Giving a run down Rutland building a facelift - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Giving a run down Rutland building a facelift

The old Mintzer Brother's manufacturing site in Rutland, has been boarded up, broken, and blighted for years.

But piece by piece, and branch by branch, new life is coming to the once bountiful manufacturing site.

Volunteer, Jen Pattrillo said, "I'm very excited, we need this."

She is one of dozens of volunteers helping Greg Cox and the Vermont Farmers Food Center flip this abandoned warehouse into the new home of the winter farmers market.

Greg Cox of the Vermont Farmers Food Center, said, "We want to seed the Rutland region with farmers, we want to develop and expand markets and we want to rebuild agricultural infrastructure. The community has not donated just services. but dollars. and we're reaching out each day a little further a little wider."

To get the building safe and up to code will cost 100-thousand dollars -- but cox says he thinks he can raise it in just one hundred days.

From architects to engineers, residents have given their services for free.

"It feels really great!" said Cox.

Cox has also partnered with the Community Cupboard which will move into the building labeled F -- and will offer a local food to the under-served year-round.

Not every thing on the property can be rehabbed. Cox says this old storage shed is too far gone and needs to be torn down. But over on the other side of the property they have big plans to build something even better.

Once more money is raise, this grass field will house an industrial kitchen so farmers can produce more, faster -- and grow their business. And this barn in the back, an event center. But first, Cox wants to get the market up and running, and so do those who have come to help.

"Rutland needs this. We need to start generating a new economy. We lost all the manufacturing and we're starting to get the boutiques back and now we need the secure food." said Pattrillo.

City officials are happy too -- the building is on a main gateway to the downtown -- and has been an eyesore and home to squatters for too long.

Brennan Duffy of the Rutland Redevelopment Authority said, "It's really very exciting. Not only is it revitalizing that dilapidated property but it will really have an economic benefit to the city."

Duffy has been on a mission to mitigate blighted properties throughout the city, and is offering tax incentives to those willing to beautify the blighted lots.

"We're hoping that might be a real good poster child for the policy and we'll get owners of future owners neglected properties that see this as a way of limiting their tax liabilities and improving their properties at the same time." adds Duffy.

A fresh face and a fixture for fresh food for the County.