An undeveloped vacant lot in downtown Newport in March 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger On a recent summer afternoon in downtown Newport, portions of Main Street were bustling: Vendors were setting up for the Wednesdays on the Waterfront concert series, neighbors chatted at a cafe, and visitors were enjoying the town’s flower displays and sweeping views of Lake Memphremagog. However, one part of downtown — “the pit” — sat quiet and empty, as it has for over a decade. The razed city block, tied to the EB-5 visa scandal, is surrounded by a tall chain-link fence, its concrete foundations taken over by nature with stands of poplar trees and sumac. Now, a path forward for the site — also known as “the Hole” — has emerged in an announcement Thursday: The Northeastern Vermont Development Association plans to purchase the property for $1.1 million, pending approval by a federal judge. The group’s goal is to transfer the property to the city of Newport or another development partner. “We are thrilled,” said Newport Mayor Rick Ufford-Chase late Thursday afternoon. “This is the first step of many that will have to take place to actually make something constructive happen on that property, but nothing could happen until we gained control of the pit and put it in the hands of folks locally to make decisions.” The NVDA expects to complete the purchase of the property in October and immediately begin assessing the site’s current state and work needed to remediate it. According to Thursday’s press release, the city will conduct a market study to inform a future use for the large property consistent with its master plan. The area will now be known as the “Newport Development Block.” According to Ufford-Chase, the master plan calls for the centerpiece of Newport’s downtown development efforts to be housing. The plan calls for 400-plus units to be built in the downtown core over the next 15 years, along with a hotel, commercial space and a recreation center for the community.  “I expect this block will be the heart of that redevelopment strategy,” he said, adding that the master plan aims to make the city’s downtown “livable and walkable, so that people could live downtown and find what they need right here.” According to a fact sheet from the NVDA, the organization hopes construction could begin as early as 2028. “This is just the beginning of a new future for the City of Newport” and the Northeast Kingdom, said Ufford-Chase in the press release. “This news, together with the $3 million dollar grant we were awarded by the Northern Border Regional Commission to redevelop our infrastructure on Main Street, lays the necessary groundwork for the next steps. While the City focuses on making those improvements, our team will turn its attention to seeking developers to build out the property.” To purchase the property, the NVDA received a $1 million Rural Industry Development Program grant from the state’s Department of Economic Development, also announced Thursday. The NVDA will supplement the state grant to cover the property’s purchase and carrying costs and has grant money from the Environmental Protection Agency to complete an environmental study and site clean-up efforts, according to the fact sheet. A lot of state agencies, organizations and officials had to cooperate to make the sale a reality, Ufford-Chase said. Michael Goldberg, a court-appointed receiver overseeing the Main Street property in Newport for the past 10 years, submitted a court filing Thursday in support of the sale. “The Receiver has been marketing this land for years,” Goldberg wrote. “The Receiver has been in discussions with the Northeastern Vermont Development Association, Inc. for over a year and this is the only legitimate purchase offer for the land.” The proceeds of the sale will go to investors who put money into a development that was announced for the site over a decade ago and were defrauded in the EB-5 visa scheme, as well as to other creditors, Goldberg added. “Further,” the receiver wrote in the filing, “as this is the last piece of property in the receivership estate to be sold, this will now allow the Receiver to finalize and close the case.” The Main Street property in Newport was among several properties put into receivership in 2016 when federal and state regulators started enforcement actions against the developers who were accused of misusing tens of millions of dollars from foreign investors in the state’s largest investment fraud scandal. The developers had raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the various projects through the federal EB-5 visa program over several years. That visa initiative allows foreign investors to obtain green cards, or permanent U.S. residency, in exchange for putting money into rural development projects. However, due to the fraud many investors were out both their money and their chance of obtaining green cards. ‘The pit’ in Newport on July 1, 2026. Photo by K. Fiegenbaum/VTDigger. The Newport city block was razed more than 10 years ago as part of a plan to redevelop the site, then known as the Spates block. At that time, developers proposed turning the city block into a four-story development with retail and office spaces along with a hotel and restaurant. Some of the series of projects proposed by the developers did take place. However, the proposed redevelopment of the Main Street property in Newport never materialized as regulators halted what they termed a “Ponzi-like” scheme. Goldberg has since sold all the other properties off, including two ski resorts in the Northeast Kingdom: Jay Peak Resort and Burke Mountain Resort.  Goldberg wrote in the filing Thursday that the sale of the 1.31-acre property in Newport would be “AS IS.” According to the receiver, the closing will be on or before Oct. 12.   Goldberg’s filing was made in federal court in Miami, where the receivership case is pending. The case was brought in Florida because that was where Ariel Quiros, one of the developers, lived at the time.  Quiros owned Jay Peak at the time. He, former resort President Bill Stenger and William Kelly, a Quiros adviser, later all reached plea deals to federal charges and were sentenced to prison for their roles in the scandal. They have all since been released.  The Newport City Council will hold a hybrid informational meeting on the announcement at 6 p.m. Monday at the Gateway Center in Newport and online. The meeting will “be about helping local folks to understand exactly where we are in the process and set expectations and answer their questions about how we got to this moment,” said Ufford-Chase. Read the story on VTDigger here: Long-vacant ‘pit’ in downtown Newport nears new chapter with purchase plan. ...read more read less