This commentary is by Ali Jalili of Burlington, a retired Foreign Service Officer who served with the State Department in a variety of assignments all over the world. He was primarily an economic officer, analyzing and writing about economic issues relevant to U.S. policymakers.
Since it closed in 2016, Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium has occupied a large and prominent corner of the city’s downtown as a decaying eyesore in need of public investment just to ensure its structural integrity.
For the last seven years, the city has struggled to come up with a viable redevelopment plan. Yes, Covid surely contributed to the delay in redevelopment, but it certainly isn’t the cause. A recent request for proposals for redevelopment went nowhere. In April, Mayor Weinberger announced the city would put out a new request for proposals with a redefined scope.
I would like to suggest a Plan B: Sell it to a developer to redevelop into desperately needed housing.
Critics of this idea will say it was a centerpiece public property that served a public purpose and it needs to remain so. That’s why I think selling to a developer should be Plan B and not Plan A.
What I don’t want to see is us working on Plan A, year after year, and maybe even for decades, when we could have tremendous benefits from private development today.
And if you don’t think that would happen, just look at the former Moran Plant on the Waterfront. The plant was decommissioned in 1986. Three and a half decades later, after numerous failed attempts at a viable “public purpose” project and reluctance from the citizenry to allow for-profit development (I appreciate that there were state constitutional restrictions), we now have a $5 million “frame.” Don’t get me wrong; I love The Frame. It is sooooo much better than a decaying power plant.
But the Moran redevelopment should offer us lessons for Memorial. We need a deadline for public redevelopment, after which we sell it for private development. The end of 2026 would be 10 years. That seems reasonable.
At that point, I suggest we cut our losses (time, effort, money, forgone tax revenue, blight, opportunity cost) and sell it to a developer. If we don’t, we risk another decade or more of it just sitting there decaying. Twenty years is a long time, a generation!
I understand the mixed feelings on this. For me, though, it’s a no-brainer. On the one hand, you spend very limited public money indefinitely on a public project (if one ever materializes), presumably a “community center” or “event venue” that I don’t believe many people would call a priority, given all the other priorities we have.
On the other hand, you could have the city receive millions of dollars upfront for the property, lots of project-related jobs, and dozens, maybe hundreds, of housing units creating a forever stream of substantial tax revenues to fund our other priorities and adding vibrancy downtown.
The question before us is not “would you rather have a really cool public space downtown or a bunch of condos?” It is “would you rather have dozens or hundreds of new units of housing downtown or a decaying old building?”
I’m sure some critics would say that converting Memorial into a for-profit (gasp!) real estate project would only serve rich(er) Burlingtonians or newcomers. First of all, some portion of the housing would have to be inclusive by law. Second, we need more housing supply at all income levels, and this supply will have a moderating effect on all housing prices. Third, the market-rate units would likely serve to house the young professionals we’re trying so hard to recruit to Vermont.
hose units could bring in millions in property tax revenues and their owners/tenants would pay millions more in income taxes. They are also the exact people we need to further spur economic growth and fuel our common prosperity. Rejecting them as somehow undesirable neighbors because they are “rich” is extremely shortsighted. Let’s embrace this future. Let’s not let Memorial become another Moran.
