A consulting architect was a bit chattier, however.
William Fellows of PKSB approached CityPlace consultant Jeff Glassberg and planning director David White in a hallway in City Hall, saying he’d just learned that the roughly $250 million, 14-story mixed-use building would be redesigned.
Within earshot of the press corps, Fellows wondered aloud if the resulting delays could affect either the city’s plans to use tax-increment financing dollars to support the project or the signed lease with the anchor tenant, the University of Vermont Medical Center. He then left City Hall with a cell phone to his ear.
Neither Glassberg nor Mayor Miro Weinberger would divulge what’s next for CityPlace, saying they have to defer to developer Brookfield Asset Management, whose representatives did not attend Monday’s meeting.
“There’s lots of people who are waiting for the word on this,” Glassberg said. “It’s not our word to give.”
Weinberger said it’s “critical” that Brookfield update the public.
“I’m looking forward to sharing considerable additional thoughts with you once Brookfield has explained what is, I think, self-evident — that we’re in mid-July and this project’s not in construction,” he said.
Glassberg told Seven Days as much in an interview last week. He also pointed out that Brookfield is approaching a December 31 deadline to submit a construction contract, as per the October 2017 development agreement. That agreement can be renegotiated, but as of now, Brookfield isn’t poised to meet that mark, Glassberg said.
Brookfield has also rewritten its contract with UVM Medical Center, spokesperson Annie Mackin told Seven Days in an email last week. The original December 2020 move-in was pushed to July 30, 2021, Mackin said.
The city and Brookfield now plan to release a statement about the project status “in concert” sometime later this week, Glassberg said.
It will be the first public update in the three months since Will Voegele, Brookfield’s senior vice president of development, told the council that Brookfield was tabulating construction bids. He said the firm was “absolutely” committed to the project.
Asked by a reporter how he’d characterize the impending announcement, Glassberg said: “Change.”
“A change from the status quo,” he continued. “There’s no construction under way. Our effort is to get construction going and trying to figure out the shortest path to get there.”
Former city councilor Dave Hartnett didn’t seem convinced. He was one of two councilors who voted last August against letting Sinex obtain a foundation permit without proof of project financing.
As long as Sinex is involved, there will be no progress, Hartnett said, adding he hopes the project is redesigned.
“We gotta do something quickly,” he said.
Related Stories
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
This is making the BT screw-up look like child’s play. Miro needs to resign. He appears to be engaging in a cover-up. And all of this “executive session” bullcrap needs to be made public immediately since it looks like we have been lied to.
The upcoming statement to be released will be a sanitized and lawyerly phrased excuse for a truthful and honest discourse with the public. As long as the folks in Burlington allow this backroom dealing to continue we will never be told the truth. Getting after your councilors to make it all public might be helpful.
Imagine that , real estate developers lying to the public . . . it sounds vaguely familiar . . .Trump, Weinberger , Sinex, Brookfield, liars all.
Wow…what a surprise! You mean the project is not on schedule Mr Mayor? Could have fooled us. PT Barnum comes to mind.
NorthOldEnder-
While people are intent upon hanging the current mayor to dry, I guess they are forgetting history: BT wasn’t just a “screw-up”. $17 million in taxpayer money was willfully and improperly channeled from city coffers to a failing telecom.
I guess we’ve also forgotten Bob Kiss okayed a deal with Lockheed-Martin, and let big hotel developers hold sway in the city. He couldn’t make a go of revitalizing the Moran plant, and didn’t maintain Memorial Auditorium.
Maybe people are more kindly disposed toward the shortcomings of a mayor with a big “P” in his political designation?
It’s frustrating to me as it is to you, and others, that this project isn’t up and running, but things like this do sometimes happen. Progress can be painful, but hey- no guts, no glory.
Also, respectfully, Executive Session has to be part of the democratic process. An elected official ought to have a full grasp of what’s happening before dispersing information. Unlike the unfortunately loquacious Mr. Fellows, they have a responsibility to give the public the big picture, not just a handful of suppositions.
Weinberger is pushing this back on the developer. Sinex is trying to fade into the background moving from the being the face of the project to just a “minority owner.” Neither was even present at the update meeting. Now they are talking change.
Will this change be another 7 stories stacked on? Will it mean 7 less stories? Why did Weinberger use a super pac to support this? Where did the Sinex billboards go? Why does Weinberger look like a rat? Will Christmas be canceled in 2019?
We need “critical” updates to all of these questions and more.
Northoldender, I agree that Miro needs to resign and to many things are being kept secret. The Burlington taxpayers have a right to know what is going on as the project was voted on by us. I as one, did not vote for it as I had a bad feeling about it. I knew from past actions that Miro is all talk and no action!
This is excellent news. The project has fundamental flaws, not just problems of scale or style or even architectural program. There is a crisis in perception of the urban context and ecological future for the project.
The project reflects a failed strategy to build cities for cars and consumption, not people and conservation. We are now well into the 21st century. It is uneconomical and unecological to construct a building that is dependent on big inputs from big infrastructure.
Some loud people see political advantage in griping about the stalled project, others are upset at their own gullibility. The barking needs to stop. Building the wrong thing in hurry just to look busy would be quite stupid. Rather, congratulate CityPlace for halting a poorly conceived project. A cleared site, held in reserve and ready for action, is far better than either the obsolete, vacant shopping mall, or a new wrong building.
