The Burlington City Council approved an amended development agreement for the downtown CityPlace project on Monday, reducing the number of housing units at the site to make room for a second hotel.
The council voted unanimously in favor of the new agreement, which cuts the total number of residential units from 420 to a minimum of 350 and allows for 350 hotel rooms, up from the 140 rooms included in the previous iteration of the agreement.
Of the 350 housing units, 70 will be permanently affordable in keeping with Burlington’s zoning requirements.
“I’m just really excited to see this move forward,” said Sarah Carpenter, D-Ward 4, who said that despite the decline in housing units, the updated agreement was still “pretty much a win-win” for the city.
Speaking before the council at Monday night’s meeting, the CityPlace developers said that the addition of hotel rooms were necessary to accommodate rising construction and operating costs.
“We had to reshuffle the cards,” said Dave Farrington, owner of Farrington Construction. “We’re doing the best we can, and this is what we had to do to keep this thing moving ahead.”
During the public comment period of the meeting, a handful of Burlington residents spoke out against the amendment, denouncing the reduction in housing units.
Though they ultimately voted in favor of the agreement, Progressives councilors said they were disappointed by the lack of transparency surrounding the changes.
Noting that the plan to amend the agreement had not been made public until late last week, Zoraya Hightower, P-Ward 1, said that her constituents felt “blindsided” by the sudden move.
“I think it’s disappointing how quickly we put things in front of the public and then vote on them in ways that counselors can’t possibly reach out to constituents or get feedback,” she said.
Hightower made a motion to postpone the vote until Feb. 26. No one seconded the motion, but other Progressive members echoed her concerns.
“I am supportive of this tonight with the caveat that continuing to leave the public out of these conversations with such a short period of time for us to adequately engage folks is an ongoing problem, and I… would encourage us to remedy that going forward,” said Joe Magee, P-Ward 3.
The project’s new plans include a hotel in the first five floors of the south building along Bank Street, with the rest of the 10-story building remaining residential. Additional hotel space is also now expected to be included in the north building, Farrington said last week.
Giri Hotel Management, a Massachusetts-based company, is joining the project as a minority partner and is expected to operate the two hotels, according to a summary of the new agreement included in the council’s agenda.
Construction on the project is already well underway. According to an updated timeline presented at Monday’s meeting, the south building should be completed by the end of 2025 with construction on the north building wrapping up in the summer of 2026.
