Lawmakers hear plan to use Waterbury armory as a 40-50 bed emergency shelter
January 25, 2024 | By Lisa Scagliotti Sunday, Jan. 28 UPDATE: The Waterbury Select Board will hear the state's plans at its meeting Monday at 7 p.m. in the upstairs meeting room at the Main Street Fire Station and online via Zoom. Please do not park at the station. Parking is available at 51 S. Main Street next to Waterbury Service Center.
Friday, Jan. 26: This post was updated at the bottom with information about Monday’s Waterbury Select Board meeting and a link to the Senate committee hearing video recording.
Correction: Chris Winters’ title was corrected. Winters is commissioner of the Department For Children and Families.
MONTPELIER—Under a plan described to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Waterbury could play a key role in creating a new emergency shelter for Central Vermont.
Senate Appropriations Committee members listen to testimony of Vermont Deputy Adjutant General Kenneth Gragg (bottom, center) on Thursday. Left to right around the table (top): Sens. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington; Dick Sears Jr., D-Bennington; Chair Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia; Richard Westman, R-Lamoille; Virginia Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast. Bottom left is Sen. Robert Starr, D-Orleans. Screenshot
Officials from the Vermont National Guard and the Agency of Human Services testified on Thursday afternoon describing a real estate transaction between the two units of state government.
The deal would allow the Vermont National Guard to buy land for construction of a new armory in Franklin County. Meanwhile the roughly 4-acre property in downtown Waterbury would be transferred to the Agency of Human Services and put to use immediately as a 40-50 bed emergency shelter to address the acute need for shelter space in the region.
National Guard Deputy Adjutant General Kenneth Gragg began his testimony describing the St. Albans armory that’s on the National Register of Historic Places and was built in 1914. “It desperately needs quality of life improvements because we were looking at 10, 12, 15 years before we would see a replacement armory.”
But an evaluation for improvements “determined that the facility was laced with PCBs through the entire building,” he said. “None of it is airborne from a safety perspective, but we basically can’t do any work.”
Polychlorinated biphenyls – referred to as PCBs – are man-made chemicals that were used in building materials and electrical equipment prior to 1980. Some examples of products that may contain PCBs include caulk, paint, glues, plastics, transformers, capacitors and fluorescent lighting ballasts. As these materials age and deteriorate, PCBs can spread into nearby porous materials or be released into dust or air. In 1979, the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency banned the manufacturing and use of PCBs as they were determined to cause cancer in animals and are considered probably cancer-causing in humans. Today, managing and disposing of PCB-contaminated materials are a challenge in older buildings needing renovations.
Gragg said the contamination at the St. Albans facility comes from paint throughout the building and remediation was estimated at $5 million before any renovations can happen. The National Guard cannot receive federal mitigation grants, he noted, so it may be prudent for the state to sell the facility to an entity that could qualify and eventually convert the building for commercial use.
Approximately 70 National Guard members currently use the St. Albans facility regularly, Gragg said. “We felt it was important to look at other options to accelerate the 10-12 year plan to build a new armory,” he continued.
He explained that Vermont Military Department officials have found a site for new construction in Franklin County. A 40-acre parcel near Interstate 89 in Swanton adjacent to an Agency of Transportation highway garage is a viable location to build “a brand new $30 million armory,” he said.
The land price is $1.1 million, according to Gragg.
That’s where the Waterbury armory comes into the picture.
The Vermont National Guard armory in Waterbury sits on 2.5 acres between Interstate 89 and Stowe Street. File photo by Gordon Miller
Delays, then a potential deal
Decommissioned in December 2022 after the artillery unit that used it was transferred to Massachusetts, the Waterbury guard property on Armory Drive tucked between I-89 and Stowe Street has since sat unused.
Gragg described how the Military Department got the facility ready to sell last summer “and then the floods came,” leading to a delay. “The governor asked if we could hold onto the property to make it available for FEMA as an intake site which they occupied until mid-October,” he said. The armory was one of several Federal Emergency Management Agency Disaster Recovery Centers set up after the July floods.
