[P]eter Clavelle said he didn’t want to meddle. And wasn’t trained to be a mediator.
Especially in trying to resolve a dispute as highly charged as the fight over the future of downtown Burlington.
That fight has pitted a developer who wants to go big, including erecting a 14-story building, against some residents who want to keep the downtown core about the same size as now.
Why would the 68-year-old former Queen City mayor — who’s spent the past five years working on such heady endeavors as building democracy in Albania — want to get involved when he could comfortably pass the time in his home overlooking Lake Champlain?
Why risk alienating friends who were against the project, including attorney John Franco, a feisty compadre from their days together in Bernie Sanders’ mayoral administration? Franco was representing opponents who thought Don Sinex’s plan to redevelop a large part of the city core — including construction of the tallest building in the city’s history — was too much.
Wouldn’t the path of least resistance be to avoid getting involved?
Clavelle said he was motivated to help mediate the dispute primarily for two reasons: a desire to help and a fear about the future of Burlington.
The developer, Franco and the current mayor say a tentative deal announced last week would not have happened if it weren’t for Clavelle.
Despite the robust energy on Church Street Marketplace, with bustling restaurants that spill outdoors along the four-block pedestrian mall and a historically high occupancy rate for storefronts, Clavelle said the downtown is at an economic crossroads.
“Burlington is really fragile,” he said in an interview this week.
Fragile?
The biggest problem, he said, is that Burlington Town Center, the indoor mall attached to Church Street, has been “sucking wind” for years. That’s in large part, he said, because of “the revolution” happening to retail as more shoppers purchase clothes and other goods online.
It used to be, Clavelle said, cities would follow an economic development strategy of chasing after big department stores to anchor malls and fending off encroachment by the suburbs. That was a practice Clavelle pursued during his seven terms as mayor in two stretches between 1989 and 2006 as well as before that, when he served as community and economic development director when Sanders was mayor. The city landed Filene’s as the indoor mall anchor in 1999. (Filene’s was purchased by Macy’s in 2006.)
“I worked my ass off to bring retail to Burlington, refurbishment of the mall, getting a department store,” Clavelle said.
“That’s not the future of cities today,” he said.
Burlington was spared in the latest round of closures by Macy’s in early 2016. Sales, profit and earnings per share are all down for the department store chain from last year to this year.
Instead of depending on retail, Clavelle said, a mix of uses is what will keep downtowns vibrant — including housing, office space and restaurants. People want an experience, Clavelle said.
Sinex’s plan — pouring $200 million into the downtown, redoing the mall, a project with some 600,000 square feet of office, retail and residential space — made sense to Clavelle. In an interview, he went even farther, calling Sinex’s proposal the city’s last best shot to save itself from a rapid decay starting from inside the mall, the biggest taxpaying property, and extending outward to Church Street.
If the Sinex plan doesn’t go through, Clavelle predicted it would be “a cold day in hell” before another developer would want to risk trying such an ambitious plan “with all the political dynamics” where opponents can tie up construction for years through court challenges.
And no, Clavelle said, he was and is not being paid a dime for his involvement and received nothing to help facilitate the discussions between Sinex and Franco that resulted in a mediation process, seven formal meetings, some side meetings and, as of last week, a tentative agreement.
Clavelle surfaced as a possible go-between after he had spoken out publicly for the massive redevelopment last fall when several ballot items went before voters and passed.
At their first meeting, Franco suggested Clavelle serve as a mediator. That first meeting came when Franco, Clavelle and Steven Goodkind, another friend who served in city government, got together for beers at Three Needs, a Pearl Street watering hole, on Good Friday. Goodkind was an outspoken opponent of the project.
Franco had just filed an appeal on one part of the development. Clavelle called Franco in hopes of persuading him not to pursue the appeal.
Franco said he interpreted Clavelle’s call to get together as a “backchannel overture” from the developer. Clavelle said he called Franco after talking to Sinex’s lawyer, Elizabeth Miller, and offering to help.
The meetings were held at Clavelle’s house. Attending were Franco, who is representing about 55 opponents, and opponents Goodkind and Barbara McGrew.
Goodkind goes way back with Franco and Clavelle. He worked for the city for 32 years and served as public works director under Sanders and later Clavelle. It was from Goodkind’s living room that Sanders announced his 1981 bid for mayor that launched his political career. Franco served as an assistant city attorney under Sanders and for two years when Clavelle followed.
