Multiple downtown Waterbury businesses face sudden eviction notice

January 2, 2026 | By Lisa Scagliotti 

Multiple commercial tenants on Stowe Street in Waterbury, including The Phoenix Gallery & Music Hall, are facing uncertainty after their landlord, the owner of the Radio Vermont Group, served them with an eviction notice on Dec. 22. 

The eviction of tenants on the second floor of 5-7 Stowe Street was to be immediate, and eviction for The Phoenix, on the first floor, was to be Jan. 21, according to the notice.   

The Phoenix Gallery & Music Hall at 5-7 Stowe St. is home to TURNmusic and several other small businesses. Photo by Gordon Miller

The action was paused on New Year's Eve when the lead tenant, owners of The Phoenix Gallery & Music Hall, received a court ruling in their favor, ordering the landlord to let the rental arrangement remain in place until a hearing can be held on the matter this month. 

At issue is the rental status of The Phoenix and the other occupants it subleases space to at 5-7 Stowe Street in downtown Waterbury, the building adjacent to the WDEV radio station offices and studio. 

On Dec. 22, landlord Myers Mermel sent an eviction notice to tenants Joseph Pensak and Anna Black, Waterbury residents and spouses whose company, AMPS LLC, does business as The Phoenix Gallery & Music Hall, and Waterbury Studios on Stowe Street, and TREEHOUSE at the corner of South Main and Elm streets. The latter business leases space from a separate landlord, Jeffrey Larkin. 

Pensak and Black rent the two-story building at 5-7 Stowe Street. They run the street-level Phoenix gallery and a second, smaller art gallery upstairs called The Hesterly Black. The Phoenix shares its storefront space with the nonprofit TURNmusic, doubling as both an art gallery and a live music venue. Furniture maker TR Risk also leases first-floor space in the building. 

Under the name Waterbury Studios, AMPS subleases several upstairs office spaces to four other small businesses: OSSO Studio, an architecture and design firm; JCreations art studio, Magical Mutts pet therapy, and Sirius Health. The Phoenix property also recently has become home to the entire art collection belonging to Larry Bissonnette, a leading Vermont autistic artist and disability rights advocate whose work has been on exhibition in The Hesterly Black space. 

The Phoenix opened in June 2023 in space that formerly was the longtime home to Axel’s Gallery and Frame Shop, which moved across the street earlier that year. The music hall portion of the operation comes from a partnership with TURNmusic. The Stowe Street space became the physical home to the arts organization, formed in 2014, to feature a contemporary musical performances and artists. Its director is Anne Decker, a music educator, musician and conductor who lives in Waterbury.  

Ownership change 

The buildings at 5-7 Stowe St. and the adjacent 9 Stowe St. have recently changed hands as part of the transition of the radio station group’s new ownership.

The flagship station is WDEV AM 550/FM 96.1, founded in 1931. Its longtime owner, Kenley Squier, passed away in November 2023. In January 2024, his daughter, Radio Vermont Group owner Ashley Jane Squier, announced the sale of the radio station group to a pair of investors that the company was working with prior to her father’s death -- Mermel, who lives in Manchester, and Scott Milne, of Pomfret, doing business as Mermel & McLain Management. Mermel's career has been in investment banking and commercial real estate in New York City. In 2022 he ran unsuccessfully for the GOP nomination for a Vermont U.S. Senate seat. He also served as president and executive director of the Ethan Allen Institute, a conservative think tank. Milne owns Milne Travel travel agency and was a former Republican candidate for Vermont governor, lieutenant governor, and U.S. Senate. The radio station sale involved the broadcast business and its associated property on Blush Hill, where its transmission towers and equipment are located. 

The two Stowe Street buildings belonging to Radio Vermont Group remained owned by the Kenley D. Squier Living Trust until just recently. According to property records filed with the town on Sept. 8, the new owner of both 9 Stowe Street and 5-7 Stowe Street is Whitehill Invention Five LLC. Together, the properties occupy one-tenth of an acre, and each was sold for $250,000, a price below their assessed values. The building at 5-7 Stowe Street that is leased to The Phoenix and the other small businesses has an assessment of $257,400. The 9 Stowe Street building, where the radio station offices are located, is assessed at $289,600, according to town property records. Court documents note that Pensak and Black entered a five-year lease in November 2022 for the upstairs space at 5-7 Stowe St., which is scheduled to end in October 2027. Their lease for the first-floor space began in May 2023 and was to end in April 2028, with an option to renew for five years, their court filing shows. 

Pensak said that he and Black were interested in potentially purchasing the 5-7 Stowe St. building, but they did not get an opportunity to make the former owners an offer before the property was sold to Mermel doing business as Whitehill Invention Five. 

Turning to court 

The Dec. 22 eviction notice came as a surprise to Pensak and Black and their tenants. Despite the building ownership change several months ago, Pensak said they had not met with their new landlord to review their rental agreement. The court filing details multiple messages exchanged since late August to address the rental arrangement, including Mermel requesting to only meet with Pensak and not Black, who is co-owner of AMPS and also a lawyer. 

The Phoenix owners document in their filing how they have continued to make monthly rent payments on the first of the month as usual, but that checks for October, November and December rent have not been cashed. The monthly rental payments are $1,900 for the first-floor space and $1,100 for the upstairs. 

In responding to the eviction notice, Black and Pensak as AMPS on Dec. 30 filed a request in state civil court for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order. They filed a complaint for “breach of contract, tortious interference with contractual rights, wrongful eviction, nuisance/interference with quiet enjoyment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and injunctive relief,” according to the court filing. 

