Bove Brothers Add Burlington Properties to Real Estate Empire

Schoolhouse Lofts at Thayer Commons Credit: John James ©️ Seven Days

The Bove brothers, the oft-criticized local landlords also known for their pasta sauce business, have expanded their rental empire despite their poor record of code compliance. Meanwhile, plans to fix up their most prominent property — the blighted former family restaurant in downtown Burlington — remain stalled.

Last month, companies owned by Rick and Mark Bove took ownership of two upscale apartment buildings in the Thayer Commons complex along North Avenue in Burlington’s New North End, city land records show. The deal follows a similar one earlier this year for 42 apartments off Shelburne Road, known as the Bacon Street Lofts, according to South Burlington land records.

All three apartment buildings were constructed in the early 2010s by developer Eric Farrell, who also managed the properties. Farrell sold the trio of buildings to the Boves for just over $27 million, he said.

The deals add nearly 130 units to the Boves’ portfolio, which was already one of the larger for-profit rental holdings in the state. In 2021, Seven Days and Vermont Public tallied more than 400 units under the Boves’ ownership throughout Chittenden County and also in St. Albans and Hartford.

That joint news report identified persistent code violations at Bove apartment buildings, many of which received public subsidies for low-income residents. A housing inspector with the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, a funding entity, wrote to the Boves in 2019 that the state of their properties indicated a “total disregard of Vermont’s Rental Housing Codes, and the health and safety of Residents.” The public subsidies kept flowing.

The Boves pledged to make improvements in response to the news outlets’ reporting, but they stoked outrage when they displaced dozens of low-income and refugee families from a run-down complex in Winooski so they could redevelop it and raise rents. The Boves received approval in March for their plan to construct 69 new apartments and condos at the site, but “there have not been any updates on this project since,” Winooski’s director of city planning, Ravi Venkataraman, said in an email.

The Winooski project is one of several new housing developments the Boves have put forward in recent years, though their proposals have yet to produce any new units.

The brothers unveiled plans in 2022 to construct 42 units of market-rate housing on Northfield Street in Montpelier, then purchased the parcel in 2023, according to the Montpelier Bridge. They have not submitted any permit applications for the property, city planning and zoning assistant Nicholas Gauthier said on Tuesday.

Earlier this year, the Town of Georgia, in Franklin County, approved a site plan the Boves submitted that calls for 39 housing units, including apartments, town houses and single-family homes, at the former Homestead Campground on Ethan Allen Highway.

The Town of Essex in 2021 rejected the Boves’ proposal to build roughly 60 units at the town center development, citing their poor record of compliance.

Most visibly, the Boves submitted plans in 2020 to construct a hotel and apartment complex on Pearl Street in downtown Burlington, where their father’s famous Bove’s Café operated until 2015. They struck a deal with the city to purchase a public parking lot, but the project fell apart. The former restaurant has remained covered in graffiti and refuse ever since.

“This Burlington site has no plans,” Mark Bove told Seven Days by email last year.

While progress has been slow for the real estate moguls’ proposed new projects, the deals with Farrell represent a major move into market-rate rentals, where a shortage of supply has enabled Vermont landlords to charge high rents.

The two buildings at Thayer Commons — Schoolhouse Lofts and the Flats — and the Bacon Street Lofts in South Burlington have been marketed as modern, amenity-rich units with above-average rents. “You will not find a more upscale, service oriented apartment rental in the area,” Farrell Properties boasted of Thayer Commons on its website last year.

Farrell said he developed each of the properties with distinct groups of investors. They had always intended to sell the buildings after a decade or so of operation, he said. Farrell Properties will no longer manage the buildings, either.

The decision to sell is unrelated to ongoing construction at the massive Cambrian Rise development, also on North Avenue, Farrell said. He has already built three high-end apartment buildings at the site, where rents for a studio start around $1,875 and one-bedrooms can run between $2,000 and $3,000 per month. Farrell has secured permits for as many as 950 residential units. More than 500 have been built so far, including buildings owned by Champlain Housing Trust, Cathedral Square and S.D. Ireland.

Farrell is also involved in plans to redevelop a portion of Burlington’s downtown Gateway Block, which includes Memorial Auditorium, the city library, a fire station and a church.

Farrell acknowledged that the Boves had “taken some heat” in recent years for how they’ve managed their rental properties, but he thinks they will do a good job with the North Avenue and Bacon Street properties.

“I’ve known the Boves since they were kids,” Farrell said. “We were all born and brought up in Burlington. I’m a little older than they are, but I’ve known them for a long time. They’re a good family.”

The sale made some Thayer Commons tenants nervous, however. One, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal from his landlord, said the transaction felt secretive. Farrell Properties didn’t identify the buyer in its notification to tenants that the property had been sold, he said. It wasn’t until later, on Sunday, that a sign appeared on the front door from the new owners identifying themselves, the tenant said.

“Something is wrong with how this was handled,” the tenant said. “This is highly questionable, considering the reputation of the buyer.”

The tenant, who has lived in the complex for several years and pays just under $2,000 per month for a one-bedroom apartment, said the property had been managed well under Farrell’s ownership. He worries that the quality of management could deteriorate or that the Boves might hike rents even further. Either outcome could force him to look for alternative housing in a suffocating rental market.

Mark Bove, who helms the Bove’s pasta sauce company headquartered in Milton, declined to discuss the family’s plans for the properties. He also declined to discuss the status of the redevelopment projects in Winooski or downtown Burlington.

“Thanks for your inquiry, but no new information to share,” he wrote in an email.

There may be some action at the defunct restaurant, where broken mattresses are piled in tall weeds along one side. On Tuesday, Burlington city officials issued a zoning permit for an eight-foot-tall chain-link fence around the back of the property.

The former restaurant is listed on the city’s vacant building registry, which imposes a small annual fee. The latest annual registration, dated in July, includes a brief description of the owners’ plans to demolish or rehab the building.

“Owner is attempting to reclaim any salvageable materials/items from the building,” the form states, “but need [sic] police assistance before entering.”

The original print version of this article was headlined “Landlord Shuffle | The Bove brothers expand their real estate empire with a trio of purchases”