Late last year, the Military Department looked to market the Waterbury armory and again a request came from Gov. Phil Scott’s administration to wait.
In the committee room as Gragg testified was Administration Secretary Kristin Clouser. “We were in conversations with the military and we asked them to hold off on selling this on the open market,” she confirmed.
Now, as it turns out, the Military Department didn’t have to look far for a potential buyer.
Next to address the Senate committee in Thursday’s hearing was Chris Winters, commissioner of the state Department For Children and Families. Referring to the National Guard officials in the room, Winters called the proposal a win-win. “This presents a good opportunity for them, and a good opportunity for [the Agency of Human Services] to be able to take advantage of state-owned property as part of the solution for temporary shelters starting on April 1,” he said.
Winters noted that lawmakers are looking to include $4 million for temporary emergency shelters in the Budget Adjustment Act that was being discussed in the House at the same time as the committee meeting.
Lawmakers are looking to expand the state’s capacity of emergency housing with more shelter beds in approximately five communities in the next two months, Winters summarized.
“This could be one more tool in the toolbox to address that,” he said, referring to the armory transfer. “We think we could have 40-50 beds in the [Waterbury] armory on a temporary basis.”
Winters said he knows the details of the state’s next phase of emergency shelters are not decided yet. “But we still believe this will be helpful to our overall shelter capacity and trying to move away from our reliance on the hotels and motels,” he said of the Waterbury armory.
Deputy Commissioner of the Department for Children and Families Chris Winters (bottom center) speaks to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Jan. 25 with other state officials seated around the room. Screenshot
Community outreach still needed
Committee Chair Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, asked Winters about public awareness of the proposal in Waterbury. “And the community is aware of the proposed plan? You’ve been having discussions with the community?”
“So this is very fast moving,” Winters began. “I will say the town manager and select board are aware – I let them know that I’m testifying here today. I think the community in general is not aware of this yet – Waterbury in general – but we do plan to have that outreach with the town.”
Waterbury Municipal Manager Tom Leitz on Thursday afternoon confirmed that Winters notified town officials about the proposal being presented to the Senate committee.
Leitz said he was not prepared to comment on it yet though until he had more information and a chance to talk with the Waterbury Select Board. The board meets next on Monday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m. and the topic will be on the agenda, Leitz said.
Senate Appropriations Committee members raised several cost-related questions. Sen. Virginia Lyons, D-Chittenden Southeast, asked about modifications that will be needed to set the armory up to house people. Would that be paid for with Budget Adjustment Act funding?
Winters said yes, the “fit-up” of the building to be used as a shelter would likely come from the $4 million. “We don’t have all the numbers on that yet, but we’re working closely with [the state Buildings and General Services Department],” he said, adding that work will include meeting building codes to use the facility for overnight occupancy, have appropriate fire sprinklers, add and modify bathroom facilities, as examples.
Kitchel asked what the configuration would be for people staying in the shelter – would it be dorm style? Would it have any private space?
“Congregate shelters are not best practice,” Winters acknowledged. “This would be congregate with plywood separations … ideally not for families with children.”
The partitions would be fitted with electricity, he noted. But the armory space would remain fairly open. “We would create privacy to the extent that we could,” Winters said.
Starr asked about the location and the distance in the village for shelter residents to get food or services.
The location is not very convenient in that regard, Winters noted. He said the plan would be to have food available on site. “And we’re looking at public transportation to perhaps add a bus stop,” he added. “Ideally a shelter is located where you can walk to those services.”
Sen. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington, asked about staffing for the shelter operation. That is yet to be determined, Winters answered, noting that last summer, the state received four bids for staffing emergency shelters that were not pursued. “We’re going back to those providers for an updated bid,” he said, adding that the expectation would be that one of those bidders would be hired to run a Waterbury facility.
Perchlik asked if the contractor would likely be from Vermont.
