When New York City developer Don Sinex waltzed onto the Burlington scene in 2014, he had cosmopolitan dreams for Vermont’s largest city. At an event inside the suburban-style Burlington Town Center mall that November, Sinex unveiled a $200 million proposal for a downtown redevelopment project that included hundreds of apartments, a convention center, office and retail space, and a rooftop park.
The plans “just took my breath away,” City Councilor Karen Paul (D-Ward 6) said then.
Five years later, Sinex’s grandiose vision has come crashing down, and his CityPlace Burlington is nothing more than an empty pit in the middle of town. On October 28, the now-majority owner of the project, Brookfield Asset Management, presented a scaled-down proposal at a Burlington City Council meeting. The very preliminary concept includes a hotel and substantial housing but far less retail and office space — and no convention center. CityPlace 2.0 also incorporates a redesign of the building next door that once housed a Macy’s. Its tallest structure would be just 10 stories high, instead of a towering 14. The company has pledged to start construction in 2020.
After so many fits and starts, can this proposal actually make it over the finish line? Boosters are cautiously optimistic, though many unknowns — price and financing, the potential for a lengthy design and review process, and legal speed bumps — could again slow or stall the project.
“We are looking for them to do more, quickly, to prove … that, in the end, it’s going to succeed,” Mayor Miro Weinberger said. “We are looking for some further confirmation on that.”
But Brookfield has done anything but move quickly in the months since the company took over the project reins from Sinex. Back in August, Brookfield pledged to involve the public on its evolving plan; they haven’t. And last week, at a council subcommittee meeting, Brookfield reps were supposed to propose a schedule of community meetings about the project; they didn’t.
“If you don’t have it now, when are you going to have an actual timeline?” Councilor Paul asked them. “There’s gotta be a certain amount of a plan at this point, and I feel like, after three months, there should be a little bit more to say.”
But the two Brookfield reps and William Fellows, a New York City-based architect, didn’t reveal much. Only after Councilors Paul, Brian Pine (P-Ward 3) and Ali Dieng (D/P-Ward 7) prodded did they agree to do what they were supposed to in the first place — propose a schedule of community meetings — before year’s end.
Seven Days, too, has had little luck getting the developers to open up: They have repeatedly ignored interview requests and again dodged questions after last week’s meeting at city hall.
“Give us a little time,” Peter Calkins, Brookfield’s senior vice president of development, said.
Time isn’t on Brookfield’s side. Apart from antsy officials, the company has deadlines related to its development agreement with the city. That document requires that Brookfield sign a $50 million construction contract — which it would need to start building — by December 31.
It is possible the sides will renegotiate that date, but a separate state-imposed deadline doesn’t appear to be as flexible. In 2016, the Vermont legislature approved a bill that gives Burlington more time to borrow $21.8 million in tax increment financing funds to fix up sidewalks and rebuild streets lost to the mall decades ago — as long as the construction contract is signed by June 2021. This type of financing allows municipalities to use a portion of municipal and education property taxes to pay for these improvements and pay back the debt using the additional tax revenue generated by the project.
But the redevelopment’s reduced size raises questions about whether it will generate enough revenue to pay back the debt.
“It’s all fluid, and that’s the work we’re doing right now,” said Jeff Glassberg, a consultant working as a liaison between the city and Brookfield. “We are very busy trying to get this all pulled together. There are a lot of moving pieces, but it feels like progress.”
Glassberg wouldn’t elaborate on what the new plan means for projected TIF revenues but said the first step is to submit a “substantial change request” to the Vermont Economic Progress Council, the state body that oversees TIFs. The body’s executive director, Megan Sullivan, did not return a request for comment.
If the TIF return falls short, Weinberger said, the city will build “as much new infrastructure” as it can, starting with Pine and St. Paul streets; work on Cherry and Bank streets would come next.
“We won’t know exactly how everything is going to sort out until we have both updated cost and actual revenue assessments,” the mayor said. The latter won’t be in hand until after the project is built.
And first, CityPlace needs new permits. Developers will have to submit to city zoning review, Planning Director David White said, particularly since the concept now incorporates the former Macy’s building, which is billed as the future home of University of Vermont Medical Center offices. Nothing’s been submitted except sketch drawings the developer presented at the October 28 council meeting, but White is optimistic that permitting will go smoother than last time around, when the city created a special downtown district to accommodate 14-story buildings.
“We’re anxious for the opportunity to sit down and work with the applicant to make sure the project is ready to go,” White said. “There’s no question in my mind they’re going to dot every i and cross every t.”
It’s unclear whether the changes would trigger a potentially lengthy and arduous Act 250 state review. CityPlace was exempt the first time around since it met the state’s definition of a “high-priority housing project.”
