by Gail Falk, Staff Writer
On a summer Sunday, Aedan Scribner and Chris Thompson are down on the floor glueing insulation under floorboards that once held up coolers of the Plainfield Co-op. The coolers, shelves, and furniture have all been removed from the first-floor space, leaving two nearly empty rooms filled with light and a sense of possibility.
In June Aedan and Chris bought the building that most readers knew as the Plainfield Co-op. The couple stepped up to purchase the building last winter as the store was closing. Aedan recalls her reaction: “Oh no, Plainfield can’t lose something else.”
Rather than forming a committee or an organization, the couple plunged in and took it upon themselves to save the building as a community resource. They took out a mortgage, started a GoFundMe campaign, and closed the sale in late June. Their goal is to generate enough rental income from new uses of the first floor to support the continuation of the Community Center on the second floor.
Both Aedan and Chris are farmers, and summer is their busy time of year, but all their spare time is filled with paperwork tasks, such as writing grants and applying for permits, and lots of nitty gritty carpentry, painting, trash removal and renovation work.
Aedan grew up in Cabot and has had decades of connections to Plainfield and the Co-op community. For a time, she operated Hestia’s Bakery at the rear on the old Plainfield Hardware Store building on School Street. Her daughter Zelda has fond memories of playing in the Children’s Nest at the old Co-op.
Chris, a master electrician as well as a farmer, moved to Plainfield from North Carolina with his then-wife and two sons as a temporary move while his wife was studying herbal medicine with Rosemary Gladstar. They liked Plainfield so much they both decided to stay, albeit not as a married couple. Chris has been farming on East Hill Road for nearly 20 years as Owl Hill Farm. In recent years he supplemented his farm income as maintenance co-ordinator for the Co-op building Thus, he is intimately aware of the building’s flaws, as well as its quirks, weaknesses and deep history.
“I love the building,” he says. Despite its flaws, he notes that the building, perched above the Winooski River, came through the 2023 and 2024 floods unscathed.
The next phase of work for the couple is to remodel the first floor spaces to house three income-generating businesses:
- A one-bedroom apartment
- A licensed food preparation space; and
- A wellness office staffed by a physical therapist.
The food preparation space next to the back door will use the walk-in cooler. The space is already plumbed for the necessary sinks and drainage to meet Health Department requirements. Modeled on successful food hubs in Hardwick and the Mad River Valley, the space will be equipped and rented to food entrepreneurs who need a health-compliant kitchen to prepare and package artisanal food. For instance, Aedan envisions someone making pesto there and then selling it at the Plainfield Co-op.
Chris and Aedan are anxious to reopen the Community Center. The upstairs space is clean and renovated. It has passed a fire inspection; the piano is tuned and there is a lovely meeting table in the front office. They hope to open the upstairs space for community uses in August, as soon as they receive a permit for public access from the Design Review Board.
They see no quick solution to the access issue, which has plagued the Community Center for years. The only way to access the second floor is a steep stairway. Making the space accessible with an exterior elevator or a skyway to the adjoining building are options, but costly. Chris and Aedan believe that accessibility is important but feel they can’t be distracted now from their top priority of turning the ground floor into an income-generating space that will pay for the mortgage, taxes and utilities for the building.
Aedan has started to put together an Advisory Committee to provide a vehicle for community voices to be heard in the planning and operations. She is looking for additional interested people to join.
Aedan and Chris bring deep love and appreciation for the building’s history. The more they work on the building the more they discover. For instance, below the rotten floorboards they found an array of old glass bottles that seem to date back to Prohibition Days. There are traces of a bicycle repair shop, once located in the back section. The heights of dozens of Co-op children are marked on the doorframes between the front and the back, and they don’t plan to paint it over.
They are eager to share their thoughts and to listen to community members. They welcome neighbors to stop in. “It’s our building,” says Aedan, “but it’s Plainfield’s building too.”