Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: All right.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: You're

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: live. Okay. Welcome, folks. This is House Grafton Institutions Committee. It is April Fool's Day. And it is April. And we're over the hump, I think, on the legislative session, Now entering our last month, six weeks, eight weeks. We don't know yet. No, six, seven weeks. We've got some time to get an update in terms of the city of Montpelier is in terms of the flood recovery from first one, the main flood, which was in twenty three, twenty four, twenty three. Some members of this committee took a tour of the Capitol Complex and saw the damage and we have some buildings, five buildings that we really need to make a decision what we do with the buildings that are not habitable at this point in the whole Cap capital complex and how that plays into Montpelier your goals for economic development and regrowth as well as taking care of the floodplain issues. And also this is all kind of intertwined with FEMA or the state negotiating with FEMA and vice versa. So I thought it would be a good time just to hear where the commission is in terms of the work that you've been doing for the recovery and give us an update on what's happening. I'm just trying to give you an idea of what's happening.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: You so much, committee chair. My name is John Copans, and I am actually the executive director. We've gone through a transition. So the organization I work for now is called Foundation for a Resilient

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Foundation for what?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: For a Resilient Montpelier. Resilient. And I'll give you a little background on that transition, which is that I previously was in this committee as the director of something called the Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We're gonna blame Conor for this. Conor? He's not here, so we're really gonna blame him.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: So, Montpelier Commission for Recovery and Resilience was formed after the twenty twenty three floods. It had a two year charge to really push forward with recovery and resilience projects in the city. As that two years came to a close, it was clear there was more work to do. In fact, flood resilience is probably a lifetime project here in the city of Montpelier, not just in Montpelier, but across the state. And so there was a preexisting organization in the city called the Montpelier Foundation with five zero one c three status. And essentially, the Montpelier Commission and the Montpelier Foundation merged and became this new organization that is a permanent five zero one c three in the city called Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier. And we will be carrying forward the resilience work that the commission was doing for the last two years, but we will also be continuing the foundation's work. It was a small community foundation that makes grants for brick and mortar projects. So we'll be continuing that work as well. So you're looking at the whole downtown area as well. It's on Main Street, all of that, as well as what happens here on State Street. I mean, it's anything that's of concern to our city is of concern to us. And as I think you all appreciate, while it is natural to think of the Capital Complex and Downtown Montpelier sort of in separate ways, because in a way, they're separate jurisdictions, but really, I would encourage you all, and I think you're pretty good about thinking about it as one ecosystem. We in Montpelier care deeply about having sort of a healthy and vibrant capital complex that is welcoming to the world, really. Like, let's be honest about what happens here in Montpelier. We, as a state, welcome the world to this state house. And you particularly experience that in peak foliage season, when it is a constant flow of buses traveling through this community, that we are the face of this state to the world. Right? And also, truth is you all get to work here four to six months out of the year. And so you get to experience this place in all of its glory as well. And so what we want is to have a downtown that matches the Capital Complex. Right? Both of those interact, and we wanna have a downtown that draws people in in the same way that we have a state house and a Capital Complex that that draw people in. And so our our goal one of our goals you know, one of the things we are not part of the municipality. We are a separate five zero one(three), but our mission is really to work hand in glove with the municipality. I would actually make a little side note that we are really excited to welcome both a brand new mayor to the city, a gentleman named Mark Gwynne, who actually was on that tour with you all of buildings, and Mark was on our commission, the Montpelier Commission for Recovery. He won, right? He won. That's right. He is our new mayor, and we have a brand new city manager as well, Kelly Currie. And so and and that brand new city manager replaces Bill Fraser, who served thirty years in that role. So talk about a transition for a city. We've got somebody brand new in this role. So a mayor and a new manager really represents sort of a new beginning for this city. I wanna mention a couple of things that we're working on. One is we And I think I've talked about this in here. I've certainly mentioned it to BGS, which is it is our intention to deploy something called the River's Edge Master Plan for the city of Montpelier. Because the truth is we do not embrace our river here in the city. It's sort of this forgotten thing that flows through town. And it's forgotten until we get a massive storm, and then all of a sudden that river is in our basements and backyards. And so what the flood in 2023 precipitated is a sense that we really need to transform our relationship to the river. Now look at the riverfrontage in Montpelier. A lot of it's private property, some of it's city property, a fair amount of it, of course, is state property. Right? And so we see tremendous opportunity when you look at that that sort of field of asphalt that just sort of lines the river around the state complex. But, obviously, that's a complicated question. Anytime you're talking about parking, you're talking about a sensitive topic. But we do, I would say and it's I will be honest. It has been a while since we've checked in with the commissioner and deputy commissioner at BGS. So I don't I honestly don't have the latest. But, like, to be honest, we've had some encouraging words from them in terms of how where there might be opportunities on sort of that side of State Street and particularly on the riverfront. But it's my hope that so the city of Montpelier applied for a municipal planning grant. We found additional funds to do this river's edge master planning process. We're gonna be doing that over the course of 2026 and and probably into 2027. But it is our hope that we do have active participation from BGS and from the Capital Complex Commission as well because, ultimately, we've gotta work across jurisdictional lines when we think about this city and also about the riverfront here here in Montpelier.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So one piece that's led to this puzzle is FEMA. Yeah. Because when you're talking about the river corridor, Capital Complex as you said, backs up to the river where that's where our buildings are, but five are not habitable at this point. We have to make a determination what we do, which is connected to FEMA in terms of how do we rebuild Galfetti Complex after the flood damage for that. So it's all intertwined. And I would also recommend for you folks not only to stay in contact with the commissioner of BGS but also Doug Farno who is there for the state negotiating with FEMA because it's all intertwined for that. And some of us have been through two flooding episodes here at Montefiore. One was back in 1992 when we had the big ice gene. That was a very different kind of flooding than the one we experienced in 'twenty three, which was the downpour of rain. And the flooding that occurred in 'ninety two was in March, the March. And we had a lot of rain overnight, but we ended up with a nice dam, ice jam behind the capital plus and it flooded all of downtown and came up a little bit to the Pavilion but not much. So it didn't really impact Capitol Complex at all. But it was everything down State Street to Main Street, all of Main Street. That was devastating. It was in the middle of the winter. And then that night, they they were working on the river to unblock the ice jam. And that night, the temperature dropped to below zero. Right. So everything finally, when they released the ice jam, which was about 11:00 midnight, all the water just went out, but then everything froze up downtown. Everything froze up because it went below zero. In 'twenty three, it was a whole different event in the middle of the summer. And it all started to come in from this way and flooded the complex and the dash. One of our representatives from the Bennington County, His car went from the river in '92. Was