But adding a hotel to the mix could change things. In early 2016, Sinex’s attorneys floated a hotel concept to state regulators, who indicated that would spur Act 250 review. Sinex ultimately never proposed the hotel and got his exemption. But the rules may have changed since then, according to Evan Meenan, associate general counsel for the Act 250 board. He said he’d need to see formal plans before determining whether the project would again be exempt.
Is there a need for another hotel in Burlington? Sinex told Seven Days in 2016 that he didn’t think so. But data from STR, the nation’s leader in hotel market research, show that demand for hotel rooms in Chittenden County is on the rise; it’s up 1 percent from January to September of this year. Over the same period, revenue per available room — an important industry metric achieved by multiplying hotels’ occupancy rates by their average room cost — increased 3 percent. Nationwide, the same figure was just 1 percent, according to Jan Freitag, STR’s senior vice president of lodging insights.
Other developers appear to have taken note: Construction is under way for a 142-room Cambria hotel on College Street, and a 93-room hotel is planned for Pearl Street. Burlington’s Airbnb business is also booming. The website listed 720 short-term rentals in the Queen City earlier this year, up from 430 listings in January 2017.
“Anything is better than a crumbling, old, tired, decaying mall.” Tom Torti
Tom Torti, president and CEO of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, thinks there’s room for more lodging. The chamber frequently refers tourists to hotels outside of the county during peak foliage season and busy holiday weekends, he said. Brookfield would have analyzed the hotel market before proposing to build one, he noted.
Even Joe Carton, the chief operating officer for Westport Hospitality, which operates Hotel Vermont and the Marriott-brand Courtyard Burlington Harbor downtown, said he’d welcome the competition.
“I’d rather have a hotel than an empty lot,” he said. “Having it vacant doesn’t do anybody any good.”
The plan’s most dramatic change, though, is its height. According to Aanen Olsen, Brookfield’s vice president of development, the height reduction would make it cheaper to build. A shorter building doesn’t require high-rise construction techniques, which he described to the council in October as work that Vermont laborers aren’t qualified to perform. Additionally, the 10-story building will use lighter-weight, less expensive steel, according to Brookfield development manager Chelsea Ziegelbaum, who declined to elaborate when pressed by Seven Days after last week’s council subcommittee meeting.
“I don’t want to get into that right now,” Ziegelbaum said as she attempted to walk away.
Matthys Levy, a structural engineer who has worked with world-famous architects, disputed the notion that contractors would use different methods to build a 10-story building than a 14-story one. Levy, who is 90 and lives in Shelburne, has engineered everything from single-family homes to 60-story skyscrapers. He said losing four stories cuts costs simply because it’s a smaller building, not because of how it’s built.
“They’re essentially equal in terms of complexity,” Levy said.
What it costs means little to project opponents; they just want it shorter. John Franco, an attorney representing a group that sued the developers over previous design issues, said his clients are generally pleased with the new concept, but they don’t plan to withdraw their ongoing lawsuit. Filed in 2018, the suit alleges that the developers violated a prior court settlement by changing the project design without notifying the plaintiffs.
Earlier this month, Franco asked a judge to ensure that his clients get “timely notice” of changes to the design before Brookfield applies for a zoning permit. It’s an attempt to head off more litigation down the road, he said. Brookfield has yet to respond to the motion.
The suit also demands that the developers make good on a promise to donate $500,000 to a local charity, another condition of the settlement agreement. Brookfield has still not paid up.
Regardless, Franco thinks these issues could be resolved in short order.
“We’d like to work collaboratively on what this thing should look like,” Franco said.
“If the story line is, the lawsuits are going to hold these things up, that’s the last thing we want,” he continued. “[The community is] getting tired of all that stuff.”
The chamber’s Torti, too, was pleased with the new concept. He attended Sinex’s dramatic announcement in 2014 and said he still supports the project, despite years of broken promises and missed deadlines.
“Anything is better than a crumbling, old, tired, decaying mall,” Torti said.
But does he think the new plans will pan out?
“I have no reason not to, but then again, I’m too old to be Pollyanna here. I said I believed Don [Sinex], too, so…” Torti said, pausing to reflect.
“Look, I’m hopeful,” he continued. “I think we should all be hopeful.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “CityPlace Burlington 2.0 | Can a scaled-down project actually get built?”
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This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2019.
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A homeless shelter should be a requirement.
“The development’s reduced size raises questions whether it will generate enough tax revenue to pay back the debt owed to taxpayers.”
Take this to the bank: Burlington taxpayers will be looking at continuing, never-ending tax hikes to pay for this “project.”
It’s not Miro’s concern – he can afford it.
City taxpayers, meanwhile, keep electing Miro and his council friends with no regard to the increasing tax bill they receive in the mail every year.
If taxpayers are happy, who’s to complain?!
“Anything is better than a crumbling, old, tired, decaying mall,” Torti said.
What we have now is not better.
