[B]URLINGTON — The lawyer for a group of residents hoping to block a massive downtown redevelopment project says he’s asked a court for a stay of demolition and construction.
Attorney John Franco initially sued on behalf of 57 residents opposed to the planned $225 million renovation of the Burlington Town Center mall in the environmental division of Chittenden Superior Court on April 14. The suit appeals a decision by the Development Review Board to greenlight the project.
The developer behind the project, Don Sinex, has said such legal challenges aren’t likely to interfere with his plans to build a mixed-use development on land now occupied by half of the existing mall.
Franco argues that the project includes insufficient parking, in violation of city planning documents. He also questions whether Sinex struck side deals with property owners that will be affected by construction but that were not part of the permit application, including 100 Bank St. and Macy’s department store.
The motion further questions why Devonwood LLC is listed as the applicant before the Development Review Board, when the owner of the property is BTC Mall Associates LLC, which is also the entity that signed a predevelopment agreement with the city.
An attorney representing Sinex before the review board said during the review process that Devonwood Investors LLC is the “upstream owner” of BTC Mall Associates LLC. But Franco, in his motion, equates that to the relationship between a stockholder and a corporation.
“The actions of an individual member of an LLC or by an LLC, which is the ‘upstream owner’ of another LLC, no more binds the LLC than would the actions of a stockholder bind a corporation,” Franco writes.
Brian Dunkiel, the attorney representing Sinex, said that Sinex, as the managing partner in Devonwood Investors LLC, which wholly owns BTC Mall Associates LLC, signed the permit application as the property owner.
Dunkiel described Franco’s questioning of whether Devonwood has standing to act on behalf of BTC Mall Associates as a “nonissue” and the practice of having multiple ownership entities as routine in real estate development.