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: he hit it?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. That was he was he was the doctor.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: But it was parked or just the water?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It came right up behind the Capitol.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: They had told little warning about that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They had told everyone to evacuate, and I think he thought he had some time. He did. He lost some cars back there. I mean, you talked to legislators who were staying at the Capitol Plaza. It happened about 08:00, 07:30, 08:00, and they were looking out their windows in their room. They could see the ice starting and water coming up. Some of them could get their cars out of there and others lost their cars. And legislators just bailed out of there really fast. It was quite an episode. Well, and I would say it's

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: a good example, because what we have done since then is that, in fact, there's a wastewater treatment facility that is at the intersection of the Dog River and the Winooski, further downstream from town. And what they've installed is a system where you take the effluent from that wastewater treatment, it's it's clean water that normally comes into the Dog River, and they pipe it upstream so that it actually serves as a melting function. Because it's warmer, it melts a channel through the river. And in fact, we would like to expand that. There is sort of another proposal on the books to expand that further upstream. But that's an example of a municipal project that really has benefit to the state. Right? Because another ice jam could have real implications. And so those are the kind of investments. It took years to make that investment, but it's it's very much a worthwhile investment. Because, honestly, this was another winter where I mean, I happen to be traveling through the Mad River Valley, and those ice jams have a force to them. You can see. I mean, it was just below the covered bridge in the village of Wagefield. And, like, once it stops that water and serves as an obstruction, that it it really can be catastrophic. Right.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, that's what happened here in Nadi too.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It's an it's an example with resilience where you can't just focus on the most recent disaster. You sort of have to have that broad view of what the risks are because there's always something, Jeffrey.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, with the '23, there was more, and people left the Capitol Complex. A lot of it was like, really, you really think it's gonna flood? But people did leave. The 92, that happened in the morning, it's about seven, 07:30. I mean, was traveling in and all of a sudden the water was just around my car and I'm thinking I'm going to someplace high. It's like all of a sudden it just happened and nobody knew what was going on unless you happened to see the ice jam behind the Capitol Blossom. It's when it happened and it stayed there all day. So that was a little different event. But either way, you're destroying, the downtown's been destroyed twice in the Capitol Complex this past time. Well, and

