The city hauled away the gazebo in May 2022, and people who spent time at the park moved to another location by the river, Walsh said — though she still finds human waste behind her store.

But the grassy rectangle, now home to an art installation, has never developed into a place where people spend time relaxing or recreating.

It's time the small space was used for something else, city councilors said at a meeting on Wednesday. They discussed what kind of project they’d like to see there, with several saying they hoped a housing developer would buy the lot and build a multistory building. Until 2018, the site held Montpelier Discount Beverage, a liquor store and bottle and can redemption center.

“We have an opportunity,” Councilor Cary Brown said. “We can sell it, we can give it away, we can sit on it. We have some power to influence what happens with it.”

Montpelier, like most Vermont municipalities, is struggling with a housing shortage that is making it difficult for newcomers to move in and suppressing its economic growth. One major factor in the housing shortage is the prohibitive cost of building homes and apartments, which is as much as $400 per square foot in central Vermont. Jerome noted that Barre and St. Albans have both sold city-owned lots recently for $1 in order to make it more affordable for a developer to build housing there.

He asked city councilors to limit the restrictions on what type of building could be constructed at Guertin Park.

“The more money we are asking for the lot, the less affordable the housing is going to be,” Jerome said. “If we want $440,000 for the lot, that might be a tough proposition.”

Nevertheless, councilors asked Jerome to put an asking price of $440,000 in the request for proposals — but left their options open.

“A smart bidder will review the video of this meeting and realize we’ll probably take a dollar for this lot,” Councilor Sal Alfano said at the meeting.
Jerome said he planned to post the RFP on the city’s website in the next few days.

Walsh would like to see the grassy rectangle replaced with a building.

“It would be nice to have some other retail-style neighbors down this end,” she said. “I imagine that whoever builds would put in some sort of housing in the upper levels.”

Although the property, sometimes referred to locally as a "parklet," sits at the confluence of the Winooski River and its North Branch, Jerome said it is slightly elevated and did not flood when the city was inundated in July 2023.



Any building constructed at Guertin Park would need to meet Montpelier's design standards, which require the first floor to lie at least two feet above the base flood elevation, with utilities located above that level, Jerome said.