POWNAL – The owners of the Southern Vermont Energy Park have announced that two businesses, a solar-power farm and a wood pellet manufacturer, were pursuing leases at the former Green Mountain Race Track.

Frank Cantatore, a principal in the ownership group Progress Partners, said Beaver Wood Energy LLC, was pursuing a lease at the park, but referred questions about their operations to the company, based in Massachusetts.

"You have to remember our role, we're landlords. We're not partners. We're not advocates one way or another. We're partners in developing the property in Pownal, Vermont, that's really what we're doing. We're trying to revive the property and I think it will have a positive effect on the rest of the community. That's what we said we would do and that's what we believe is happening now," he said.

A press release from Southern Vermont Energy Park called Beaver Wood Energy a "biomass-fired power plant and wood pellet manufacturing entity."

Peter Odierna, executive director of the Bennington County Industrial Corp., said his organization would be working with the state on some details needed to move forward with the Beaver Wood Energy project.

Odierna said he knew the principals involved with the biomass proposal and helped connect them with the owners of the Southern Vermont Energy Park.

The other potential tenant is EOS Ventures, a Hancock, Mass., company which describes itself as a "one-stop shop for the necessary services involved with the design and construction of (a) renewable energy system. The company is involved in projects using solar and wind as power sources, but Cantatore said the proposal for the Pownal site involves only solar power.

Progress Partners purchased the former race track in 2004 for $1 million after the building had gone unused since 1992.

Cantatore said the decision to pursue a renewable energy park came from Progress Partners commitment to creating jobs in an area where its members had heard jobs were needed.

"(We learned) the residential home market, which initially was what my focus was on, was not going to work at the site after all our study so we switched to creating jobs in particular that help the surrounding area … and a couple of the partners saw the trends of multiple forms of energy, four or five years ago and said, 'We should be getting into this in various forms of entry way,' and started spreading the word and this is what we found," he said.

According to Cantatore, other renewable energy companies have spoken with Progress Partners, but the owners of the park believed EOS and Beaver Wood Energy were the "most serious."

While the Southern Vermont Energy Park is pursuing possible tenants, plans remain to use the site for events and entertainment. Through the rest of the year, the park will host an air show, the BMW Rider's Association International Rally and the Bennington Car Show.

Cantatore said the grandstand used by the race track would be retained for the entertainment events.

Beaver Wood Energy has a contact e-mail linked to its website, but there was no response to an e-mail sent on Friday requesting comment.

patrick.mcardle@rutlandherald.com