Eric Bigglestone is used to riding out seasonal population fluctuations that affect sales at his Montpelier family business, Capitol Stationers. In summer and fall, visitors fill the sidewalks, and traffic is gridlocked at Montpelier's one downtown stoplight. That helps make up for winter, when streets go quiet after 5 p.m.
This year feels different, Bigglestone said. Sales are slower than they usually are in mid-June. And the streets look emptier than usual. "You don't hear a peep about the lack of parking in Montpelier anymore," he observed.
Some of Montpelier's business owners are worried about the months ahead, during which they would typically generate the bulk of their annual revenue. Since the pandemic, the state workers who used to patronize downtown businesses have largely disappeared and continue to work remotely. The catastrophic flooding of last July has left empty storefronts gathering dust. The city has been working hard to promote its downtown but is struggling to get back to normal.
While many shops have reopened, business is slow.
"Usually, I hire people in February to train them to be ready for things to pick up in April," said Lauren Parker, co-owner of the North Branch Café. "We still haven't picked up. Is it ever going to?"
Sales dropped sharply after the July 2023 flooding, which destroyed several businesses in Montpelier's historic downtown. City data show that spending on lodging and meals between July 1 and September 30 last year declined by a third compared to the previous year. In the next quarter, it was down 22 percent; in the first quarter of this year, 12 percent.
While those numbers suggest that things are improving, business owners say customer traffic remained much lower than expected in May and early June.
Data collected over the past several months by Central Vermont Economic Development show a 40 percent drop in business in flooded areas, compared to the period between 2019 and 2022, executive director Melissa Bounty said. She surveyed 12 businesses. Along with the flood and loss of state workers, she cites Montpelier's housing shortage as a factor depressing local commerce.
Most locals agree that restaurants have taken the hardest hit. Katie Trautz, who directs Montpelier Alive, a city-sponsored organization that supports local businesses and events, estimated last August that about half of the city's 50 or so food and drink establishments were directly affected by the flood. A few, including the Hippie Chickpea, haven't reopened. Rabble-Rouser Chocolate & Craft, a café and chocolate-production facility that occupied a huge Main Street storefront, closed abruptly in May.
Downtown business owners have been meeting for months to talk about solutions. The state's remote workforce comes up repeatedly.
"That's a great deal of foot traffic that we miss day to day," said Sharon Whyte Estes, who owns Althea's Attic Boutique. "We rely on tourism, but locals have been a huge part of our survival."
Few people expect those workers to return, and the state's not trying to make them. The opportunity to work remotely is a strong selling point in a labor market in which Vermont can't compete on salaries, said Beth Fastiggi, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Human Resources. But without those workers, things are tough, especially for restaurants that have also been hit with a sharp increase in food prices.
"It's kind of a perfect storm of things happening in Montpelier," said Thomas Christopher Greene, an author who founded the Vermont College of Fine Arts and now owns Hugo's Bar & Grill. Under a new administration, VCFA moved its residencies out of state and has sold off most of its buildings, depleting the city further. Business at Hugo's is slow, Greene said.
"Montpelier's vibrancy was always built on the idea of 7,000 people at night, 30,000 during the day," Greene said, estimating Montpelier's population and the number of state workers who used to arrive in town every day. "That's just not true anymore."
The state needs to repurpose its large office buildings on State Street, said Shannon Bates, who owns the downtown deli Enna and recently added a gelato business. She'd like to see the offices converted to housing.
"It would be helpful if the state would address how we're going to get people in those buildings," she said.
Jennifer Fitch, commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services, agrees that the buildings need to be used. But it will take years, she said, for change to happen. Seventeen state buildings were damaged by the July flood, and most of them still need repairs and additional work that will make them resilient to future floods. The treasurer and his staff have returned to the Pavilion Building, but the offices of the governor and the attorney general are only partially reestablished there.
Another Vermont-owned building, at 110 State Street, was about to go on the market when it flooded and needs more work before it can be listed, Fitch said.
And one at 14-16 Baldwin Street has been on the market for more than a year. A contractor explored buying it and putting in three apartments before deciding the project would be too expensive, Fitch said.
Some work has started since the flood. The city has issued permits to convert office buildings at 155 Elm Street and 8-20 Langdon Street to 18 units of housing, said Meredith Crandall, Montpelier's planning and zoning administrator. But no new applications are pending, she said.
Some marketing efforts may bear fruit. Montpelier Alive recently started promoting the state capital to residents of the Burlington area. A few Montpelier business owners who asked not to be identified said they think recent publicity about crime in the Queen City might cast Montpelier in a more attractive light.
Trautz, the Montpelier Alive executive director, said she's also talking to travel writers in Boston. She's optimistic the marketing will pay off this summer.
"After July 3 is when things really pick up around here," Trautz said.
Business is brisk at a few places, such as Bohemian Bakery, where customers line up for coffee and baked goods, and Sarducci's Restaurant & Bar, which, despite its riverside location, was spared by the flood.
All things considered, the outlook is good for the Capitol Plaza Hotel, sales manager Anna Bruce said. The 84-room hotel, which sustained major water damage last summer, didn't start taking bookings until the end of January and finally reopened in April. She estimated that the hotel is at about 75 percent occupancy. Its restaurant, J. Morgans Steakhouse, will reopen to the public in July. Bruce said she's booking 16 to 20 events each week into the future.
"We're doing really well for the situation we're in," she said.
Vermont's Statehouse has long attracted tourists in buses, and those tours seem to be picking up, too, said assistant state curator Jack Zeilenga, whose office coordinates tour schedules. Publicity about the flood put the brakes on the tours last summer, even though the Statehouse itself wasn't damaged, Zeilenga said. "There wasn't much for them to do with so many businesses and restaurants closed," he said of the tourists.
Montpelier is a regional hub for central Vermont, and rural residents who live near the capital are looking for reasons to visit, said Kianna Bromley, a local resident who is raising money to buy the former Vermont College of Fine Arts library, Gary Library, for $595,000. Bromley wants to put a performing arts and event space in the building, and she said many of her project's donors have told her they're looking for a public space that is consistently available.
"One thing we are missing is that social infrastructure, where people from across the community come together and build history with a shared interest," she said.
The city still has a lot going for it, Whyte Estes said.
"It's beautiful, and it's walkable, and it's welcoming and tolerant," she said. During the April 8 solar eclipse, the city got a taste of what it would be like when visitors return.
"It was tens of thousands of people roaming, and they were accommodated, and it was peaceful," Whyte Estes said. "If only we could have five more eclipses, that might get us back to where we feel good about things."