The Brattleboro Co-op / Canal & Main Apartments building received the 2015 Creating Community Action Award through HUD Secretary's Housing and Community Design Awards. This site, located in downtown Brattleboro, was redeveloped by the Brattleboro Food Co-op, Windham & Windsor Housing Trust and HousingVermont. VHFA provided Housing Tax Credits as well as long term financing on the project.
The new four-story building provides retail and office space for the Co-op on the first floors as well as 24 affordable apartments on the upper two floors. The Creating Community Connection Award recognizes projects that incorporate housing within other community services for revitalization or planned growth. Windham & Windsor Housing Trust Executive Director Connie Snow says, "The Cooperative Building, with its retail store and housing, has had such a positive impact on the downtown community since it opened."
HUD writes, "The building is a model of energy efficiency, using both conventional and innovative systems, such as heating the entire building with reclaimed waste heat from the store refrigerator system." These features cut energy costs by approximately 50 percent and saves 21 tons of CO2 emissions a year. Read more about the Brattleboro Co-op / Canal & Main Apartments building.