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For almost two decades, the former Sand Bar Inn has sat vacant along Lake Champlain where the Sandbar causeway meets South Hero. 

Now, the property’s owner plans to build new housing and a restaurant there, a project that would be among the first things drivers see heading onto the Champlain Islands.

“This would be the gateway to the community,” Jim Brightwell, a member of the town’s development review board, said at a hearing for the project April 27. 

LPD Holdings plans to build four duplex townhouses, a one-bedroom cottage and a 78-seat restaurant on the roughly 4.5-acre site, documents show. The townhouses would have three bedrooms each, according to plans, and would likely be sold, not rented.

Each townhouse also would have a single-car garage. Plans call for 78 parking spaces in total, 14 of which would be available for overflow parking for the marina across the street.

Documents show the restaurant would sit in the site’s northwest corner along Route 2, while the townhouses would be set farther back to the east off a separate small road.

The existing structures on the property would be removed, and the number of entrances from Route 2 would be reduced from four to just one. 

According to Seven Days, the Sand Bar Inn was built in 1900 and served as a popular restaurant and lodging for visitors to Grand Isle County for nearly a century. In 2005, it closed for good and fell into disrepair, the newspaper has reported. 

Today there are still remains of motel units on the site, but “they’re uninhabitable, falling apart, and a real eyesore,” Martha Taylor-Varney, South Hero’s zoning administrator, said in an email.

Jennifer Desautels, the project’s engineer, said water for the new development would be supplied by a well, and testing for one is already underway. Plans also call for a septic system for wastewater (South Hero does not have a municipal sewer system). 

She said plans also include a grate on a hill between the back of the townhouses and the lake, which would help water drain in the event of a storm surge. And despite being so close to shore, Desautels said, the project would not encroach on any wetlands. 

Last week’s hearing was the second for the project before the development review board; the first was in January. Board members largely voiced support for the plans, though they asked for more information on lighting options for the site and the appearance of the townhouses and cottage.

Brightwell noted that, without sufficient lights or signs, it could be difficult for drivers on Route 2, which spans the causeway, to see where to turn for the new development.

Route 2 is the main state highway running through the Champlain Islands.

Board members also discussed how the development could spur pedestrian traffic in the immediate area, with people wanting to cross Route 2 from the nearby marina.

“I can see a lot of pedestrians, and a lot of visitors, and a lot of residents coming back and forth using that road,” member Lisa Kilcoyne said. “It’s got to be made safer.”

Desautels said planners discussed the idea of a crosswalk on Route 2 near the project with the state Agency of Transportation, but state officials said they may not even support building out infrastructure there that would encourage people to cross.

“I assume that the folks who have a boat in that marina area are used to crossing there and are aware of the safety concerns,” Desautels said.

Mark Naud, who owns the marina, said at the meeting he’s long known that the area is dangerous for pedestrians and supports new measures to slow down drivers.

Board members voted to extend the Sand Bar Inn site hearing to their May 11 meeting, at which point they could approve the plans.

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Shaun Robinson is a Report for America corps member with a special focus on issues of importance to Franklin and Grand Isle counties. He is a journalism graduate of Boston University, with a minor in political science. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Patriot Ledger of Quincy and the Cape Cod Times.

View all stories by Shaun Robinson

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