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: the other thing you correctly highlighted is in 2023, I mean, ultimately, you would call that an inundation flood. There was just so much precipitation across the watershed, but to some degree, one of the issues is actually downstream of town. Right? There are where the Dog River comes in, it narrows there. We call it Cemetery Bend. It's where the I The I 89 Overpass is. There is an opportunity there to actually sort of expand things out a little bit under the under the overpass. And even though that's, you know, maybe a half mile from town, it would have a tangible benefit in allowing the water to flow more quickly as opposed to backing up. Similarly, we have an issue where the North Branch comes into the main branch right in Downtown Montpelier. And, again, when the water rises in the main branch, it tends to back up in the North Branch.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: That's Langdon That's Langdon Street. Exactly. That's right. So Are are there any issues with silting that reduces the just the carrying capacity of the river through the city?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It's it's modest, I guess, is what I would say is there is a fair amount of discussion. I I I think I will translate what you talk about with silting to the sense of dredging as a potential way to address flooding. And the sense that we get very strongly from the rivers program and river engineers is that dredging is not a global solution. There are certain locations where you've got to deal with it. For example, there's what's called the Bailey Bridge, which is probably the bridge that most of you come over right by the high school there. And that bridge is a lot of rubble gathered under that bridge after the twenty twenty three flood. There was a real strong sense from BGS of, we've got to get some of that rubble out from under that bridge. So there are specific locations where it makes sense, especially around infrastructure, to do that kind of work. But what doesn't ultimately make sense is do this larger scale dredging, because ultimately what that facilitates is is the river to move faster and, frankly, to create more erosion that actually creates more issues downstream. And so you've really gotta be thoughtful about how how you deploy.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: No. I get that. But when the weather's nicer and the river level's lower, I tend to go for a walk, like, over by the the bank and along and there there are spots that just looks like it's

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Pretty solid.

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: Yes. Yeah. Pretty much so.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Yeah. And in fact, we one of our proposals is to remove it's a little bit confusing because there's a dam under Shaw by the Shaws Bridge that's called the Bailey Dam despite the fact that that's the Bailey Bridge in a different location. But that dam, we're actually advocating to remove and, in fact, have submitted proposals to remove. And part of what that would enable is if you look upstream of that dam, there is a lot of silt in the river there. And once that dam came out, they would actually as part of it, they would remove a lot of the silt because a lot of it carries phosphorus, so there's a real water quality benefit to getting that silt out of the river. But that would that river would look very different upstream once that dam came out. And again, there would be some location specific flood resilience benefits to removing that dam there. So what we're doing is trying to find the reality of a place like Montpelier and the topography is that there's not a silver bullet to solve flooding in the city. It's really gonna take this multipronged generational effort. Another project we're doing is restoring floodplain at a property called 5 Home Farmway. It's over where the Agway is and and the roundabout. This is where the Stevens branch comes into the main branch. You see a lot of branches come together here at Montpelier, but we're we will be restore restoring about 11 acres of floodplain on that property, which means removing 1,500 dump trucks full of material from that site, essentially, to allow that river to spread out and to slow down What? Because that makes a difference. And just before I move on, just upstream from that, right, we have the AOT garage, the old AOT garage. And I'm sure you all are sort of part of those conversations about moving that AOT garage up to higher ground in Berlin, we are very, enthusiastic about sort of the deconstruction of that old AOT garage and, again, returning that property to floodplain as well. Everywhere we have opportunities along the river to allow that river to spread out and slow down, we have to seize seize on those opportunity.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you're gonna be extracting an office bill, 15 truckloads. Can you talk to the town of Waterbury where it could go? Because they wanna build up Randall

