Another chapter begins at 51 South Main Street
February 9, 2025 | By Lisa ScagliottiA ceremony on Monday morning will mark the start of construction at 51 South Main Street and a new chapter for a small parcel in Waterbury’s downtown that many will be able to call home as soon as next year.
A sign on the construction fence offers a preview of the Marsh House Apartments. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
January saw a transformation on the property from a vacant parking lot to a fenced-in construction site. A large sign along the sidewalk bears the architect’s rendering of the three-story apartment complex that will take shape there in the coming months.
The project by the nonprofits Downstreet Housing and Community Development and Evernorth will be the fourth affordable housing development the agencies have in Waterbury. (Others are the South Main Apartments at the corner of State Drive, the senior apartments in the Stimson and Graves building on Stowe Street, and the Green Mountain Seminary apartments in Waterbury Center.)
A bird’s-eye view of the construction site by drone. Photo by Gordon Miller
At 10:30 a.m. Monday, representatives from the developers, the contractors, the municipality and community will gather across the street at the Wesley United Methodist Church for the ceremony. Remarks from the various parties will be followed by a visit to the site for official groundbreaking photos.
The $15.3 million project has been many years in the making since Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 destroyed the buildings on the site that housed the former town and village offices and the police department. The structures were demolished in 2019 and the lot was paved to be used for parking. Ownership of the parcel transferred from the village municipality to the Edward Farrar Utility District when the village government was dissolved in 2018.
Village and later utility district trustees saw the potential for the spot to be used for residential development. It took until 2022 for the district to settle upon Downstreet as its partner. The nonprofit housing agency based in Barre is a leading developer and owner of affordable housing in Central Vermont. Evernorth joined as a financing partner. Moving ahead meant a public vote which came in October 2022 at an in-person meeting that attracted the utility district’s largest attendance and voters gave the proposal a resounding 208-69 vote of approval.
Old well discovered at 51 S. Main St. site. Photo by Anne Imhoff
In the two-plus years since, project planners worked to design a modern apartment building suited for the site, line up financing, and go through local and state permitting processes. Preliminary site work last summer, for example, included drilling in multiple spots for archeological review – “They made Swiss cheese out of it,” Municipal Manager Tom Leitz quipped recently. The investigation turned up an old well that was closed off and it satisfied the pre-development requirements, he said.
After several delays in the fall, the real estate closing took place a month ago and crews mobilized by ReArch construction management have launched the project.
As depicted by gbArchitecture’s design, the three-story building will contain 26 units to be rented to low- and moderate-income individuals and families. According to Downstreet, three of the energy-efficient apartments will be reserved for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities; five will be reserved for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Downstreet officials say they will partner with Upper Valley Services and the Good Samaritan Haven to support those tenants.
Nicola Anderson, Downstreet’s director of real estate development, said the agency likely will advertise for tenant applications in the fall. Construction is anticipated to take about a year with the building being ready for residents to move in sometime in early 2026.
Funding for the project is coming from more than a dozen state, federal and local sources including directed federal spending secured by former U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, low-income tax credits through the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board and $100,000 of Waterbury’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) federal pandemic-recovery funds. Efficiency Vermont has added energy-efficiency incentives.
One grant, for example, will reallocate state sales taxes paid on materials for the project. Administered by the state Agency of Commerce and Community Development, the award will send funds to the town government to pass on to the project. The developers will document costs and purchases for the project. The result will be about $150,000 directed back as project funding.
Choosing the name ‘Marsh House Apartments’
In considering a name for the new apartment complex, project managers looked to the site’s and Waterbury’s history. Anderson said a staffer zeroed in on the story of Waterbury’s first settler, James Marsh, from New Canaan, Connecticut.
The “History of Waterbury Vermont, 1763-1915” edited and compiled by Theodore Graham Lewis, details the “incredible hardships” Marsh and his large family endured in their quest to settle in Waterbury, starting with his acquiring the first land grant and his arrival here in 1783. The account comes from an 1867 text by the Rev. C.C. Parker of the Waterbury Congregational Church.
The story tells of Marsh and his family’s arduous circumstances to grow food, establish a home, and survive before a real settlement had taken hold in Waterbury. Marsh himself perished by drowning after falling through ice in the Winooski River. He was buried in Richmond.
“The fact that James Marsh and his entire family embodied so much strength, determination, and resilience, we decided that Marsh House was the best option for the naming of the building,” Anderson explained. Downstreet Executive Director Angie Harbin said the name choice and nod to Waterbury history seems particularly fitting given how the project originated from a need that local residents and leaders sought to address. “The community support for this project has been so significant,” Harbin said. “It’s not that typical.”
At a recent Waterbury Select Board meeting, P. Howard “Skip” Flanders, who chairs the EFUD trustees and has worked on finding a new purpose for 51 S. Main St. for over a decade, said he was very much looking forward to the groundbreaking ceremony. “This has been a long time coming,” he said.
The former home of Waterbury's municipal offices before Tropical Storm Irene's destruction in 2011, 51 S. Main Street, is a construction site now. Photo by Gordon Miller