Is it time for Burlington to grow up? The skyline downtown could be about to change.
Two 14-story residential towers that would be the tallest buildings in Burlington are being proposed as part of the $200 million makeover of the Burlington Town Center mall. That was the news at a meeting about its proposed redevelopment Tuesday, although it was buried in the fine print of a handout at the session, which drew about 100 people.
City zoning would have to change for the towers to go up. Burlington is a low-rise city. Current height limits allow buildings of up to 105 feet, which usually translates to 10 or 11 stories tops, said David White, the city director of planning and zoning, during a break at the presentation.
The 14-story buildings would be built on the Cherry Street side of the project that could refashion the heart of Burlington’s downtown. The mall renovation would create new street entrances for retailers on Bank and Cherry streets and a redesigned Church Street entrance to better blend in with surrounding historic buildings. The mall’s interior would accommodate both large retailers and small boutiques.
The project calls for 320,000 square feet of new office space, several rooftop parks, a two-level underground parking garage with about 450 spaces and new pass-throughs for pedestrians on St. Paul and Pine streets.
The plans also call for about 300,000 square feet of new residential space. That would translate to around 300 units, give or take, with 20 percent reserved as affordable housing in conformance with city ordinances.
Sherida Paulsen, the New York-based architect for the project, which has not yet entered the permitting phase, was one of many speakers who said that if there is anywhere Burlington should build higher, it’s on the mall property. People at the meeting were taking in the idea of a new height limit.
Charles Simpson, treasurer of the group Save Open Space Burlington, didn’t immediately agree with the argument that building higher downtown would prevent sprawl in the city’s limited green spaces. He wants to see renderings that would show how the proposed buildings would affect Burlington’s skyline, and how big of a shadow they would cast on the street.
Burlington City Councilor Max Tracy, a Progressive representing Ward 2, has a number of questions about increasing the city height limit, but sees some advantages. “I think if we are going to go up, this is the place to do it.” He’d like to see the architects go for a noteworthy design, especially if they puncture the existing skyline. “I think that there is a real opportunity to do something that’s iconic, that’s architecturally stunning,” he said.
The tallest building in Burlington is the 11-story, 124-foot Decker Towers on St. Paul Street, according to Emporis Standards, an international real estate data service. The 1971 Decker Towers apartments is also the tallest building in Vermont. Other buildings over 100 feet in Burlington include the 10-story Cathedral Square senior housing tower and the eight-story Westlake Residences.
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The height of the building doesn’t matter nearly as much as where it is and what else gets blocked, from sunlight and/or a view of the lake for starters…Burlington is already stuck with a “wealth” of butt-ugly buildings that should have never been built in the first place.
I don’t suppose the great minds that are our city counsel once brought up anything about the infrastructure it’s going to take to support all these new large developmental projects they have planned for our great city. 650 new residential units plus office, retail and recreational space out on North Ave, 350 downtown, and an antiquated water treatment facility at both ends of town that constantly dump raw sewage into Lake Champlain while drawing the lake to supply water to these havens for the wealthy. Does “Red Tide” at North Beach ring a bell ?
If the idea is for these people to live and work downtown without having to commute in a car, it might work for them.
For everyone else, how much worse does the traffic have to get before real estate developers decide projects like this are not feasible?
The traffic is already quite ridiculous during the commute even on good days, on bad days it can paralyze the roadways for hours. More bike lanes and bus routes will not do anything to help the problem. We are going to need major upgrades to Exit 14 & 16, new ramps at Exit 13, and increased capacity at Exit 12 & 17. In fact, they really need to look at adding a third travel lane from Exit 12 to Exit 16. Oh yeah, finish the Pine Street connector and double the size of Pine Street while they’re at it. Need to fix that damn silly circle in Winooski, and double the lanes going up both hills.
Yeah, we need a LOT of roadwork around here to support major growth.
Who is going to pay for that?
We need to grow and the only place is UP. Things cant stay stagnant forever. We need to expand and progress and welcome new business and revenue to Burlington and Vermont.
It seems as though this project would overwhelm everything and the very nature and character of Burlington will change. I’m not sure how the general public is served. It seems obvious that a few will financially benefit greatly. So, how is this good for Burlington?