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: 0, Randall Meadows, yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: They wanna build that up. That be a combination? Would there be something there that could do?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: We haven't spoken specifically about that, but as I understand it, there will definitely be a process to try to find the closest to possible place That's

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: a long

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: way to go to that. Right? Want

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: to It's just like it starts to add up.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: I mean, think about the cost of diesel right now, right? So like literally, you want to find the closest appropriate spot to take that, where ideally it's serving a function. Another thing, there happens to be a rail line that goes right there as well. So one question was, geez, instead of trucks, could you use the rail? But then you'd have to create a siding for it. There's all kinds of issues around using rail. Mean, is the kind of stuff that will develop over time. I don't think we've answered that question, because I think some of it's about when is that fill available, who's looking for it. So I'm not sure it's a question they've answered yet.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're on the other section of Mont Hillier. It's not you're here, it's further out.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It's about a mile, a little less from a mile. If you keep going on Memorial Drive.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: 12 miles, something like that.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Beyond two, probably the whole way.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yeah, that would be tough.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: And it's and it's gonna and you gotta go when it's dry because it's it's tearing up the road. Yeah. Know? So

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: the other thing I want to mention, because it's something we talked about last year, is a former, well, that's still federal building at 87 State Street. Seabees? Yeah. It's, it is, but here's here's the good news side of that, which is when we were here yet last year, basically, the feds had just said they're gonna dispose of the property. We didn't know anything about what that entailed. We didn't know what the opportunities and obstacles in terms of redevelopment of that property was.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: This is the post office.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: This is the former post office and federal building. It's at 87 State Street, so it's literally, like, directly across from the Capitol Plaza, just about directly across from the Capitol Plaza. And just to zoom out, like, we're talking about 1.6 acres of land, 50,000 usable square feet in the building. What happens with that piece of property is tremendously important to the future of Montpelier, to the vitality of downtown. I would also argue it's important to the capital complex because, like, we're a stone's throw from this statehouse. What's the what's What nobody wants is a blighted piece of property sitting there for decades. Right. It doesn't interest anybody. I interrupted. Go ahead.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Sure. No. What what what would be what's what's coming out as, like, the best use for that space, or what what what's everyone thinking about?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Well so just to express some appreciation in working with you, representative Casey was tremendously helpful in this. What we secured last year was a $100,000 appropriation to that went directly to Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission to allow us to do some due diligence work to figure out that very question of what how can we put this building to use and this property to use? We have now basically spent the entirety of that appropriation working through CVRPC. Our when we look at the building itself, first of all, it's a tremendously solid build. Yes. Is. Concrete slabs, like, it is so So on one hand, you sort of look at it from the outside, and there are many people who don't love the aesthetics of the building, but the reality is it's very well constructed. And so our default position is let's put that building back to use as opposed to tear it down. So then the follow on question is, okay, so what do you do with a building like that? The truth is, it's like a big box, and it has a lot of interior space. And when you have something with a lot of interior space, it's not great for repurposing as housing. Because the truth is, to live in a space, you need access to light, and you don't want all of that internal space. Now you can conceivably solve something like that by cutting a courtyard into the middle of the space to allow some light in.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Raise the bloomer, they did that on the roof leaks.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: And it's expensive, making those sorts of modifications. So it's our intention, actually, it is designed as commercial space, let's keep it commercial space. But there is another chunk of land behind the property, and our analysis shows that we could fit about 70 units of housing behind a property. And the goal would be a couple of parking decks and then that housing right there. And so that parking could serve the building, that parking could serve the housing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Would the parking deck be under the building? Yes.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It couldn't be under the existing building. It would be under the new house.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The new one?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Yes, exactly. Yep. Yes, it would be under the house.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, build it strong.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: The part. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Make sure you got maintenance. Maintenance. So they build the building on top of it.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: This has been impressed upon these, that you've gotta look after the share it. Yeah. So but if not for and to remind folks, the state of Vermont through the agency of commerce and development raised their hand to say we would be interested in potentially purchasing the property, even though they really weren't, but that was a way for us to prolong the process with GSA to allow us to do this due diligence work. And so the other thing we learned, and it was really only by coincidence, we hired Stone Environmental that had already worked with a subcontractor that had already been in that building on behalf of GSA, and they happened to know that there was a particular report around PCB concentrations in the building. If we had not hired Stone Environmental, we never would have known to ask for that report. We had to ask for four different times before finally they produced a report. And the bad news about that report is it shows pretty heavy contamination in terms of PCBs in the building. The other bad news is what GSA will not allow us to do is any characterization of those contaminations in the purchasing process. What they say is it's an as is, whereas sale, and ultimately, there's nothing in law that prohibits them from selling a contaminated building. So they are being very dismissive of our concerns.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Any any thoughts about how to deal with

