The new owners of Burlington Town Center announced a plan Thursday afternoon to invest $200 million in a dramatic redevelopment of the downtown mall.
Standing in front of its recently opened L.L.Bean store, Devonwood Investors managing partner Don Sinex outlined a sweeping vision for the aging shopping center. It would include a vast expansion of the mall’s retail and office space, 250 new apartments, a hotel and convention center, an underground parking garage and a rooftop park.
“I think this is a big day for Burlington and Burlington Town Center,” Sinex said. “This mall has captured my energy and all my passion.”
Sinex was joined at the announcement by dozens of business and community leaders, several of whom praised what they said would be a “public-private partnership” between Devonwood Investors and the city’s residents.
Mayor Miro Weinberger, who has been negotiating the terms of that partnership with Sinex and his fellow investors, said he was particularly pleased that it would address the “lack of connectivity” between the mall’s neighboring streets and stores. A preliminary schematic envisions reconnecting Pine Street and St. Paul Street — both of which are currently cut off from one another by the mall — with a pedestrian walkway. A new “Burlington Arcade” would connect Church Street to Pine Street.
Weinberger said the vision conforms to the city’s PlanBTV development concept and could draw down city and state funding for related infrastructure improvements. He and Sinex pledged that, with the city council’s approval in December, Devonwood would engage in a “transparent, public process” to reach a development agreement that takes citizen input into consideration.
Sinex said he believed construction could be completed in three to five years.
Though the project’s details remain fluid, it has already garnered support from a variety of community organizations. AARP Vermont director of outreach Kelly Stoddard Poor said that the 250 new apartments planned for the development would help Burlington residents “age in place” in the heart of the city.
Local Motion executive director Emily Boedecker said the project would help Burlington become even more of a “walking and biking destination” where “people want to get out of their cars.”
Several speakers politely alluded to the mall’s dated, drab appearance and its “inward-facing” stores.
“The mall has served us well, but I think we can all agree it’s time to look to the future,” said Burlington Business Association executive director Kelly Devine.
Sinex, who bought the property with several partners for $25 million last December, said he hoped to include much of the following in the redevelopment:
- 225,000 additional square feet of retail (It currently includes 125,000 square feet.)
- 150,000 additional square feet of office space (It currently includes 35,000.)
- 250 new apartments
- A “convention center-style hotel” with 250 rooms and 40,000 square feet of meeting space
- A potential winter home for the Burlington Farmers Market
- A rooftop public park
- A new underground parking garage with roughly 350 additional parking spaces (It currently includes 575).
In praising PlanBTV and the city’s vision for improving its downtown and waterfront spaces, Sinex said, “Here is a city that gets it.”
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Corporate Developers = Hold on to your A$$, urban sprawl coming to a Vermont town near you. All in the pursuit of endless growth & Profit, Profit, Profit.
“225,000 additional square feet of retail” = The standard corporate model. All the corporate franchise chain stores opening up and every mom & pop, family owned store in the entire area, in and surrounding Burlington, going broke and shuttered within a couple years at most. Big, fancy mall, surrounded by ghost town. Then the investors can swoop in and buy up all those vacant buildings for a song.
Want to see what Burlington is going to look like when they are done using it up for all it’s profit potential? Take a ride down to NY city. Make sure you allow at least six hours for the last five or so miles of the approach.
Can’t wait to buy all the junk they’ll be importing from China, Bangladesh, India and any other 3rd world country they can find.
how many square feet of retail do we need per capita? Really do we really each need 1500 square feet for shopping per person in Chittenden county this is an asinine hoka party. It sounds like a Sinex infection is going around city hall
All hail retail and service jobs Im sure Burlington will need to build more low income housing to support the workfare minimum wage government subsidized jobs.
The rentier class is firmly in control of Burlington our children can clean toilets and fold tee shirts and serve slop to the tourists time to raise the rooms and meals, parking, taxes again until they refuse to come.
Certainly folks offered government cheese wages will be dropping big coin a the mall.
Well said, Walt, except you forgot about the part where Weinberger allows his buddies to forgo the liveable wage.
On the day they open the new mall they can park a big old F-35 on Church Street so everyone can get an up close look.
For all the nay-sayers out there, you may want to start following the money and the jobs. Burlington is a major tourist destination. It’s also a significant metropolitian area. The rock of stupidity and ignorance needs to be cast off and allow the city to grow and bloom. Burlington is the home to a major university that is moving slowly into the higher echelons of third and fourth level education. There needs to be more than the carrot of a nice campus to attract the finest students from outside the State paying out of State tuition.
Expanding the tax base is always so important as there are mounting not declining bills. To maintain the social network does not come with a zero price tag. Added jobs in construction, retailing, office all add to the tax base in so many ways, that most (definitely not all but most) boats will be lifted by the rising tide.
It very sad as an outsider to read the posts that come out of a complete lack of understanding. No one is changing the character of Burlington, just making it better. If not, there are always elections.
@JSO – Spoken like a true Vulture Capitalist.
Interesting acronym you’ve chosen for your first post here… JSO – Joker’s Snake Oil?
JSO,
It is one thing to attract the “finest students” to attend university here. It is quite another getting them to stay once they are educated. I don’t see being a parking lot attendant in an underground garage or Apple Store employee keeping educated people in the state.