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[B]urlington city councilors were largely relieved when Brookfield Properties, the majority partner in the repeatedly delayed CityPlace development, said in January that they were eyeing a spring groundbreaking. Now, the company won’t commit to a start date.
“What we don’t want to do is give you conjecture. I can just say nothing has changed in regards to our motivation to get the project under construction,” said Brookfield VP Will Voegele at this week’s city council meeting. “We just need to make sure that we check the boxes.”
Voegele declined to specify what those boxes were, but stressed that the company was working towards hitting “key milestones” that were typical of a project of this scope. But after years of delays on the project, Brookfield’s hedging has put some city councilors — and residents — on edge.
“We’re legitimately getting comments about the hole in the ground with a public that is skeptical that this project is actually going forward,” Councilor Chip Mason said Monday. “The push for dates is to prove to the public that this is real.”
VTDigger’s Aidan Quigley has tracked the development’s progress over the past year at council meetings and behind the scenes. On this week’s podcast, he describes how the project got to this place — and what could happen next.
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Kurt Wright: Good evening. I’d like to reconvene this regular meeting of the city council at 7:15.
This week, Burlington residents heard the first update since January on the progress of CityPlace, the $220 million downtown development project that’s been plagued by delays.
Originally, the project was supposed to be completed last year. But if you’ve walked by the site recently, you’ve seen an empty space.
Will Voegele: Good evening. My name is Will Voegele. I’m the senior vice president with Brookfield Properties Development.
Chelsea Ziegelbaum: I’m Chelsea Ziegelbaum, I’m a development manager at Brookfield.
Voegele: And we represent the Burlington town center project.
Aidan Quigley: Two fresh faces for the city council from Brookfield, they were saying they were making significant progress, but they could not give any specific date for when construction would start.
Aidan Quigley is VTDigger’s Burlington reporter.
Quigley: In March, developer Don Sinex told me that construction was going to restart on May 6, and that was later clarified by the city officials in a memo. Basically, they were saying ‘Brookfield tells us it’s not gonna be May, but June 1 is our anticipated start date for construction.’ At the meeting Monday, the message was different.
Voegele: We’re looking forward to making this project a reality. We need to get through a series of important, but normal course, milestones. And as we do, we’ll be able to come back to you with more clarity on our timing to get the project under construction.
Quigley: The message was, we don’t want to make any commitments that we can’t live to on when we’re going to start construction. You know, we’re making progress, everything we’re doing is toward the goal of starting construction, but we are not gonna make any commitments on when that will be. Even when prompted by City Councilor Chip Mason, who asked ‘Is it going to be a month? Is it gonna be six months? Is it going to be a year?’
Mason: You know, we’re legitimately getting comments about the hole in the ground, you know, with the public that is skeptical that this project is actually moving forward. I respect how much you’re doing behind the scenes, but that’s not visible. So the push for dates are to prove to the public that this is real.
Voegele: I understand. And telling you that I have a term sheet with a calender and that I have complete drawings out for bid I realize doesn’t provide that kind of clarity. But what we don’t want to do is to is to give you conjecture.
Quigley: Even in a general timeframe, you know, Brookfield doesn’t want to be pinned down to a start date, is the main takeaway from the meeting on Monday.
It’s not going to be June.
Quigley: It’s not going to be June, no.
This is a huge issue in Burlington. CityPlace is a prime location in downtown. It’s been discussed for years. It’s a 14-story project, it’s going to bring housing, retail and office space right to the heart of downtown Burlington. Its proponents have really stressed that it is going to be an economic driver, especially with bringing more people living downtown.
And what about on the other side?
Quigley: They’re worried about the size. If completed as planned, it’s going to be the tallest building in Vermont, I believe. So the feel of Burlington, they say, will be different with a project like this downtown. Voters approved the zoning change. This did go before voters. Mayor Miro Weinberger and his supporters really pushed for this, and a majority of voters did approve the zoning changes necessary for the project. So that would imply that, you know, a majority, not a huge majority, but a majority of Burlington was supportive of the development. Demolition of the mall began last winter — so 2017 into 2018. They found asbestos in January, which led to some delays. The last major construction activity was in August, which was finishing the demolition of the mall, creating “the hole” in the downtown.
