Proposed Cabot Community Association Park Serves as Guiding Symbol in Cabot Community Growth
The structure on 3065 Main Street in Cabot will be demolished for the CCA park project. Photo by Kathleen Hoyne.
CABOT – Small towns in Vermont and across New England are no strangers to aging populations and youth moving away. Cabot has not escaped this trend, but the town is doing something about it. Downtown Cabot is changing to better reflect the lives of current residents as well as draw and retain younger residents. That change is starting with the brown building at 3065 Main Street.
When Fred Ducharme, a member of the Cabot Select Board and lifelong Cabot resident, was growing up, the brown building at 3065 Main Street housed a small store. The property has changed hands several times since and, as Ducharme remembers it, has housed several apartments since the 1960s. More recently, the building had a negative reputation. The residents’ dogs were threatening to the point that children on their way to school would cross the road to pass the building.
The Cabot Community Association (CCA) purchased the building and property in 2018 after voters approved a $60,000 loan from the Cabot Community Investment Fund (CCIF). The CCA, according to its website, is a group of community members ranging from business owners to writers to waitresses making an effort to better the town of Cabot for all residents.
The stated plan for purchasing the property at the time of the vote was to support downtown revitalization efforts. The purchase is part of a larger downtown revitalization project partially funded by a $20,000 grant from Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development.
Since the purchase, Ducharme says, “It’s made a whole difference to the community down there.” Pedestrians should feel safer.
The building has sat vacant for several years but the vision for the property is finally taking shape. At the Cabot Select Board meeting on March 16, Lori Augustyaniak presented the CCA’s initial plans to tear down the existing structure and use the land—which abuts the Winooski River—to create a small park. According to Augustyaniak, the structure on the property requires costly repairs. Removing the structure would allow more access to the property as well, considering the driveways on either side of the structure are not on the property purchased by the CCA.
Though nothing has been finalized as yet, there was discussion in the meeting last Tuesday by Augustyaniak, members of the select board, and community members of a small pavilion, an area for performing arts or outdoor concerts, handicap accessible paths, an educational nature trail, and the possibility that the site could be used for a farmer’s market.
Ducharme supports this plan and sees it as an opportunity to draw more families and young people to the town. “The proposed park is going to provide a place for families, and I believe that we as a community need to be more family oriented.” The park and the opportunity to draw more families to the area symbolizes the life blood of the community for Ducharme, “if there’s no kids, there’s a problem, the future is not going to be long.”
The park would also serve as a bright spot as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Ducharme looks forward to “Having a focal point where we can come together as a community and hang out – have some pizza, listen to music.” He also sees economic opportunity: “I believe that we [the select board] should be helping and fostering new business – just something to give as more of a tax base.” Ducharme hopes that the park, along with other recent changes in the downtown, will draw more business to Main Street.
This development, according the Ducharme, is an opportunity for a reinforcing feedback loop. Changes like this will hopefully draw younger families to the town and, “when you have new people come into a community, they look at things differently,” hinting here that newcomers to the town would be an asset to future change.To learn more about the proposed project, visit the Cabot Community Association cabotvermont.org/town-directory/.
