Gov. Phil Scott’s administration needs a little more time to figure out how much it will cost to fully upgrade the buildings in downtown Montpelier that were damaged in the 2023 flood.
The state had a Federal Emergency Management Agency deadline of Jan. 10, 2026 to accept a fixed cost for the work.
But in a recent report to lawmakers, the Agency of Administration said it would ask the federal agency for another six months to finalize its plans.
Chief Recovery Officer Douglas Farnham said 17 buildings were damaged in the flood of 2023, and four buildings are still unoccupied.
“We’re trying to come up with a plan that makes sense given how interconnected all the structures are,” Farnham said. “We’ve spent the last couple of years developing cost estimates of what it will take to repair the Capitol Complex, and we’re in the final stages of negotiating those cost estimates with FEMA.”
Catastrophic flooding hit central Vermont in mid-July 2023, when almost 10 inches of rain fell on some parts of the region.Montpelier experienced historic flooding when the Winooski River raged through downtown.
Farnham said the state is working with FEMA under Section 428 of the Stafford Act, which means all of the damage to the 17 state buildings is being grouped under a single disaster declaration.
And so the federal agency, Farnham said, is going through all the work, line-by-line, before coming to a final estimate.
“We’ve spent the last couple of years developing cost estimates of what it will take to repair the Capitol Complex, and we’re in the final stages of negotiating those cost estimates with FEMA.”Douglas Farnham, Chief Recovery Officer
The project is being further delayed by the fact that many of the buildings are part of a historic district, and so any structural work to those buildings has to meet FEMA guidelines along with historic preservation requirements.
FEMA has so far paid about $30 million for the initial cleanup and temporary mechanical systems.
Farnham said the total project could likely exceed $200 million, with FEMA possibly covering 90% of those costs.
Three buildings at 132, 134, and 136 State Street are still unoccupied, and a fourth at 144 State Street will likely be torn down because it is not historic, and would require extensive work to bring up to code in the flood district.
And the five-story Pavillion Building at 109 State Street, Farnham said, will require a complex and expensive plan to move the heating, cooling and electrical systems out of the basement.
Even after the state is able to come up with a cost estimate with FEMA, Farnham said it will likely be a long time before the damage from the 2023 flood is completely addressed.
“It’s going to be a major construction project to fill in basements, and move all the heating systems organized across 17 different structures,” Farnham said. “So I think we’re looking at a minimum of several years once we get the funding and once we get the plan locked in.”
