BURLINGTON — Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger and the developers behind the downtown CityPlace project announced Thursday that they will seek approval on a new development agreement that could allow two hotels to be built at the site.
The updated language would reduce the total residential units from 420 to a minimum of 350, including 70 affordable units, while adding up to 350 hotel rooms. A new minority partner in the project, Giri Hotels, of Quincy, Massachusetts, is expected to operate the two hotels.
The City Council is scheduled to take up amendments to the development agreement with CityPlace Partners at its next meeting on Monday night.
Dave Farrington, owner of Farrington Construction and one of the partners in charge of the construction project, said the change to allow for hotels is due to “economics.”
Between 2020, when the group of owners first started looking at the project, and today, “the whole world changed,” Farrington said at a press conference at the site. “And between the construction costs and interest rates, this is an economic move that we had to do if we wanted this project to keep going on.”
Farrington acknowledged that the change to development plans means a reduction in about 70 units of housing, but said that without adding the hotel component, “there’d be zero units.”
City Councilor Melo Grant, P-Central District, said in a text message on Thursday that she was “disappointed to lose any number of new housing units but the economics of building right now are difficult and expensive.
“We’re lucky this project continues to move along,” she said. “The ‘pit’ is a stark reminder of the blight in the city so the sooner we get rid of it the better.”
The “pit” nickname is derived from the empty lot left over from stalled construction after developer Don Sinex bought the site 10 years ago and tore down the mall that stood there. The current group of CityPlace partners — Farrington; Al Senecal, owner of Omega Electrical Construction Co.; and Scott Ireland, owner and president of S.D. Ireland Construction — assumed ownership from Sinex and resumed construction in 2022.
The latest plans would put a hotel on the first five floors of the south building along Bank Street, with the rest of the 10-story building residential. Additional space for a hotel would also be made in the north building, according to Farrington.
Weinberger said on Thursday that the development agreement between the city and CityPlace partners is complex and was bound to go through changes.
“I see it as very positive that it also, in addition to being the second largest housing project in the city’s history, that it has two hotels is good for the city in a number of ways,” Weinberger said. “It means more money that flows to the city in terms of property taxes, in terms of gross receipts into local businesses.”
Thursday’s press conference took place in front of the in-progress construction project. The south building is nearest to completion, expected to be finished in one year. The north building, which is currently only a foundation, is expected to be complete in 2026. The re-connection of St. Paul and Pine streets is also expected to wrap up that year.
Giri Hotels owner Ashish Sangani said during the press conference that he first began discussions with CityPlace’s owners in January 2023. Last year, Giri Hotels purchased the former YMCA building on College Street.
Sangani said on Thursday that his company is no longer involved in the YMCA project, which is now being handled by a local developer, Bruce Baker.
While the CityPlace project still includes a plan to build 70 affordable units, those apartments will no longer be built by Champlain Housing Trust as originally planned. In December, Weinberger’s office announced that Champlain Housing was no longer involved in the project and would instead be building affordable units in the Cambrian Rise development, the old Burlington College site on North Avenue.
Farrington said on Thursday that the CityPlace owners are planning to build the affordable units themselves and will still meet the city’s inclusionary zoning requirements — which mandates that affordable housing be included in any housing construction above a certain size.
The agreement with Champlain Housing Trust would have meant selling the land to the trust at what Farrington described as a “pretty discounted price for that land value.”
“What that deal would have resulted in is us selling forever a piece of land basically that we would have no future economic income from and that was detracting from the package, the whole financial package of it,” Farrington said.
Weinberger framed the departure of Champlain Housing from CityPlace as a “pivot” that could result in a “net increase of about 180 permanently affordable units” when combined with the CityPlace units.