You did air quotes around “the hole” — what does that mean?
Quigley: That’s the go-to saying about it. I mean, it is a hole. There’s no way around that. If you go and you look at it, there’s a chain link fence. There is some, you know, bulldozer-looking machinery, there’s some steel beams, but it’s like a patch of dirt. And it definitely has a lot of people concerned and talking in Burlington.
You know, no one is happy with the delays. Opponents, proponents, everyone is concerned about the delays. But there’s definitely a sharp contrast in people who think it’s going to happen and are excited about it happening and people who don’t think it’s gonna happen and are worried.
You’re saying that some people have lost faith that this project is even going to be completed at all. Why?
Quigley: I think the delays played a big role in that. Basically, in August, developer Don Sinex went to the city council. The development agreement said he had to have all of the project financing lined up before he could pour the foundation. But he went to the city council and said, I don’t have all of the finances lined up right now, but I have enough to be able to pour the foundation, and he asked to get out of that portion of the development agreement. So city council said OK, even if the worst case scenario happens, we’ll have foundation poured, and that will be OK.
: This allows the work to continue, and in a way that is not detrimental to the city, because the foundation work will continue to be benefited by, you know, there’ll be a GMP contract for that work, it’ll be bonded. And at the end of the day, regardless of anything else, the city is better off with a site that progresses with a foundation in place that would support a very robust and large building, than to just have it sit vacant for a few months.
Quigley: Basically, project opponents was saying the city council should not have amended the development agreement just because Sinex asked the council for it.
Max Tracy: I think that our stake as a city would be best preserved by making sure that Mr. Sinex follows that key portion of the agreement such that he would have to have funding, full funding, locked down in order to proceed with the project.
Quigley: That is a very significant moment, because one, it was the last construction activity, and two, it also plays into a sense from from the council that they’ve been hearing a lot from the developers, a lot of promises that have not been fulfilled.
What happened after this waiver went through? You found out a little bit later about what was going on behind the scenes in the months that followed.
Quigley: When I was talking to the mayor, he said the city had done everything it could. And the city had been very, you know, vigilant to make sure that this project got moving. But he did mention that at one point, in the fall, they did draft up plans of what it would look like — contingency plans. What would it look like if the city had to pull out the development agreement, which would essentially end the project.
Weinberger: Given the uncertainties and the unknowns inherent in all developer projects, particularly big and complex ones like this, I think we’ve done a good job protecting the city. And I think you see that in the limited impacts that we’ve been talking about today.
Quigley: Have there been any serious conversations about this kind of last step of pulling the plug?
Weinberger: We certainly have done the work we need to do internally and with the council to be a position to take that step if necessary. Fortunately, you know, for some time now, Brookfield has been taking reassuring steps and our confidence that the project’s getting back on track has been growing for some time now. So I wouldn’t say we ever got real close to doing that. But we certainly had the internal conversations and for planning and preparedness, to kind of lay out what that would mean, when we might consider that.
Quigley: To be clear, he stressed that they never got particularly close to doing this. But they just wanted to be prepared. That step would end the project in its current form and lead to more delays for sure. Basically, things had gotten so bad that the city was prepared to, if they felt like they needed to, pull out of the development agreement, and then start from scratch with a totally new developer. Basically, that would spell the beginning of the end of the project.
They would take that site and find something else to put there?
Quigley: Yeah, basically. So it’s a public/private partnership right now. And with the public part out, you know, I’m not sure exactly what the next step would look like for the private developers, but essentially, it would not be able to happen.
Wright: Item number two is a communication from Brookfield and Don Sinex.
Quigley: In January, Chase Martin from Brookfield shows up and says that their role had evolved.
Martin: We are now involved in day-to-day operation and development operation of Burlington town center’s transformation into CityPlace Burlington.