Those who pushed, lobbied, and shilled for this project should be personally on the hook for any monetary shortfalls that the taxpayers have to pay for all the giveaways that Miro did for this project. I’m still waiting for Brookfield to totally bail out of this.
Neo-liberal Democrats are just as unreliable and corrupt as any Flat Earth Trump-loving Republican.
Someone always playing
Corporation games
Who cares they’re always changing
Corporation names
We just want to dance here
Someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible
Write us off the page
Marconi plays the mamba
Listen to the radio
Don’t you remember
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll…
Instead of blaming the Mayor, how about blaming all the negative people who think change is bad- There are calls for rent control when the problem is the processes are broken, to cure high rents there needs to be more rental units and in Burlington the only way to get more is to build up. This is why Vt is viewed anti-business
“Neoliberal” is a meaningless term that is oh*so*fashionable among people who are resentful that some Democrats have jobs and money.
So people should just turn a blind eye to the lack of judgement and slack diligence by the political leaders that fell for Sinex’s line of bs and placed us in this mess?!?!
When I hear Councilwoman Paul say the plan took my breath away at the sight of the initial plan, that is exactly why this process went the way it did. The mayor and his Dems bought it all hook line and sinker and bent over backwards to make it happen. Only a few local leaders held Sinexs feet to the fire. The Mayor got him a blanket and a cup of cocoa. They spent a lot of money and (lets face it) were pretty aggressive and derogatory to much of the public in their use of PR and fear tactics to sell it to the public. And what happened? Nothing. They can try and use more PR to spin this but there is a giant hole in he middle of town that tells another story of their abject failure of leadership.
They should be held accountable. They should not be rewarded for their lack of poor judgment. They should be voted out of office.
CRITIKBOY, while I agree Miro and his clan pushed for the new mall, not all of the democrats are bad. The republicans are pretty bad too.. Look at what’s going on in the country now with trump and his henchmen! But I do agree that Miro has to be voted out!!
Weinberger (who likes like the rat from Ratatouille) used super pac funding to push this thing and the best he can offer is “We won’t know exactly how everything is going to sort out until we have both updated cost and actual revenue assessments.”
“We’d like to work collaboratively on what this thing should look like,” Franco said.
Translation – Give me some more money so I can slither away until my next extortion attempt .
What was the point of this article?
The local media (in concert with local elected officials) continues to try to paint Brookfield as some disorganized firm that can’t walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. Brookfield knows what they’re doing. They became one of the most influential brands in commercial real estate investment by making prudent business decisions.
Brookfield’s lack of progress shown over the last two years speaks volumes to Burlington’s business climate and the county’s anemic economic growth. I’d rather see Seven Days report solid economic indicators (office lease and vacancy rates, private-sector job growth in mid- and high-wage fields, etc) rather than continue to convey Torti’s and the BBA’s “We should be hopeful” message–that message hasn’t mitigated the massive disinvestment over the last five year from the County’s major private-sector employers (GE healthcare, IBM/GF, Keurig, Dealer, etc).
The Mayor’s been bullish on this project since 2014….it’s still a pit. Enough with blaming Franco, blaming Sinex, blaming Brookfield; it’s time for our leaders to acknowledge the health of the City’s economy.
Are we sure we need another hotel, just because all the hotels are full a few times a year?
As I understand it, two hotels are being built right now – not in Cityplace, but somewhere else in the city.
What we need is affordable housing. That is a place someone who makes $20,000 or $30,000 a year can afford. If the goal is to spend a third of income on your home, even the family making $30,000 is in trouble, as $1000 rent would be over a third of their income. (How many bedrooms, though?)
We must re-purpose old buildings if we want affordable housing.
New housing is never affordable, because the owners are still paying off the banks.
Vermont is known not for its spectacular growth, but for its relaxed lifestyle and beautiful views – and harsh winters. We have the largest city in Vermont, it’s true, but we are still in Vermont. How much development do we really need?
Brookfield is a giant corporation that can write this project off as a loss, which will simply make their tax burden lighter. Can we trust them? Why should we?
1. “Are we sure we need another hotel”
We? It’s private property. The owners of the property decide what to build on their property, not “we.” If you don’t think the developers have studied whether the market will support a hotel then I don’t know what you’re thinking.
2. “What we need is affordable housing.”
You’re right. We do. But how do you get there? How about YOU personally go down to the bank and ask to borrow $20 million to put up an affordable apartment building? Oh, here’s at least two good reasons why you won’t: First, because with the projected return on investment in the project, the bank will never lend you the money because the rental income will never be enough to pay back the loan. Second, the NIMBYs in the city (CLC included) would oppose the project. Like they oppose everything.
And last I heard we don’t live in a “command economy.” The City of Burlington can’t just call up a developer and ORDER her or him to build affordable housing. The most you can do is require a developer to include “affordable” units in a proposed development. And you can only do that if the developer wants to build something in the first place and it makes financial sense for her or him to do so.
