GUILFORD — With $160,400 in donations and $11,800 in pledges from 107 donors, Friends of Algiers Village, Inc. has crossed the threshold to purchase the Guilford Country Store, and the nonprofit group has been negotiating with a Bernardston, Mass., storekeeper to lease the building and operate the business.
The group had a July 1 deadline for the closing as a condition of the purchase-and-sale agreement for the historic property.
With that deadline passed, “it seems like we have enough money to complete the sale (with loans),” Casey Blust wrote in a Facebook message to members of the “Preserving the Guilford Country Store in VT” group.
Blust says negotiations “are going well and continuing” with Jeff Klein, owner of the Corner Country Store in Bernardston.
With a $30,000 Community Development Block Grant awarded June 17 and other anticipated grants - including a possible $200,000 “implementation grant” - the Guilford Country Store committee will get a line of credit from Brattleboro Savings & Loan, Blust wrote.
A $70,000 feasibility grant from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) will be available after July 12, delaying the original projected property transfer from current owner Patricia Good.
Blust writes that Good will officially close the store before the sale goes through. “We will strategize how to keep the weigh-station open during hunting season if the store isn't open yet,” Blust writes.