The request was particularly critical as The Phoenix had a New Year’s Eve event scheduled and the eviction notice sought to prohibit any events from being held. Pensak even changed the advertised venue for the party to the TREEHOUSE business space nearby. 

The court responded on Dec. 31, granting the temporary restraining order that allowed the New Year’s Eve celebration to proceed at The Phoenix as originally planned. 

In a three-page ruling, Superior Court Judge Daniel Richardson ordered that the landlord not lock the premises at 5-7 Stowe St., leased by The Phoenix or its subtenants, or interfere with any of the businesses’ operations there before a hearing could be held on the matter. Richardson also said that the landlord was not to enforce new lease rules outlined in the eviction notice or interfere with any planned events to be held at the property, including the New Year’s Eve party. 

The court order also specifies that the landlord is not to communicate directly with the businesses Pensak and Black sublease to, but instead to communicate through Pensak and Black’s lawyer if necessary. 

Richardson’s decision did not explore in detail the full breadth of Pensak and Black’s claims, although it did acknowledge their merits. “They and their sub-tenants risk the loss of substantial income, the ability to continue their business, and their reputation in the community,” Richardson wrote, noting that the landlord’s notice and timing “appears largely self-imposed and comes with minimal notice.”

The judge said evidence in Pensak and Black’s complaint regarding their rental arrangement supports their claim that they are complying with their original lease, saying they “have made out a strong claim for breach of contract and wrongful termination” by the eviction notice. 

Pensak and Black were pleased with the speedy decision from the court on Wednesday. The New Year’s Eve party was moved back to The Phoenix space and Pensak said about 100 people attended. 

Penask said he hopes a solution can be reached to continue all of the business operations at 5-7 Stowe St. under the new property ownership. 

“I put my entire life savings into renovating this space,” he said, recalling the work done ahead of The Phoenix’s opening in 2023. “This space was a dream for me. This is my life’s work. I’m a curator. I bring people together.”

He praised his tenants as entrepreneurs, adding to the community with TURNmusic being a significant draw unto itself. “It’s the preeminent music nonprofit running the most dynamic programming in the whole state,” Pensak said.   

Reached just before New Year’s Eve, Decker said TURNmusic does not have any events scheduled until its monthly Jazz Jam event in mid-January. Beyond that, however, she said there are performances booked into May. Because TURNmusic rents from The Phoenix, Decker said she’s not directly involved in the rental dispute, but she will be paying close attention.  

“I’m going to rally behind The Phoenix,” she said. “But I also have to be thinking of the worst-case scenario, and what is that for TURNmusic?”

Pensak said The Phoenix and The Hesterly Black galleries have exhibitions, performances and a variety of events booked for dates throughout 2026 that he hopes to be able to honor. 

To help make their case to work out an arrangement for The Phoenix and its associated tenants to remain in operation at 5-7 Stowe St., Pensak and Black have begun to collect feedback in the form of letters of support from visual and performing artists, community leaders, other Waterbury business owners, and members of the broader Vermont arts community. 

Letters filed to Superior Court attest to the role the gallery, music hall and business incubator space play in the Waterbury Community. 

Roger Clapp, executive director of the community and economic development organization Revitalizing Waterbury, said The Phoenix and its associated tenants serve RW’s mission to “preserve, promote and enhance the economic, historic and social vitality of Waterbury,” for residents, businesses and visitors “We were shocked to learn that the new owner of the WDEV block has issued an eviction notice to both the Phoenix Gallery and Waterbury Studios without cause or warning. These actions could prove devastating to both enterprises and the clients they serve,” Clapp wrote.  

Architect Greg Montgomery of building tenant OSSO studios said he would have a difficult time finding alternative space for his practice. “Additionally, since its opening, the Phoenix has become a community hub, providing a venue for gathering that has been warmly and gratefully received by local youth, families, friends, long-time residents and weekend visitors alike,” he writes. “The doors closing on these two spaces would represent an extremely disheartening loss for the Waterbury community, as well as the closing of nine distinct Waterbury small businesses. Please halt this eviction process for the sake of these businesses and the town.”

Nina Towne, owner of The Proud Flower flower and gift shop in Waterbury, is a musician who organizes and runs monthly jazz concerts with TURNmusic at The Phoenix.  “This eviction notice is shocking news and unacceptable business practice,” she writes to the court. “We live in a small town, where the business community is helpful and supportive of each other. We will not stand for this. Please help Joseph, Anna, Anne, me, our supportive community members, and our town.”

A hearing on the matter has been scheduled for Jan. 15 in Washington County Vermont Superior Court Civil Division. 

Mermel did not reply to messages seeking comment for this report. A staff member at the Radio Vermont Group office said he was on a family trip out of state until next week. 

Reached Friday afternoon, Ashley Jane Squier said she was unaware of the eviction notice involving the 5-7 Stowe St. property. Since the real estate transaction in September, she has not been involved in any matters pertaining to the property's leases, she said. 

“I'm sad to hear it,” she said. “I always considered Joseph a tenant in good standing. I loved what they were doing for the community.”

Squier, who rented the property to Pensak and Black initially, said she was pleased to see the building being used for art exhibits, small businesses and music, pointing to her family’s long history with music through WDEV and their personal interests. Her father, Kenley Squier, was a longtime supporter and board member with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and as a young man worked in jazz clubs. “My father loved all music,” she said. “Music in the community matters.”