New Kids on the Block
In response to historic demand, Vermont has seen a surge of home construction in the past few years. Most are multifamily buildings. To see what’s been springing up, Nest surveyed a few of the newest buildings in northern Vermont.
Burlington: 77 Residences is a newly opened 49-unit apartment building that repurposed the former People’s United Bank on Burlington’s Pine Street. Rents start at $990 for lofts; a two-bedroom is $1,245. The building was fully leased four months before it was completed, developer Doug Nedde said. Nedde’s company is working now on a 49-unit, nine-story apartment building right next door, at 79 Pine.
Colchester: S.D. Ireland recently completed 60 Severance Green, a 61-unit apartment building with an underground parking garage. It offers studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms as part of a 36-acre mixed-use development that includes condominiums, rentals and business space. A 700-square-foot one-bedroom apartment is $1,800.
Morrisville: The Foundry apartments were completed this year along the Lamoille River and the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. The development includes three buildings with five two-bedroom townhouses in each. Rents range from $1,500 to $1,800.
Stowe: Lamoille Housing Partnership and Evernorth, a nonprofit affordable housing organization based in Burlington, used low-income tax credits, a Stowe community development fund, and money from the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board to complete these nine new affordable apartments in Stowe last winter. Rents are subsidized, and prices vary according to income; five of the apartments are reserved for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so.
Winooski: Butternut Grove Condominiums is a 20-unit condo development that opened in September. The units, which have all been sold, were developed by Champlain Housing Trust on land owned by the City of Winooski, and they will remain permanently affordable through the trust’s shared equity homeownership program. A three-bedroom row house with a deck sold for $184,000.
Real(tor) Talk
Vermont has several programs in place aimed at encouraging downtown development as a way to preserve open land and promote the construction of affordable housing.
Realtor Richard Gardner, co-owner of RE/MAX North Professionals in Colchester, said he understands why state and local policy makers are trying to encourage new home construction in those village centers. But most of the home shoppers he talks to, he said, want some acreage.
“A lot of the people who are buying are looking for the older neighborhoods with space between the houses and bigger yards,” he said. “And we’re just not building that way anymore.
“I’m all for preserving what Vermont has,” he added. “[But] I think Vermont needs to have a holistic conversation about what we want to be when we grow up. We’re not building what people want.”
This article appears in Nest — Fall 2022.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!