides new books to child care centers, libraries and other programs that serve young children. Staff travel to do in-person readings and literacy activities and send books home with children to keep. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CLiF added more online events for kids and adults that included author visits and literacy activities.
CLiF started fundraising for the new building in 2020 with a goal to raise $2 million. McDougall said they have raised roughly 90% of their goal to date.
Asked what he will do once he steps down from CLiF, McDougall said he wants to continue working in prisons with children of incarcerated adults and their families. He also intends to stay involved in Waterbury LEAP, the Local Energy Action Partnership and the town Energy Committee that he chairs.
He and his wife, Belle, will also be able to park their cars in their garage for the first time in years.