This story by Corey McDonald was first published in The Other Paper on Oct. 19.
Two apartment buildings, a new hotel and a reconfiguration of an awkward lane arrangement are in the works at the old Holiday Inn site off Williston Road and Dorset Street, where one building is already up.
The more than $25 million project is being built by Larkin Realty. Plans have been in the works since at least 2018 and shovels were in the ground in late 2021 after city Development Review Board approval. But plans to rehabilitate the old Holiday Inn building have faltered, proving too much of a cost for the developer.
“We started to think that we were putting too much money toward an old building — that it no longer made sense,” Joe Larkin, the head of the development company, said. “We were very committed to a renovation project, and I thought that was the better direction. But with the cost of renovations, we just felt like the original structure was limiting us in a lot of ways.”
The building has since been demolished, Larkin said, allowing the company to better design the property for improved parking and general configuration.
The first of the three buildings is nearly complete, and will include 83 units with a mix of two-bedroom, one-bedroom and studio apartments throughout the five-story building.
The second apartment building, still under construction, should include another 50 units of apartments, Larkin said. The new hotel building, meanwhile, will be a Hampton Inn and will include roughly 100 hotel units. Each of the apartment buildings is expected to have commercial retail space.
“This has been a tough project,” Larkin said. “We’re managing all that and the city has been a good partner.”
Near one of the busiest intersections in the city, the final plans called for a realignment of the lanes at the Williston Road and Dorset Street intersection, where motorists driving through a traffic light heading eastbound must shift awkwardly to the left as they drive across the road.
To better align the intersection’s lanes, the entrance to the development will be shifted east about 35 feet.
The project is still months away from completion. But Larkin said he hopes to have a partial opening for completed apartments in the first building before the second phase of construction begins next spring.
“It’s hard but doable,” Larkin said. “People are working very hard to get that done.”
Larkin Realty has hundreds of other units throughout South Burlington and neighboring Burlington, including several buildings along Shelburne Road, two buildings on Quarry Hill Road and others near Allen Road.
The former Holiday Inn development is situated in South Burlington’s City Center, the city’s downtown hub where housing and commercial development have been made a priority after years of renewed land use regulations.
“I definitely look at this as a corner of a neighborhood that will grow over time. That’s really how we look at it,” Larkin said. “We see that whole side of town changing, and we want to be part of that change.”
