The Hole On Main...

A Proposal For Development.

I give you the glorious Main Street “Hole”. Given the foundation’s mere $1.8 million price tag( a little over $2 million if you purchase the building behind it), it is surprising that no one has snatched up this charming addition to our community. It’s been a vacant hole in our Main Street for at least 3 years now. The lot is about half an acre directly in the center of town, and represents a great opportunity to exploit for the community if we could get the price down. The fact is, the location is perfect for a 4-story mixed-use building of 30,780 square feet (81ft x 95 ft each floor).

The current foundation is not large enough. And a new, deeper, wider, and longer foundation will have to be constructed to replace it. But the property’s placement on Main Street is perfect. It is basically at the geographical heart of Windham’s Main Street. It could become a hub with multiple retail locations on the ground floor and the upper floors with apartments, and a rooftop green space for gardening. With 7,695 square feet per floor and a 500 square foot center hallway on the upper floors, you can have 5 high-quality 1,439 square foot 3-bedroom affordable condos on each floor. This would give a total of 12 apartments and 12 storefronts of about 400-500 square feet, along with another 200-300 square feet of basement storage space for each business.

Imagine a well-constructed building in the Victorian Style. With a welcoming awning that encompasses the sidewalk, making the exterior of the building more like a living space. As pedestrians walk past the building, they peer into the shop windows and are invited to stop and linger by the welcoming cooling effect of the awning. They walk through a pair of large glass doors to find an expansive space full of multiple storefronts. The stores could offer a wide assortment of locally sourced products(under 50 miles from Windham). These products, many of which, given time, will be locally produced in Windham, will turn what is otherwise a very economically leaky endeavor into a pro-local enterprise that builds resilience into our local economy.

Coupling these types of mixed-use properties along our Main Street(s) and into our connecting Streets through a network of bike lanes and better sidewalks will increase access for all members of the community. Properties like this will enhance our appeal to not only tourists but to full-time residents who wish to be able to work, live, and shop in a neighborhood that is vibrant and lively. A Main Street with a well-developed core of mixed-use properties is not only going to return the character of Windham back to its roots, with our Main Street the center of activity that is not just from Thursday to Sunday, but a full seven days a week, eventually.

Eventually, it is fully possible to see other types of businesses that will develop along Main Streets— it is important that these businesses be full-time employers of local labor and resources. This project is perfectly suited to the NYS Grant for redeveloping Main Streets. This is a $10 million grant that is awarded to communities to develop just such projects as I am proposing here. I’ve identified 3 potential properties on our Main Street in addition to the great “Hole” that could be easily and effectively turned into viable, affordable housing. Housing that, when coupled with initiatives to develop community-owned enterprises, will create positive population growth in our community.

We must look to create policies in our local government that create incentives to develop along our already existing infrastructure and utilize these assets in ways that benefit the community and the environment. We want to create a viable community that has a strong and well-developed local economy that boosts local labor and employment, and these types of construction projects are a great way to do just that. Not only do they boost local construction revenues. Not to mention, they also generate long-term economic growth with families that frequent our local businesses. Thus, a policy of creating strong Mixed-Use properties in the core of our hamlet is the best way to develop our local economy.