WINDSOR — The Selectboard has given its tentative support to a proposal that could see a new recreation area built on Depot Street.

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the four board members present granted Town Manager Tom Marsh the authority to enter a purchase and sale agreement to buy about 3 acres of property on the east side of the train tracks from Windsor Railyards Inc., a company owned by Bob Haight, an architect and former zoning administrator for the town.

The land, which currently houses the Windsor Exchange, a community and performance space, would be managed by Railyards Recreation, a nonprofit organization spearheaded by Terry McDonnell, who owns nearby Artisans Park off Route 5. The nonprofit organization’s plans call for construction of a skatepark, pickleball courts, a dog park and other recreational amenities.

“I definitely think it’s a step in the right direction,” said Haight, who has lived in town since the early 1990s.

He said he is excited about McDonnell’s vision for the property: “There’s a bunch of us who for years have always had the idea that there was a lot of potential for things here in town. I think this is a good logical step.”

Under the tentative agreement, the town will purchase the property by forgiving roughly $53,000 remaining on a $75,000 loan from the Windsor Revolving Loan Fund that Haight used to purchase the property around a decade ago.

“In the best case, we’ll say a few years from now there’s going to be a really nice public space down there for recreation for a lot of different age groups and things like that,” Marsh said during the meeting. “I’d say in the worst case, the property’s cleaned up and we just move to the next phase.”

That the next phase would be finding another use for the property if McDonnell’s proposal doesn’t work out, Marsh said.

“This will not cost any money outside the forgiveness of the loan,” he added.

Haight bought four acres of land formerly owned by the Canadian National Railroad; as part of the agreement with the town, he will keep roughly one acre of his original purchase on the west side of the train tracks, which he currently uses for his architecture business and as a woodshop.

Due to its former use by the railroad, the acreage is classified as a brownfield, meaning it will need to be cleaned up before construction can begin.

Once the town purchases the property, it will be able to apply for brownfield remediation funding, in partnership with the Mount Ascutney Regional Commission.

“We can’t do that for a private for-profit,” Tom Kennedy, director of community development for the regional planning commission, said during Tuesday’s night’s meeting. The commission has already invested $50,000 to $75,000 assessing the property and said they could not move forward with more work until they are sure a sale would take place.

While Kennedy said he hoped the cleanup could be done for around $300,000, it would likely cost closer to $500,000 to $600,000. It would entail removing eight inches of soil, putting a mat down and then covering it with a new layer of soil.

“If all goes well, we will start construction next spring,” Kennedy said.

Haight said his motivation for buying the property was to get it cleaned up; he did not want someone to purchase it and turn it into a junkyard, for example.

“At the time I bought it, it was totally overgrown,” said Haight, who serves on the board of Railyards Recreation.

Broken down cars were removed from the property, the lawn started being mowed and windows were replaced on buildings, including the Exchange: “We ended up just cleaning things up and then things for the Exchange got started in an ad hoc way.”

The recreation proposal has already begun to garner community support.

Brendan Dangelo is a member of the music collective What Doth Life, which has been holding events at the Exchange for a decade. Patrons regularly praise the venue.

“This is an incredible opportunity for the community and for the revitalization of downtown Windsor. Not only will this amend the longtime fallout of the adverse impacts of our manufacturing past, this project is going to reinvigorate an incredible gem in the middle of town,” Dangelo wrote in an email. “To see the rest of the area be reimagined is exactly what the town needs and what a growing chorus of the community wants.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.