If we’re going to build affordable housing in Vermont, basically government has to do it, and the taxpayers have to pay for it.
Mt.Philo says “Look at what’s going on in the country now with trump and his henchmen! But I do agree that Miro has to be voted out!!” I LIKE what has and is happening under Trump. You can take it to the bank that if Trump had brokered the downtown Burlington deal, there would be a completed project not a gaping hole.
Hi there – I’ll skip the “hooray for Trump” guy, and address Mr. Assumptions.
Hi again.
I asked: do we Need a hotel – it’s understood that developers build hotels. But here? Two being built right now, I have heard – two new ones. Do we need even More was my question.
I have also said – you can’t Build affordable housing for the very reasons you mention – it doesn’t work. Re-purposing (renovating) old buildings is the only way. Putting apartments in buildings that paid off the bank long ago.
As far as the taxpayers, yes, they (we) pay for everything (in the government). If we can get the tax rates higher for the people with a Whole Lot of money, there will be money to fund all kinds of things that cannot be funded now.
We’ll just have to see what happens.
Okay, found one of the hotels being built – it’s the YMCA building at College and Union!
https://www.hotelmanagement.net/developmen…
I’m wondering if the scope of this building includes the YMCA parking lot – which would mean the only way to enter the City Market lot will be on Winooski Ave.?
And I hope they put a “Cambria” sign on the College St. side, so people can see it as they approach from Church St. The Union St. side just faces a few houses – College St. side faces Library, Church and most pedestrians. And the addition follows that new standard style architecture – blocks of colors – dim colors.
Looks like it could use “No right on Red” signs for all those strolling easy-going pedestrians…
“Do we need even More was my question.”
I don’t get it. You keep asking the same question about hotels. “We” don’t decide whether Burlington “needs” more hotels. Since Burlingtonians don’t stay in Burlington hotels, local residents really have no idea or say whether Burlington “needs” more hotels. It’s this thing called the tourism and business market that decides. Tourists and visiting businesspeople need a place to stay. If the demand for more hotel rooms is there, then the answer is that we do need more and it’s the private property owners’ decision. And all indicators say that more and more people want to visit Burlington.
You could ask the same question about restaurants, supermarkets, clothing stores, microchip factories, ski resorts, gas stations, etc., but again the question doesn’t really make sense. “We” don’t decide if we need another restaurant or clothing store. The market decides. And the private property owner.
The only “we” in the equation is that “we” Burlingtonians should want as many tourists and businesspeople as possible to come here and spend their money on “us.” We win when they come here and give us their money.
Hey there Assumptions,
I’m amazed you found a line in my letter to argue about! We are mostly in agreement, if you’re reading all these comments. Did you look at the new hotel in the YMCA building, the link I included in the last comment?
I understand that the more tourists and visitors the better (up to a point) but we Are already building more hotels, and it’s only a few times a year that we have more visitors than we can handle. I didn’t say that, someone else did. So we’re already building hotels, okay? Should we have 3 instead of 2?
Should we have 10 new ones? I agree that the market, and the developers, will do what they think will work.
Burlington has enough hotels and there are plenty more around here. Tourists are always trying to find the best deal for as cheap as possible. The ones in Burlington are way to expensive. I agree that we do need a lot more real affordable housing. There are plenty of vacant buildings that could be transformed into apartments. As the saying goes, “it takes money to make money”.
Surprise, we elected a shady, spoiled brat developer baby to run our city, and now half of our historic public assets are being sold off to shady developers. Every recent project in Burlington has been of the type that caters to wealthy people while creating more poverty-wage jobs. The similarity between Miro and Trump is striking.
“Burlington has enough hotels”
Says who? Are you a tourism market specialist? Are you an economist? Have you done a study?
What Burlington definitely has enough of is NIMBYists who think they own other people’s property.
Affordable housing, affordable places to live were never made possible by limiting the supply. Tourist dollars and the taxes on goods and food and alcohol can provide the money to improve things in VT instead of almost all based on the income tax which is the current model.
I am guessing since you say there are enough hotels you are not a business person? Too high? yes travelers look for the best price, who wouldn’t but the higher prices bring more taxes to the area.
How about letting the free market work like it did to build the world after WWII?
If we get a whole lot more hotels, and it works out great for everybody, um….that’s great. But I like the character of Burlington (mostly), and I hope whatever gets done to it seems…well, like it belongs here, and doesn’t make the town less like it is. Spirit, atmosphere, and such. We have many different levels of culture.
An opinion is only an opinion. We can change our minds too.
@Gigrape52@gmail.com
When are you going to start building the affordable housing? Sounds like you have it all figured out. I can’t wait to see how all your plans work out!
Yeah! When? Not till after the Holidays, I’d bet.