BURLINGTON — The City Council has voted to accept a bid from DEW Construction Corp. to complete the first phase of the proposed “Frame” renovation at the Moran Plant.
Approval came on a 9-3 vote Tuesday night.
The council also approved about $1 million of additional funding for the project to be paid by Burlington Electric Department (BED) over eight or nine years. This additional funding became necessary after previously unknown contaminants were discovered at the site in October, bringing the total cost of the Frame project to $6.5 million.
The council first approved the Frame renovation plan in an unanimous vote last February. The plan calls for a partial demolition of the building that would reduce it to its frame and create a multi-use space on the Lake Champlain waterfront.
The original proposal estimated the project would cost $5.6 million. The city intended to use $3.4 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds and a $2 million loan from the U.S. Department of Housinga and Urban Development to pay for the project.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said that while it is not uncommon to find higher-than-expected levels of contamination in old buildings, the amount found at the Moran plant, including lead, asbestos and PCB, was unusually high.
The plant, which was completed in 1955 , was decomissioned in 1986.
“The paint that was used to treat the steel has PCB in it, and as a result, to reuse the frame we are going to have to encapsulate the steel with new paint,” Weinberger said in an interview. “That adds a considerable amount of expense.”
To account for the added cost, the city’s Community and Economic Development Office developed a new two-phase plan, said director Luke McGowan. Originally, the plan was to complete the project with some amenities now with the option of adding bigger amenities, like an ice skating rink, to the site in the future. The new plan starts with Phase 1A and includes only the frame and no additions.
“The Frame is really a simple architectural structure and we’re going to be working over the next year on finding additional sources of funding to get some of those amenities back in,” McGowan said.
The council’s action Tuesday would allow Weinberger to reach a settlement on behalf of the city with the BED to pay for the $1 million in increased costs for the project.
Weinberger said the agreement is appropriate because “it was utility activities that put the contaminants there,” and that financing the payment over a number of years would ensure that this agreement does not drive a rate increase.
Councilor Jack Hanson, who ultimately voted no on the bid and funding — along with Councilors Ali Dieng, D/P-Ward 7, and Perri Freeman, P-Central District — expressed concern that the money from BED might be better spent elsewhere.
“If BED is spending a million dollars on behalf of ratepayers, I really want to see that go toward the climate crisis,” Hanson said.
The council also discussed alternatives to the Frame, including tearing the building down completely, which would cost an estimated $3.6 million and could be covered by the TIF funding. Dieng asked why the Frame was a better option than demolishing the building and creating a park at a lower cost.
Weinberger said the $5.6 million in TIF funding earmarked for this project could only be used for the demolition and stabilization of the Moran Plant, and would not be available to fund creation of a park.
“The window for making new investments from the TIF program is over,” he said. “There would be no way to take on a new project with that money.”
If the city does not use the money, 70% of any remaining funds would be returned to the state, Weinberger said.
Weinberger spoke in favor of the Frame renovation at the meeting.
“It has been a long history of considerable frustration with this building,” he said. “We have the opportunity through our action tonight to end that, to bring the resolution that Burlingtonians have long wanted, and to do so on terms that are consistent with the unanimous decision that was made by this city council approximately a year ago.”
Alex Halpern, an architectural consultant on the project with the firm Freeman French Freeman, explained that preserving the frame offers a unique option that could not easily be recreated.
“One of the attractive things about this project is the embodied energy in that existing frame,” he said. We would not go and build a structure of that height. It’s not allowed by zoning. There’s a lot of benefits of creating this structure for the future and the frame by reusing what’s there.”
With the bid approved for the first stage of the project, McGowan said construction could start as early as April depending on the weather.
“The city has been trying to figure this out for 35 years,” he said. “We’ve always had ideas but we never had a path to making those ideas a reality, and so it was pretty exciting what happened last night.”
