The previous thread on highrises felt too long and became murky with too many tangents, so I'll start afresh.
One of the most important factors in deciding upon an appropriate height for a building is how it relates to adjoining structures. A six story building beside a one story building looks discordant. A short structure between two very tall ones looks like a gap-tooth. A common term in these discussions is 'streetscape.' Population isn't a factor.
We are indeed dealing with a 60 foot maximum in our downtown area and, FYI, 30 feet elsewhere.
The Meadows is a floodplain. No building there. However the main area of the Retreat is appropriate for larger buildings.
The garage, we were told way back when, is designed to accomodate several more decks which could also be enclosed for other purposes. An early idea was to kill two birds with one stone and put a new police station atop the four decks planned did not come to fruition for at least two reasons: It would have set construction back another year for redesign and related matters and downtown businesspeople were too impatient; and the easy ability to get under the police station would surely be an irresistible temptation to blow it up.
A small apartment building is already on the drawing boards for the space off the northeast corner of the garage, where the parking lot beside the old Bushnell Block was located. Next to the laundry where it slopes down to the garage. The preliminary design is for fifteen units. Funding may be the current issue on that. For more information call the Brattleboro Area Community Land Trust.
Even a fairly superficial skimming of architectural design for multi-unit dwellings will illustrate a mind-boggling array of beautiful buildings. I've seen many so attractive it was a pleasure just to sit and contemplate them.
I personally would prefer to see at least half the Harmony Lot re-created as non-vehicular open space. It's centrality and size makes it sweetly natural for congregating. Especially for events for large numbers of people. There are sufficient other sites in or near the downtown that will accomodate (in total) many hundreds of new living units without making the area look hardly any more 'citified.' Building and filling those units would do more than anything else to create a truly vibrant downtown. Because, in the final analysis, the vibrancy of a downtown is measured by the number of people using it. And the number of people using it is in direct proportion to the number of people living in or very near it. In other words, as others have said, density and vibrancy go hand in hand.
From everything I have seen around the world it is very possible to double Brattleboro's downtown population and make it far more appealing at the same time.