Quigley: And Sinex remained a valued partner to them. But they were here and they’re in charge, was essentially the message for the council.
Martin: Thus, our team is systematically reviewing the various components of the project, from construction through to operations, to ensure that we have a plan for success to continue to work towards the goal of breaking ground this spring.
Quigley: Brookfield is based in New York City and they manage $350 billion in assets. This is an extremely large company, which has done a lot of similar development projects. They own 51% of the development, while developer Don Sinex owns 49%. So they’re the majority partner. I talked to folks in the business community for my story, and they all said, we were a little worried before Brookfield got involved, but Brookfield knows what they’re doing. You know, Brookfield will be able to do this project. The simple fact that Brookfield is working on this project is enough to convince us and get us more optimistic about it actually getting to fruition.
Ali Dieng: It looks like the project will start in the spring. Right? But in terms of percentage, can you tell us in terms of a percentage, how likely is it it’s going to happen? Eight percent? 70? Or 50 or less?
Martin: So I can’t put a percentage to it, you know, we want to make sure that we are working towards starting as soon as possible. So I think everything that we’re doing is working towards that end right now. So every bit of our effort, every bit of our resources that’s that’s on this project is working towards getting this thing started as soon as possible.
Quigley: In January, the city council was very happy to see them and the main message from councilors at that meeting, almost across the board, the councilors were saying that they felt relieved and more comfortable with where the project was going.
Monday night was different. Monday night councilors seemed concerned for a variety of reasons. First off, the lack of a specific start date, and the fact that in January, Brookfield said they would appear every month to give an update, and this was the first time we’ve been seeing that since then.
Tracy: In the intervening time, we really haven’t heard much in the way of updates, and I think that’s problematic and continues to really raise a lot of questions for folks in the public about the project, doubts, as a result of those questions, and in other cases, anger. You folks, and Mr. Sinex, and others involved.
Quigley: So Councilor Max Tracy has been a major force on the council in questioning the project for a long time. At this meeting, he was focused kind of on the lack of communication from Brookfield. He said, you know, in January, you said you’d be here every month and you haven’t been. He said that he was upset that he heard about the May start date from me and not from Brookfield.
Tracy: I received a call from Mr. Quigley right there in the front row letting me know, asking me for comment, on Mr. Sinex’s remarks that the project would start construction on May 6, and I said, well that’s news to me. And I find it incredibly insulting that I would be promised in a public meeting better answers and then to hear those answers reported back to me from the media.
Quigley: Basically, he stressed that it was important that Brookfield communicate with the council, and Karen Paul, who’s, you know, definitely more aligned with the mayor, expressed similar concerns. You know, she said, it sounded like you, the two representatives of Brookfield had been in the city a lot. And she was wondering why the council wasn’t a group of people who they had been interacting with as a group and kind of on a one on one basis.
Karen Paul: You know, good, bad or indifferent, we saw a fair amount of Don Sinex. We have not seen a fair amount of you. And we would like to see more of you. I would like to see more of you. I’ll just speak for myself.
Quigley: And the response from Will Voegele at Brookfield was basically, we’ve been extremely focused on getting this project off the ground, and not as focused on this type of outreach to the council.
Voegele: And fundamentally, we are 100% on the ground, focused on the day-to-day project and moving it forward. But this forum is particularly important to us. And so tonight, we want to make sure that we’re giving you an update.
Quigley: He said, we’ve been in constant contact with the city. We’ve been meeting with other stakeholders and moving forward, we are dedicated to, you know, increasing our communication with the council. But that’s what Brookfield said in January, and it hasn’t quite happened, which is what some of the other councillors drew attention to.
Paul: The city council, we’re elected by the people, the residents in Burlington and they’re stakeholders also, in this. They’re really important stakeholders. And so I feel that we should be right up there at the top of your list. We shouldn’t be seventh or eighth or ninth or 10th. And so I am concerned about where the placement of the city council is with you and and your team.
What does it seem like are the paths forward from here?