While the site is reconsidered, two actions could satisfy the craving to do something:
1) Keep digging; underground space is valuable;
2) interim passage; establish a bike/ped path through the site.
Now is the time to reflect on the climate emergency imperatives. There will be no McNeil district heating system: heating loads are declining and can be zero in every new building; McNeil is an ancient combustion facility, it must close. There will be no cars: they consume too much space; they cost too much; even when electrified, their environmental impact is too high. There will be no Champlain Parkway no cars to drive it. The future of downtown is walking amongst buildings that manage themselves with on-site resources. They generate more electricity than they use and sequester more greenhouse gases than they emit. It can be done and it must be done, right now. 300 words!
This developer will feel no urgency on this project unless their permit is in danger. They are hoping to win concessions from the City.
Until then it is delay, delay, delay, and obfuscate.
It has been ‘financing problems’…now it’s ‘we need to redesign’. What will it be tomorrow?
Revoke the permit.
Say you don’t know me, or recognize my face
Say you don’t care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla, sinking in your fight
We got too many runaways eating up the night
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, don’t you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock an’ roll
“This is making the BT screw-up”
You mean the financial fiasco that occurred under two successive Prog administrations?
Oh boy, this is going to get interesting…here we go!
“$17 million in taxpayer money was willfully and improperly channeled from city coffers to a failing telecom.”
It is revisionist history for one to claim that BT money was “improperly” moved from the city to a “failing” city asset. A Dem State’s Attorney, U.S. Attorney, and civil suit over the matter all failed to find illicit activity. Nor was it “improper” as anyone reading BT’s CPG will discover: the PSB gave implicit guidance on using city funds to support a city asset supported by two-thirds of city voters.
Also in the real world: BT was and is not failing. It was a lucrative enough asset to draw interest from several buyers.
It’s news that supporters of the current mayor now defend the use of Executive Session. The same party assailed the Kiss administration for doing just that around BT. So which is it? Executive Session when politically convenient? That’s like vehemently protesting height allowances downtown before a friendly party took the mayor’s office, then “evolving” on the issue, right @knowyourassumptions?
The CityPlace incommunicado looks like a delay tactic to write the best press release possible to mitigate political damage. Meanwhile, TIF funds based on said $250 million project are already being spent. Looks like the path to FreshStartism may be more costly to Burlington taxpayers than marketed.
Amen, Tiki.
There is SO much wrong in this article! First off, Fellows is a former PKSB architect. He was hired directly by Fellows to come work for Devonwood. He is a Devonwood employee.
The project has been priced COUNTLESS times, with MANY, MANY different designs! The total HAS NEVER been within 10-20% of the budget!! Devonwood has SQUEEZED and SQUEEZED the companies around here for TOO LONG! They are tired of ‘WORKING FOR FREE’ with ZERO return on their efforts. I’ve priced this project for the last 3 years and each time, LABOR has gone up, MATERIALS have gone up, subconsultants’ confidence that something will actually gets built GOES DOWN…. and so their pricing goes up!
BOTTOM LINE is that Devonwood HAD and continues to have UNREALISTIC budget numbers. Either they poney up more money…. or this site will remain stagnant!!!
Tiki, please.
The Telecom debacle was well documented, with closed meetings, vital information kept from councilors, and the discovery of a violation of a court order not to spend general fund dollars unless they could be paid back within 60 days. Facts, not fiction.
Mayor Kiss’s inability to “recall”, under oath, many events vital to the situation doesn’t mean many of us don’t still remember what happened. Revisionist history, indeed.
@written -> You claim to have information that two prosecutors and a judge were unable to find over the course of years. And we’re supposed to believe the partisan postings of an anonymous poster over them? I’ll pass. Though you summarize the current CityPlace debacle pretty well: “well documented, with closed meetings, vital information kept from councilors”
Executive Session indeed.
No one should be pleased about what appears to be a serious debacle that is developing here. This risks to Burlington of this fiasco are real and could be lasting, so let’s hope there is a solution. However, there’s no comparison to BT (“written” IMO you are “rewriting” history). We’re not there yet, but City Place could be a liability without an asset. BT was the building of a long-term asset, despite the corresponding liability (which was a problem – but at least it was for an asset) – as already pointed out, the funds that went into BT were spent for the asset. City Place might just be a money pit that is also an eyesore on the downtown and entire city, and may seriously limit the City’s options down the road.
And to be clear, there was nothing special about how the current Mayor dealt with BT – through bond funding (a thinly-veiled bailout) and personal relationships. All this took was political and personal capital (as well as a friendly Council), which is surely running dry, not special financial or administrative acumen.
I do not expect to see this City Place project ever built. Sometime down the road a group of local developers wil combine to build a much smaller project that is much more in keeping with the scale of Burlington. .
Sinex, Brookfield and Weinberger..none know the Burlington real estate market..
As a member of the public – I’m thinking there should be some oversight on our behalf. City Councilors are privy to what the Mayor’s projects are. They should be. We expect our City Councilors to represent us. Did they really represent our best interests in the City Place discussions?