Built By Wood – 560 Railroad Street
Using wood in the renovations at the Center’s St. Johnsbury, Vermont, housing project is creating a healthy building, reducing climate impact, and supporting the local forest economy.
Revitalizing Downtown
In 2022, the Center purchased the historic 15,000-square-foot Bertrand’s Hall as part of its community revitalization work in St. Johnsbury. The property was built in 1909 by J.E. Bertrand to serve as the armory for Company D of the Vermont National Guard before being converted to a hotel in the 1930s.
Redevelopment began in late 2023 to convert the property into nine apartments with a mix of studio-, two-, and three-bedroom rental units as well as two first-floor, street-facing commercial spaces. Rentals will be priced to serve median-income earners in the St. Johnsbury area. One commercial unit will host an artist-in-resident in collaboration with Catamount Arts, located down the street.
Using Long-Lived Wood Products
The Center is making wood – old and new – a focal point of the project. The construction crew is reclaiming 10,000 square feet of existing birch and maple wood floors as part of its goal to protect the historic character of the building and reduce demolition waste. An additional 2,500 square feet of new maple wood floors are being procured from Lauzon in Québec, Canada. Collectively, the reclaimed and new hardwood floors will store 2,387 metric tons of greenhouse gas equivalents – roughly the amount of carbon sequestered in over 4,200 acres of Northern Forest in a given year.
Additionally, the Center has procured rough lumber from Milan Lumber Co., a spruce mill located 59 miles away in New Hampshire, for the framing and structural redesign of the property.
“We also considered using automated wood pellet boilers for heat and hot water, but that would have required us to install an entirely new heating system in the three-story building, and the cost was prohibitive,” said Project Manager Evan Oleson. The Center also looked into using wood fiber insulation, but the exterior brick walls posed moisture concerns for the building.
