Project Regeneration: A Small Town, A Big Signal

Something important is happening in Woodstock.

Across New York State and far beyond, towns are wrestling with the same questions:

How do we keep housing affordable?
How do we protect historic places while keeping them useful?
How do we respond to climate change in ways that feel practical, human, and hopeful?

Project Regeneration is Woodstock’s answer to those questions and an invitation to imagine what’s possible when a small town chooses to act with intention.

This is a privately supported but community-informed plan to re-use a group of historic buildings in the heart of town and turn them into affordable green homes, shared workspaces, arts, health, and wellness studios, and expanded green space open to the public. Project Regeneration is rooted in local needs, designed with care, and built to last.

Woodstock house with a large tree in front on a sunny day

For the Community and Everyone Invested in the Future of our Towns

If you live in Woodstock, this project is about protecting what makes this place special while ensuring it continues to work for the folks who call it home. You are a part of this effort!

If you live elsewhere, visit often, or care about sustainable development, Project Regeneration offers a rare chance to follow a real-world experiment in regenerative, community-led design, one that’s grounded in history but fully oriented toward the future.

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This is a long-term project, that is ambitious, careful and deeply rooted in place.

We’re grateful you’re here at the beginning.

What’s Being Regenerated

Project Regeneration brings together six existing buildings across three adjoining properties at 100 & 106 Tinker Street and 5 Library Lane, right in downtown Woodstock, NY in the heart of the Catskill Mountains.

These include the former Woodstock Library and the former Lasher Funeral Home, buildings that many people recognize and have strong associations with, but no longer serve their original purposes.

Rather than developing these sites individually, leaving them vacant, or replacing them with something larger and detached from the town, we would like to take a different approach. We would like the buildings to be treated as one interconnected place, a small, carefully planned campus that allows shared infrastructure, shared green space, and a much lighter environmental footprint.

By working with what already exists, we would like to preserve the character of the area while allowing the buildings to evolve in ways that meet today’s needs.

Our current plans include:

At least 12 affordable, energy-efficient homes, designed to be comfortable, modest in scale, and inexpensive to rent
Shared workspaces and facilities that support small enterprises, creative work, and local livelihoods
Studios for health, wellness, and arts practitioners, helping to strengthen access to services within the community
A significant expansion of green space, extending the Forever Green area with natural gathering places, plantings, and areas for reflection and play
A carbon-neutral design, using renewable energy, sustainable materials, and transparent building methods that will be openly shared

Together, these elements seek to create a place that feels both familiar and renewed - serving everyday needs, strengthening community life, and demonstrating how historic buildings can be thoughtfully regenerated for the future.

Why This Approach Matters

In 2018, Woodstock residents came together to create a Comprehensive Plan, a community-authored document that clearly outlined priorities for the town’s future: affordable housing, sustainability, green space, and support for artists and local businesses.

Project Regeneration, a fully transparent venture seeking local community participation, exists to put that plan into action.

Too often, thoughtful plans remain aspirational. This project is different because it asks the question:

How does a town build what it already agreed it needs — carefully, transparently, and at human scale and can its citizens contribute to those plans?

We would like to contribute a small blueprint of ideas that offer a way for our community to improve both its facilities and its environmental impact.

Who Is Leading this Project and Why that Matters

Project Regeneration is led by Lizzie Vann, a social entrepreneur and regenerative developer whose work focuses on adapting historic places, so they can bring dynamism to small communities and support contemporary community life.

Lizzie Vann and her team previously restored the Bearsville Center, including the historic Bearsville Theater, transforming a long-dormant site into a thriving cultural and economic destination. That project demonstrated that preservation, sustainability, and financial viability can all happen simultaneously without sacrificing character or community value.

Earlier in her career, Vann worked on projects such as the Anna Maria Historic Green Village in Florida, where old run down buildings including homes were re-sited and turned into a much loved general store, bakery, fishing outpost and 3 apartments, all with platinum LEED environmental certification and using net zero energy. Historic structures were reimagined for modern use with sustainability and long-term stewardship at their core.

Following the success of Bearsville Center, Lizzie Vann is now selling the Center and reinvesting the proceeds directly into Project Regeneration, using the outcome of one regenerative project to fund the next and keeping both capital and commitment firmly rooted in Woodstock.

Project Regeneration is a fully transparent private venture that will be built with the help and support of its community.

Follow the Journey with Monthly Updates

Because this project will unfold over time, we’ll be publishing a Project Regeneration newsletter once a month to keep you informed as it progresses.

These updates will share:

Key project milestones and timelines
Best practices for design and sustainability
Community feedback and responses
Public review updates and meeting invitations
What we’re learning along the way

Whether you live in Woodstock, visit often, have a second home nearby, or are simply interested in regenerative development, this newsletter is the best way to stay connected.

👉 To receive monthly updates, subscribe here.

We’ll only send what’s relevant, and we’ll always be transparent about where the project stands.

Get Involved

Sign up here for our newsletter to receive updates and invitations to public meetings as the project moves forward.

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