BRATTLEBORO — Last week's party and open house for the Brooks House at the River Garden in Brattleboro was a sight to see.
The evening featured mock-ups of apartments and office space, along with copious amounts of food and drink and more than 200 people milling about.
A feeling of optimism filled the room, along with the hope that the burned and gutted shell of the Brooks House can turned into a centerpiece of a vibrant new downtown.
The irony was that this event was taking place in a space that might not exist in its current form much longer.
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The concept seemed like a good one: take one of the most visible storefronts and turn it into a public space that would showcase Brattleboro and the Connecticut River to visitors.
The execution has been less than perfect. It cost more than $700,000 to turn the former Rite Aid pharmacy into the River Garden.
The space opened in 2001 with the idea that local food vendors could make it work. They couldn't, largely because of insufficient food service prep space.
Another thing that made it impossible for the River Garden to succeed was that the responsibility for taking care of the space got shoved onto the plate of Building a Better Brattleboro (BaBB).
The designated downtown organization had never planned on being a property manager, and after the failure of the food court idea, BaBB was stuck trying to find a way to make the space pay its own way.
After a more than a decade, it hasn't.
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The complaints about the space have been many. It's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. It's expensive to heat, and the glass roof leaks. The acoustics are awful for public gatherings.
And the most important public service that the River Garden offers - public restrooms - are not always usable due to vandalism.
But we think those complaints are minor compared to what the River Garden provides.
No other space in downtown Brattleboro can stage a big event. That's why nonprofits use it for fundraising galas. That's why it's the headquarters of the Winter Farmers' Market. From political rallies to art installations to dance parties, the River Garden accommodates them all.
And even when there is nothing going on, it's been a quiet place to rest during a shopping expedition or to go out on the back deck and watch the river flow. (Or at least it was - the space is now closed, except for special events like the Brooks House gathering.) It is a beautiful, bright, and airy space that is highly adaptable.
It is a space worth preserving for all to use.
The River Garden most definitely is a public resource, and the amount of money needed to keep it that way is comparatively small compared to the benefits that its space provides to the town.
The River Garden needs to remain Brattleboro's gathering place. The town and BaBB need to do everything they can to keep it that way - admittedly a large order, given the long history of BaBB's difficulties in finding a business model to subsidize the building and its operations.
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Many people in the community believe that BaBB has a legal or at least an ethical obligation to keep the space open to the public.
At this point, it is imperative for those in the community to do more than complain. If the organization cannot sustain this property and people want it to remain open, there must be a cohesive and sensible plan to address the financial shortcomings, both short- and long-term.
And board members of BaBB must be receptive to (and patient in the face of) public comment.
As the owner of the property - albeit a property purchased with the help of public dollars - BaBB must recognize that citizens who interject themselves into the nonprofit's business are in effect validating the organization's good efforts in making a downtown space.
It is a measure of success, and the work that BaBB has done over the years toward creating a vibrant and viable business environment in Brattleboro, that so many people have seen the River Garden as a public asset, despite the private aspects of its ownership.
An overwhelmed nonprofit board trying to keep an organization solvent might well see a community's effort to interject itself into the discussion as unwelcome and presumptuous, but as strident as some of those voices might be, they represent potential allies. That community interest should be leveraged as the best glimmer of hope that a viable business plan can emerge to put the River Garden in the black.