Phil Dodd
The former Walgreens Pharmacy building at 29 Main Street in Montpelier was sold in September by Bigglestone Investments to Main Street Apts, LLC, and is now the subject of a request for property tax stabilization.
At the Nov. 12 city council meeting, city staff recommended that the city enter into an agreement with Main Street Apts, LLC — owned by plumber and landlord Lucky Boardman — that would reduce municipal property taxes on improvements to the building for seven years. A second hearing on the request will be heard Dec. 10.
Boardman plans to spend $600,000 to renovate the first floor and to build 15 one-bedroom ADA adaptable units on the upper floors, according to a memo to the city council from Matthew Jelacic, the city’s new Community and Economic Development Specialist. The building is served by an elevator.
Under the city’s tax stabilization policy, the owner would continue to pay full taxes on the current assessed value, plus would pay 50% of the increased value of the building (not the land), expected to be the $600,000 he will spend. The savings would be $3,206 each year for seven years at current tax rates, according to Jelacic’s memo.
The property, listed in the 2025 grand list at $1,660,700, sold for $2,180,000, according to City Assessor Marty Lagerstedt. The sale price was 31% above the assessed value set in the 2023 city reappraisal.
Kent and Eric Bigglestone, owners of Capitol Stationers, are the principals in Bigglestone Investments. Eric said it took the two brothers about six months to get from listing the property to closing the sale.
Boardman plans to create office spaces on the first floor where the Walgreen’s pharmacy was located and to build new apartments on the second floor, which is served by an elevator, according to Miranda Schlaver, property manager for Boardman’s Vermont Rental Solutions.
Some of the office tenants on the second floor will be moving downstairs, Schlaver said. The largest upstairs tenant, the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, has not yet decided what it will do, she indicated.
Schlaver said she could not predict when the renovations will be complete and the apartments offered for rent because the project still needs permits, and construction will take time. She said additional windows will be added to the building.
Rents should be similar to those at the 20 apartments, some created in the last couple of years, in the 8 Langdon Street building owned by Boardman and his partner in Langdon Street Apartments, LLC, Gabe Lajeunesse, Schlaver said. These apartments are currently fully occupied, with rents ranging from $1,250 for a studio to $1,900 for a two-bedroom apartment. The rent includes heat, water, sewer, electricity, trash collection, and Wi-Fi.
Schlaver said she is still seeing strong demand for apartments. “People are always looking for apartments,” she said. Vermont Rental Solutions offers apartments in Montpelier, Barre, and Northfield, she said.
For Eric and Kent Bigglestone, the sale of the building was bittersweet, as it has been owned by the family for decades and was the location of Capitol Stationers until the late 1990s. “I remember playing hide and seek in the basement with Eric,” Kent said.
Capitol Stationers recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. The Bigglestone brothers’ grandparents, William and Norah Bigglestone, opened Capitol Stationers in May 1950 and purchased 29 Main Street in 1967. The store currently rents space for its current location at 65 Main Street.
The Bigglestone family added a second floor to 29 Main Street in the early 1970s and filled both floors with products Capitol Stationers sold. In addition to office supplies like those it offers now, the store sold office furniture, books, toys, and art supplies, according to Kent Bigglestone.
“This was before people traveled much on the interstate, and there was no internet shopping and mail order hadn’t really kicked in yet,” he said. Later the store consolidated to the first floor and started renting out office space upstairs. It eventually moved out in 1997 when Rite Aid came looking for space in Montpelier.
Capitol Stationers was located on the west side of Main Street for more than a decade, but moved across the street to its current location in 2011. The current storefront is one that the family rented before purchasing 29 Main Street, so it was a homecoming of sorts.
Rite Aid occupied the first floor of 29 Main Street until the company was bought by Walgreens, which then operated a pharmacy for several years in the building. Walgreens renovated the space after the 2023 flood, but then closed it less than a year later as part of a national cutback. The first floor has been vacant ever since.