This city planning is totally wrong. What’s good about Burlington is that is is NOT like this. What’s bad about Burlington is that it’s GETTING like this. Read Jane Jacobs’ “The Death and Life of American Cities”. [She stopped Robert Moses from putting a highway through Greenwich Village and Soho.] There’s a South End event this coming Wednesday (May 13) at Howard and Pine Street at 7:00 PM. You will learn things if you go. City planners do not see how a city works. They will try to push this through, but it shouldn’t happen. This project is against all sense of community. Let the consultants collect their fees and leave. Low-income housing can only be built in old buildings, where millions are not owed to the bank.
@Charlie Messing, you should check out Edward Glaeser’s book “Triumph of The City,” I think the has a much more realistic approach to city planning than Jacobs and he addresses this in the book. Jacob’s book is over 50 years old and very outdated.
One of the key elements Triumph of the City is building up (like in the proposal) with true multi purpose facilities.
If Burlington want to continue it’s march into a gentrified little New York City, Boston, type of personality with mostly high end residents, tourists, and second home folks deciding our bread and butter, go ahead. As my wife who is a native Vermonter will spell out, that it’s been going on for generations, money comes in, Vermont that becomes unfashionable, money goes out, with the state used on par as toilet paper; a small core of Vermonters cashing in and selling out their neighbors and folks they went to school with, and everyone else, both from here and elsewhere deciding if they can scrap by with the scraps or leave the state. But since Burlington seems to be really grooving on “I’m hot and I’m better than anybody else” ego, you know who will win out! Of course like Stowe, they need to keep enough people around town or commuting into town to do the cheap work. Meanwhile, we have cars broken into for change to support junkies habit and a wait list a mile long for drug treatment. Kids depending on as many school and city programs for decent meals, and people sleeping in the remaining woods or cars during the warm season. As a middle class homeowner just hanging on to making ends meet in this expensive town, it is tempting to move to all those other places, but then our town just become another destination point for a select group of folks. And our friends, both Vermonters and people who came here to live in a lower ego and affordable quality piece of land, and have left for other places, say it getting bad everywhere with our middle class squeezed. So we take a stand and fight the developers every inch of the way.
Burlington can’t sustain itself the way things are. More expensive office and retail space? High end condos? Top floor suites to look down on the lowly? What you really want is a nice way to move the “undesirables” out of town. America. Don’t fix problems, just move them around.
14 stories is not a problem ,if it is a good sensitive design, two big flat top boxes as we see in the rendering, or as exemplified in just about every structure to rise in burlington In past 50! Years would be a travesty.
What is Sherida paulsons track record?
Hello again – to Rob Ticho – sure, Glaeser’s book is newer – but Jane Jacobs stopped Robert Moses from putting an expressway through Greenwich Village and Soho. Though she writes as people did in 1958, there is still a lot to be learned from her book. Does Glaeser cover how city planners wreck cities because they don’t see how cities work? Does he cover how planners assume people want to see empty streets, when this is not the case? I don’t think you should dismiss her ideas, or mine, so self-assuredly. True multi purpose facilities? Those would be places that have grown organically over decades. You can’t plant them like a towering highrise. What’s good about Burlington doesn’t have much to do with highrises.
I grew up in and around Burlington. By the time I was a teen, I was at that age where you want to move on to bigger things (not excluding bigger cities). I would fantasize about large-scale, 20-30 storey-type construction (obviously unrealistic for Burlington and way out of scale with existing bldgs.).
Having lived in larger cities almost all of my adult life, I now have an unfavourable opinion of them; however, I wouldn’t necessarily vote against this proposal. To avoid urban sprawl, which engulfs greenery and countryside, it would be sensible to build vertically but with a measure of caution in Burlington’s case.
A bit off-topic, I might add that if Burlington continues its growth, what of vehicular access? The main interstate interchange is Exit 14 cloverleaf. Even though these proposed additions include flats for those who wish to live and work in town, still one would think that congestion to Main St. (plus on Colchester Av./Pearl St., up Pine St. and Shelburne Rd./S. Winooski Av.) would worsen. …… So much for what exists of that white elephant known as the South End Connector, eh? (not to mention its seemingly unfeasible northern counter-part)
Where can I find out about the residential units? I am interested in the studio apartments – thank you.
I notice there’s no mention of financing. Where’s all this money coming from?
This building is not going to be a shining beauty like you ignorant folk think. All it does is block God’s given beauty, and will be a shadow over the community regardless of your planning and design. No one wants this b******SH**. Government can plan all they want but they aint got NO CLUE!!!! FU!! Plus FU pretentious f**s who all you care about is yourselves. get real