Franco said Clavelle was integral to the success of the talks.
“He kept saying, ‘I’m not a formal mediator,’” Franco said. “But what he had was the trust of both sides.”
Some opponents were leery of Clavelle initially. Franco said they were “afraid he was going to lead us” — meaning him and Goodkind — “down a primrose path because of our prior relationships,” but Franco said those fears proved unfounded.
Franco said opponents agreed Burlington’s economic base is fragile and that the mall needed to be done over, but wanted any redevelopment to be smaller in scale. A common concern for the downtown, Franco said, allowed both sides to “skip the war dance” where strong positions are staked out early.
The opponents were also running out of cards to play. The court had already ruled the proposed 14-story building should be allowed. Opponents were down to parking as one of their last areas to challenge.
In an interview, Franco said opponents remain concerned about the height of the project’s tallest building, which he called “a disaster” and equivalent to trying to put “a size 14 foot into a size 10 shoe.” Franco this week called the tentative agreement “in the best interests of the city,” mentioning the fears of Macy’s leaving.
Participants would not discuss particulars of the tentative deal, including who gained the most in the talks.
Among the high points Clavelle cited were 55 new units of “affordable housing,” in particular that they will be built on site. Clavelle and his administration were criticized when a prior downtown developer paid a $60,000 fee instead of building all the affordable units required under the city’s inclusionary zoning laws.
Franco and Clavelle said the project could have been only 10 stories, but Franco said that would have resulted in ugly “flat buildings that looked like the Kremlin.”
Franco said Clavelle’s mantra, going back to his days running the city’s economic development office, has “always been about closing the gap” in negotiations and trying to start with what the two sides have in common. In this case, Franco said, it was the future of the downtown.
“The size of the project was driven by an expectation of meeting an array of needs: housing, we need parking, we need office space,” Clavelle said. “I understand some people say 14 stories is too high, but you need a significant scale project in order to justify and satisfy the needs and demands.”
The city stayed out of the mediation talks directly. Mayor Miro Weinberger said he was kept apprised of developments. He described Clavelle’s role as “very critical.”
Weinberger agreed that a big downtown retail mall makes less economic sense. In the past, Weinberger said, the threat to downtowns was suburban malls luring away tenants. Now, he said, it’s the keyboard and Amazon.com.
As healthy as Church Street looks at night and on weekends, Weinberger said there are fewer downtown office workers, a trend he hopes to see reversed with the redevelopment. The University of Vermont Medical Center will be renting offices downtown.
Sinex described Clavelle as critical to reaching the tentative agreement, which if approved will be a virtual green light for the project.
While he had several court wins, Sinex wanted to negotiate a deal in part because he knew lengthy delays and court fights could escalate the project’s cost.
“We couldn’t have gotten to this point without Peter Clavelle’s help,” Sinex said in an email.
“He made it clear from the start that he simply wanted to see whether he could help us find common ground to move forward, rather than finding ourselves stuck for months or years on end fighting with one another while the downtown suffered,” Sinex said.
Clavelle’s connections and credibility were critical, Sinex said.
“I knew Mayor Clavelle had a long history with some of the residents who opposed this project, but I also trusted that he wanted to help all of us resolve our differences in a way that was good for the city,” Sinex said.
Clavelle said part of his reason for getting involved was altruistic, having invested, he said, 2½ decades “trying to make Burlington better.” He also ran for governor, losing badly to Jim Douglas in 2004, while running as a Democrat. He ran for mayor as a Progressive.
Franco agreed: “I think Peter felt it was important for the city and that he could play an important role. … He could have let things go and sit by the lake, but that’s not his reflexive response.”
City Council President Jane Knodell, a supporter of the redevelopment, called Clavelle “the hero of the day.” She said she was surprised he so easily won the trust of opponents and said it was likely the result of his longstanding relationship with Franco. Monday night, the city council voted 10-2 to support the proposed settlement.
A judge will review the proposed settlement this summer. Approval would mean construction, set to begin this fall, could start without the cloud of a court appeal overhead.
Sinex was upbeat about the project and the tentative deal. Weinberger encouraged those who believe the project’s scale is too big to wait before passing judgment.
“I am so glad that the project opponents agreed to sit down and discuss solutions, and I am gratified we came up with something I think we can all say will improve the project going forward,” Sinex said.
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