Looking for a central Vermont home for your techie start-up? Check out these two vacant office buildings just off Interstate 89 in Royalton.
Both are wired for high-speed internet access through ECFiber, a non-profit coalition of 23 Vermont towns that’s building a state-of-the-art fiber-optic network in rural Vermont. In fact, the first of these two vacant spaces is located on the same property as ECFiber’s HQ.
This building at 461 Waterman Road offers 15 offices, a conference room, a small kitchen and a wooden deck overlooking the woods.
Owner Russell “Lucky” Dimmick Jr. is part of a family known in the area for turning their family dairy farm into a successful trailer business, Lucky’s Trailers.
Now Dimmick and ECFiber are hoping to transform this vacant building into a high-speed haven for local businesses that are currently forced to locate elsewhere to find good connectivity.
Its neighbors are ECFiber, GW Plastics, Green Mountain Pipeline Service and Woodlawn Farm Eventing, a popular horse-riding facility.
Only five miles south of Waterman Road is South Royalton, home of Vermont Law School and a quaint downtown strip with Barristers Book Shop and Café, Chelsea Station Restaurant, South Royalton Market, 5 Olde Bistro, a village square and a thrift shop.
For those who need a break from the office, Killington Ski Resort is a 45-minute drive.
Empty office space (photo, left) is available for $10 a day. A fully furnished office — equipped with a computer, printer and telephone — is $25 a day or $300 a month. The flyer they’re using to market the space doesn’t specify the monthly cost for an empty office.
ECFiber project coordinator Leslie Nulty hopes this
building will provide good connectivity to videographers, graphic artists or
lawyers with home-based businesses in the area. According to Nulty, some travel and rent commercial office
spaces in Woodstock, Hanover or Montpelier.
Now they have a chance to stay and grow within their
community.
“We really don’t know if it’s going to work. It’s completely
experimental,” said Nulty.
Next hot spot: The Clifford Building (photo, above) is also connected to
ECFiber. It’s located directly off of Exit 3 on Route 107 smack dab in the
middle of Bethel and Royalton. Clifford Properties Inc. donated the building in
2011 to the Blake Memorial Library Association in East Cornith. The library is
50 miles from Royalton and has not used the space.
The Green Mountain Economic Development Corp. is marketing
to potential tenants and Lang McLaughry Commercial Real Estate in West Lebanon,
N.H. is leasing the property. According to the firm’s website, the monthly
lease for the whole building is between $5000 to $6250. Renting a portion of the
space is also an option.
Right now, the 10,000 square foot building is nearly vacant,
with Ellis Music occupying a couple rooms on the first floor.
The Clifford building also has a large parking area and a
convenient loading dock on the backside (photo, right).
“The organically growing businesses that need more space are
the market,” said Joan Goldstein, executive director of Green Mountain Economic
Development Corporation. “But we won’t rule anything out because it is a nice
building. It’s located right next to the exit. It’s not a bad travel route —
107 runs right to Rutland.”
For more information on the Waterman Road offices contact
Wesley Smith, (802) 788-4657.
For information on the Clifford Building contact Bruce
Waters, (603) 298-8904. Click here for realtor listing.