[B]URLINGTON — The mall that has formed the center of downtown Burlington for more than 40 years is coming down.
Work on the $220 million Burlington City Center — formerly called Burlington Town Center — began this month after years of public processes, opposition from residents and a court battle. Final approval for the project from Devonwood Investors, led by developer Don Sinex, came from the Burlington City Council in October.
The project will include a mix of retail and office space, apartments, a 925-space parking garage and a daycare center. It will also reconnect Pine and St. Paul streets and will include new trees, and other streetscape improvements. There will be 274 residential housing units, a mix of market-rate housing and affordable housing.
Few tenants have been made public, but the University of Vermont Medical Center was an early taker. The hospital will occupy nearly one-third of the available office space in Burlington City Center, and they will be paying a premium for the space.
VTDigger reported earlier this week that the hospital’s plan to relocate as many as 500 employees to the complex will likely cost $1 million more a year than what the hospital is now paying for office space.
The mall’s parking garage was originally slated to be razed in early December as part of the first phase of demolition, but after some pushback from downtown businesses, the lot has remained open through the holidays.
“We’ve been working closely with the Devonwood team to keep the garage open, and they’ve gone to some pretty far lengths to make sure that they can do that,” said Kelly Devine, executive director of the Burlington Business Association.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said merchants had approached him as well about parking concerns. With much of the mall empty, fewer people will be using the mall garage, Weinberger said. There are about 8,000 parking spaces downtown, he said.
“The bulk of the mall is no longer operating. That was one of the big parking loads on that garage,” Weinberger said. “I’m really not concerned about there being significant disruption or impacts on parking over the next couple years.”
At 14 stories, the building would be the tallest in Vermont. The project faced harsh opposition throughout the development and permitting process from the Coalition for a Livable City, a group of Burlington residents who claimed that the project was out of scale for Burlington.
John Franco is a Burlington-based attorney who has helped the coalition oppose the mall. Franco filed a lawsuit in April on behalf of 57 residents opposed to the renovation. Much of the suit was thrown out, but Franco later reached a settlement with the developers which led to the addition of 200 extra parking spaces. Franco is still raising concerns.
“My view is that the city administration has swept a major infrastructure problem under the rug,” Franco said. There have been no comprehensive plans or surveys done to assess the parking issue, Franco said.
“The problem is is that the new garage is going to accommodate the new demand created by the new 14 story building, but not the old parking that was represented by the old 500 space garage,” he said.
The project is estimated to be completed in 2021, with the first phase — including the reconnection of Pine and St. Paul streets — being completed by 2019.