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: the PCBs? The first thing we have to do, first of all, because we would have to take ownership of the building in order to characterize. And so in fact, I was just across the hall. Our proposal right now, and actually, we're working hand in hand with Newport that has their own piece of property that has a federal involvement, and that they have, they don't like to call it the pit, but that's tied up in the EB-five process, therefore, it's controlled by a federal receiver. Our building is obviously owned by GSA. The proposal is to repurpose a program that's administered by Department of Economic Development called the Rural Industrial Development Program. Mhmm. It's already set up to support regional development corporations and local development corporations. And so essentially and there's $2,500,000 sitting in that program right now. The idea is we would sort of expand the scope and target it specifically to what we're calling federally impacted. What we are doing in Montpelier is we're establishing something called a local development corporation, which is an entity defined by statute explicitly for the redevelopment of property. And it would be that LDC that would participate, because at this point, TSA is taking that building to auction. They've stopped negotiating with us in terms of trying to settle on a price.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Are they going to auction?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Probably on the May to June timeframe. So it'll be a sixty day auction, and so we think it'll get us well into the summer in terms of having to

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Is that a good or bad thing, though, auction?

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: That's a

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: bit You know, here's what I'd say. We knew it was coming. And it's not a surprise to us. The bad part is the thing that we fear is an undercapitalized investor just buying that property to add to their portfolio without the wherewithal to really navigate the redevelopment process. Like, that's the scary scenario, and an auction to some degree is one step closer to that. On the other hand, GSA was not moving from $2,400,000 for the property, and given our estimates in terms of PCB cleanup range anywhere from 1 to $3,000,000, we could not, in good conscience Purchase. Purchase that two

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So is the PCB gonna be out here publicly for folks who are bidding on it?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Absolutely. It'll be part of the packet. So, again, if if you all had not appropriated that $100,000 to us, we used that $100,000 and talked to hire Stone Environmental, that would've never come to light, and and we would have an un a a buyer with no knowledge of that contamination all of a sudden sitting on a building with a real challenge in terms of redevelopment. So we've already achieved success in sort of shining sunlight on what some of the challenges are for the property. But I just have

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: to I have to say this, though, too, is to rebuild that building right now. It would cost 50 or $60,000,000.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Yep.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: So when you're dealing with this kind of stuff, it would be thoughtful of us to at least not help, but to keep in mind that those are really inconsequential when you're talking about that kind of a building. That that

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: And that's exactly but the first thing we have to understand is what's it gonna cost to remediate? Sure. Even understand 1,000,000 at site. But even right. When you're looking at constructing and and that's part of our posture towards the building has sort of shifted because it's got good bones, as they say. And to construct new on that site is it's a it's a challenge. Yep. So fixing it will be cheaper. Lots cheaper. Well, if remediation actually works. I mean, can you describe the PCB problem? Essentially, it's in paint. It's in window cloth. Well, the mastics, yeah. But has it invaded the cement around it, like happened at Burlington High? This is part of why we need to characterize it. Right? Like, those are the questions that on honestly, the way the GSA process is set up, any conventional commercial or industrial real estate transaction, there's gonna be an inspection, and any buyer is gonna say, I need to know exactly what I'm dealing with with contamination before we close on this. That's not what we're dealing with with the federal government. And so just to make the pitch to you all, that's why we're having this conversation across the hall about getting this language added because we do feel like it's a very unique circumstance we're doing.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: How many other communities are gonna be fine for the those dollars that the language is included across

