Casella Waste Systems plans to build townhouses for its employees on the Rutland campus of the former College of St. Joseph, which closed in 2019.
CEO John Casella said on Thursday that he was pushed into the move because his workers were having trouble finding places to live, constraining the company’s growth.
“The last thing we wanted to do was to get into the housing business, but at this point we don’t really have a choice,” he said, adding that it’s too early to say how many units the publicly traded company will build. “We want to continue to grow in Rutland County, and the only way we can do that is to try to fix a portion of this problem.”
Rutland, like much of Vermont, has an acute shortage of homes to buy or rent. Lyle Jepson, the executive director of Chamber and Economic Development of Rutland County, said the number of homes in the county converted to Airbnbs has increased tenfold in the last five years, from 100 to 1,000.
“Even with slow population growth, Rutland County has a clear housing issue,” Jepson said in an email.
Several small Vermont colleges have closed in recent years, which could present opportunities. The Vermont State Colleges System is going through an extensive reorganization this year and has invited affordable housing developers to look at underused campus buildings that are expected to go on the market.
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But converting college buildings into housing isn’t simple. They’re often located in rural areas, for one thing. Gus Seelig, executive director of the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, one of Vermont’s publicly funded affordable housing developers, said he prefers to build in downtown areas so residents who don’t have cars can reach stores and appointments.
Seelig added that VHCB has talked to the state college system over the past few years about building affordable housing in buildings that are close to community centers. The colleges haven’t made final decisions about which buildings they will sell, spokesperson Sylvia Plumb said.
Another hitch is that the buildings themselves can’t always easily be converted into apartments.
But college campuses have advantages, too, said Seelig and Kathy Beyer, the senior vice president for real estate development for affordable housing developer Evernorth, which serves northern New England. There’s strong support in Vermont for reusing historic buildings. And the properties often come with valuable infrastructure.
“It’s very difficult to find land on town water and sewer that is also zoned for the kind of density we need for multifamily housing, so, in that context, it could make a lot of sense,” Beyer said.
Casella plans to build market-rate housing. That’s also in the works for the campus of the former Green Mountain College in Poultney, which was sold in 2020 to Raj Bhakta, who is in the liquor business. Bhakta’s spokesperson, Andrew Lohse, said on Friday that Bhakta plans to renovate some college buildings into condos as part of a $100 million resort development that is planned for the campus.
Casella Waste Systems plans to demolish the College of St. Joseph dorms. John Casella said they’ve been empty for years and are moldy. The company is working on plans for new townhouses that could be built in a year or two. He’s also working with other large local employers and hoping they can come up with a plan to create housing that would serve them all, he said.
“We can be a part of the community and try to help fix the issue,” he said.
Casella has purchased about 70 acres of the College of St. Joseph campus and has renovated one building, Tuttle Hall, to serve as its HR department and a training center. Other structures, including the administration building, remain empty.
In 2021, the City of Rutland purchased the college’s athletic center and converted it into a city recreation center. On a recent sunny afternoon, that center was bustling, and people on bikes streamed through campus.
This article appears in The Cartoon Issue 2023.
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