Quigley: Voegele from Brookfield talked about that there was a series of milestones that they had to meet before construction starts, and they were dedicated hitting those milestones.
Things like, construction related, or financing related, or still unclear?
Quigley: A little unclear. Probably both. You know, it seems like they have some steps financing-wise planning-wise, the construction documents are activated. So they are definitely taking steps to getting there. But Councillor Roof asked for a list, a checklist of the milestones, which Brookfield promised that they would provide.
Roof: You mentioned you need to go through and check the boxes. I think part of the issue that we and others in the community are having is we don’t know what those boxes are.
Quigley: That should provide a little more clarity to what has to happen before they start work on the hole in the ground.
But we don’t know yet when that’s gonna happen.
Quigley: No. They wouldn’t say even generally when it would happen.
Voegele: I don’t want to stand here, because I can’t predict with certainty, and I don’t want to stand here and tell you that that I wasn’t genuine the first time.
Roof: OK, so then my only advice, which I think you’re hearing from multiple, is if you can give us that information as it comes along, that provides comfort, not just to the council, but to the public. This is a real project, and it is going to happen. So thank you.
Quigley: The fact that they wouldn’t commit to a starting date, some councillors say is good. They didn’t want to tie themselves down to a specific date that if they miss will raise more questions. But they kind of already did that by saying May and then June, and now it’s we don’t know.
With this project having been in limbo for kind of a while, what are the broader ramifications of that on the city?
Quigley: So there’s definitely a political interest in this development. The mayor really pushed for it. And Councilor Karen Paul actually pointed that out to Brookfield on Monday, she said a lot of the people at this council table really put ourselves out there for the project. And you know, politically speaking, at the March Town Meeting Day, there were two young Progressives who replaced incumbents, and downtown development might have been a factor that. Outgoing Councilor Dave Hartnett, who was one of the — former councilor at this point, Dave Hartnett — was one of the loudest critics of Don Sinex and the promises that weren’t being kept on his front. He said that he thought that downtown development, you know, people being upset with the lack of progress, played a role in the results. He’s a Democrat. So he, you know, he said that the city lost some talented councilors in his in his view.
So there’s definitely the question about moving forward, what role will the delays have on the mayor, politically? You know, Max Tracy, when I talked to him for my longer story said, you know, the mayor stuck his neck out for the project. And if it’s unable to move forward, you know, it will be on the people who really pushed for it, which would be the mayor. But Councillor Joan Shannon kind of took another lens and said, you know, so Weinberger was a developer before becoming mayor, and she says there’s no one better to deal with this project than him. You know, he knows how to hold these developers accountable in a way that a mayor without the background that Weinberger has would be able to do. If something goes wrong, you know, will he be blamed? She said, probably, but she said it’s not always fair, but the nature of politics is somewhat opportunist.
It’ll be really interesting to watch how these play out. In March, eight councillors of 12 will be up for reelection. And if this continues to stall out, will it impact those elections? Potentially. But we’re still quite a ways away from there.
But it’s definitely something on everyone’s minds. You know, everyone wants to see progress. I think even those who do not support this project, no one is happy with a hole in the ground, and no one believes that there will be an eternal hole in the ground like there was in Newport after the EB-5 scandal. It’s an extremely coveted place of real estate, heart of Burlington’s downtown. You know, everyone in the city wants that space to succeed. Some people don’t agree with the current design, but everyone wants that space to be operational in some sense.
Because it would be good for the city?
Quigley: Yeah, it would be good for the city. That’s what Ernie Pomerleau said — that the success of Don Sinex and Brookfield is the success of the community. Not everyone would agree with that. You know, people who don’t like this project wouldn’t agree with that. But no one thinks that it’s going to be empty forever. Something will be there. Will it be this project or not?
Right now, I’d say that most people do believe that this project will happen. When is a completely different story.
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Subscribe to the Deeper Dig on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. Burlington City Council recordings courtesy Channel 17/Center for Media and Democracy. Music by Lee Rosevere and Blue Dot Sessions.