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: I mean, this is there you're highlighting attention there, which is we're potentially changing that program to make it much more appealing to other communities in addition to Newport Well, to and that's what we're talking about, is some of the language is very specific about the federal impacts.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I can just imagine some community saving some money there for economic development.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Absolutely. And to be honest, thinking long term, having a program with some flexibility to help communities with some of these properties may well be something that you all as legislators decide is an important tool to develop because the truth is It's tough. Montpelier's not alone, and we've got a lot of downtown properties across the state that need their next life. Yeah. And there's not just private financing to make that happen.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And TIFs don't always work in all communication.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Well, and in fact, the mayor of Newport was across the hall just talking about how TIF just doesn't get them far enough to do what they need to do in Newport.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I don't think they've been helpful in the courthouse.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: There's Yeah, I'm staying out of that one, but

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's the sand fountain.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Why is the decision?

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Wide is the building?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Oh, I don't know. I mean, 50,000 square feet, three floors. Right. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: I'm just trying to think of, like, I still I'm like, because what about CHIP? Mhmm. And if it was housing, what if it was a little like, what if those middle, like, areas became hallways that and every hallway in New York City doesn't have light in doesn't have windows in it. Yep. So it's like you know? And then you get to the outside areas, which do have light, and maybe there are some pantries and closets that are dark. I don't know.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It just Yeah. Absolutely.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: It's not without merit that you could think about it being housing.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: And that is very much still on the table. Okay. Yeah. I'm sort of describing where our primary analysis is, but like, the truth is we're only at phase one of this. And I would say everything is still possible for sure.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Anyway, it was just a thought. Depending on how wide it is and where that hallway is in the middle to get people, and then, you know

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Do you use the interior space for storage or Sure. Or, like

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Oh, yeah.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: You do. Exercise room or those kinds of things? Yes. That yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So was that building built about the same time 133 6th Street was built?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It was built in 1963.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: '63. So it's not that

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Not sixty years, but before PC developed, but it was right in the middle of PCPs.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Right in the middle. Yeah. So I'm just wondering, you know, 133 State Street, the way it's designed

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It's supposed to have a partner, right, isn't it? That's what I always heard. Like, if you look at it. Yeah.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: But I'm just thinking the internal part may be really dark inside 133 and how they've designed it so you don't feel that darkness when you're in there. I'm just wondering if that could be looked at as a Just a big bar. A very big bar? Yeah.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: Well, then you leave

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: you design the 1st Floor to be wet. Design that 1st Floor of that building to get underwater. Because that's fine. And you

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: can do that now. Well, and in fact, the other opportunity that the building represents is the 1st Story is actually a story tall. So what we could actually do is leave build up so that you were above flood elevation and still have usable space on the 1st Floor. So that's another option. Oh, that's cool. And potentially we've analyzed, like, literally filling it, filling in the basement, you know, and getting all those utilities, all those utilities gotta come out of harm.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That's what we did in Waterbury.

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: Hey, that's where those 1,500, you know,

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: dumping Yeah, the fill. Okay. But

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we did that in Waterbury. We filled in the basement and all the tunnels. Filled that all in.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: It'd be a smart decision.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: The 1st Floor was on the ground

[Unidentified Committee Member A]: a little bit, so we filled

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: all that on it. Anything else before we break to lunch?

[Unidentified Committee Member B]: No, thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: This is really helpful, John.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: I really appreciate the invitation.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you, Conor, for recommending to bring him in. Hey, where's Yeah, we were small. Yeah, where's Sidus?

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: I can bring him up this afternoon. Absolutely. See everybody.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We would like that. We are on this afternoon, right? No, we're not.

[John Copans (Executive Director, Foundation for a Resilient Montpelier)]: We're not.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You're poke him behind us.