“Probably not someone local,” Winters said, explaining that some of the bidders were out-of-state companies that specialize in emergency shelter operations. And while the state would prefer to hire a Vermont contractor, “We’ve approached some of the local providers – they’re all stretched out,” Winters said.
Appraisal is satisfactory
Sen. Robert Starr, D-Orleans, asked about the armory’s appraisal. Gragg testified that the appraisal done for the Military Department was $890,000.
“Have we had the property appraised by our appraiser?” he asked.
“You think perhaps the price is inflated? Is that your concern?” Kitchell asked.
“Well, it could be,” Starr replied. “When you’re buying something, you take their appraisal, but you also have your own done...If it’s different, you settle in the middle.”
Seeing Buildings and General Services Commissioner Jennifer Fitch in the room, Kitchell turned to her. “I guess we could ask the commissioner,” Kitchell said, looking towards Fitch. “You obviously are dealing with property and values and so forth. I gather you must have an opinion in terms of the legitimacy or accuracy of appraisal?”
Fitch replied that like the Military Department has done in this case, her department typically hires outside licensed appraisers. BGS has not seen a need for another estimate, Fitch noted. “We have reviewed the appraisal from Military and support the findings in that appraisal,” she said.
Timing is tight
Gragg told the committee that the property the National Guard is pursuing in Franklin County is listed for $1.1 million. In addition to the $890,000 from the sale of the Waterbury armory, it has $190,000 from the sale of a National Guard field maintenance facility in Lyndonville recently. Together the funding would make the Franklin County land purchase viable, he said.
The challenge is timing.
Vermont’s Congressional delegation has been briefed on the armory construction proposal and is supportive, Gragg said. The new-armory project could be added into the federal budget process by a mid-April deadline, but there’s a catch for the Vermont project to be competitive in that “earmark” process, he explained. “The Vermont National Guard needs to own the property or be well along in the process for the proposed project to be viable at the time it is submitted to the [federal] budget committee,” Gragg said in his testimony.
The National Guard would like to sign a purchase agreement by Feb. 15, Gragg said, which would allow for a 60-day timeframe to close on the property. “But we can’t sign a purchase agreement without a funding source,” he said.
Winters agreed with the schedule. “From the AHS side of the equation, we are in a rush for April 1,” he said.
“There’s a lot of timelines here,” said committee member Sen. Dick Sears Jr., D-Bennington. “I'd like to talk about Murphy’s Law and the timeline.”
He suggested that the committee consider drafting a separate bill just for the Waterbury armory transfer so it would not be lumped in with the Budget Adjustment Act. The latter is an annual piece of legislation to adjust the budget for the current fiscal year at roughly the midpoint.
“Everybody agrees this is a good thing,” Sears said of the land deal. “You never know what’s in the [adjustment] bill that might hold it up in one body or the other.” Kitchel agreed that the committee could discuss how it would move the proposal forward in a timely way. “There’s consensus from the committee, recognizing this is pretty time-sensitive for a host of reasons,” she said.
Monday Waterbury Select Board
On Friday, Waterbury Select Board Chair Roger Clapp said Chris Winters, commissioner of the Department For Children and Families, has been invited to the board’s meeting on Monday night.
The meeting begins at 7 p.m. and will be held at the Main Street Fire Station in the upstairs meeting room to accommodate members of the public. Attendees are reminded to not park at the station. Parking is available at 51 S. Main St. next to Waterbury Service Center.
Winters is scheduled for 7:20 p.m. to present the state’s plan for the armory, Clapp said.
“This will be the first time the Select Board and the public will have a chance to get some clarity on this sudden change of plans for the facility,” Clapp said.
Select Board meetings are also available to view online via Zoom using a link in the meeting agenda which is on the town website, WaterburyVt.com under the Select Board tab.
Anyone unable to attend either in person or remotely is invited to send comments to Municipal Manager Tom Leitz by email to tleitz@waterburyvt.com to be shared with the board.
The Senate Appropriations Committee hearing can be seen on the committee’s YouTube channel here.