What We've Been Building (Winter '25)

Hey — Jonah here.

Welcome back to Brick + Mortar, where I share stories on developing real estate at Village Ventures in rural Vermont.

It’s been quiet here, but not on the ground. I’ve been focused on day-to-day construction at Réal Hazen, and meanwhile Village Ventures hasn’t exactly been standing still since the fall update.

Here’s what we’ve been up to.

1. The Denison

(22 residential and 4 retail units on Main Street | Fairlee)

• We finalized construction documents for both buildings after a big year-end push to hit grant deadlines.

• Pricing is coming back at about $7.5m in hard costs ($372/SF), which simply doesn’t work without substantial subsidy.

• We also have another ~$700k in infrastructure costs, and more than half of that is going toward a private septic system — $400k for a septic system on one property still feels absolutely crazy to me. That’s a down payment on an entire municipal system!

• We’re value-engineering wherever we can: the $120k roof deck may have to go, $80k in curtain glass is under review, and elevators + dual stair towers in the south building alone eat up more than $300k.

• Vermont released a new mini-TIF program called the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP), and we’ve approached the town about applying together to help offset our massive infrastructure costs.

• After 6+ months of back and forth, VTrans still hasn’t given final approval, and because they won’t let us tie into the stormwater system on Main Street, we now have to build a ~$100k retention system under our parking lot.

2. Bridge + Main

(A 19-unit, scattered site affordable housing project | Fairlee)

• Governor Scott came to Fairlee to announce this year’s Downtown Tax Credits, and we received $250k to support the project.

• We also secured $1m in congressionally directed spending through Congresswoman Becca Balint’s office — a huge step forward for Fairlee’s first affordable housing.

• VHCB is now the final funding hurdle, and every time we think we’re ready to go to a board meeting over the past year and a half, a new requirement pops up — most recently having to secure a LIHTC investor and syndicator earlier than typical.

• We received additional support from TRORC to help with the Environmental Release, but state DEC continues to cost us time and tens of thousands of dollars addressing lead paint chips found in the soil that are common around every old building across the state.

• And the clock is ticking. We’ve been working on this project so long that if we can’t break ground by the end of this year, we risk losing some of the funding we’ve already assembled.

3. 81 N Main

(Turning a vacant building into 4 units of workforce housing | Bradford)

• Funding is fully secured for our quadplex renovation, and the attorneys are drafting closing documents so we can close financing in the next few weeks.

• This project’s capital stack includes a mix of federal and state historic tax credits, VHFA’s CHA program, commercial debt, and equity.

• In the meantime, we’ve started demo — hauling out debris left by prior hoarders, removing cabinets/fixtures/floor coverings, and essentially stripping the space down to its original finishes.

• First-floor framing is done, and now we’re ramping up to move full steam ahead into construction.

4. 583 Route 10

(A 4-unit test case for unsubsidized housing | Orford)

• Late last year, we bought an 8-unit building on 0.7 acres on Main Street in Orford, and we’ve been slowly doing cosmetic renovations as units turn over.

• The real opportunity here is the land behind the building — essentially a double lot that could support more housing.

• We’re designing a simple, architecturally relevant two-story building with four 2BR/1BA units (something like this) that we want to build and finance without state or federal subsidy.

• Because New Hampshire allows under-parking septic systems, we’re planning to try that here — something that could unlock similar infill sites if Vermont were open to it too.

5. Other projects we’re working on

• We purchased the iconic Stevens Block in Bradford, a 12,000 SF mixed-use building on Main Street, and while we don’t have immediate plans, the vacant top floor will be our near-term design focus.

• We finished renovations on our new office a few months ago and now have enough space to grow. We’ve hired a Director of Construction, who will run day-to-day delivery of our construction projects which, up until now, has been my primary focus.

• Senator Peter Welch came to town last week, and after the big tax bill saga I wrote about previously, his team reached out and worked up a legislative solution to help small-scale developers that he’ll be introducing this session.

• We’re continuing to work with Infiltrator Technologies, who have submitted an application to VT DEC to pilot under-parking septic systems in Vermont — once approved, we can move forward with the state’s first pilot project in Fairlee.

• The 2-unit mixed-use building at 446 Main I wrote about last update ended up with 30 burst water/heating lines after fuel ran out during one of those cold January weekends. The vacant retail space took some damage, so we turned that into an opportunity for a makeover and plan to have it back on the market next month.

Until next time.

— Jonah 🧱

P.S. Want to connect? Find me on LinkedIn.