Beta Technologies, Vermont’s homegrown electric airplane company, has spent about $22.6 million snatching up at least 13 properties around its base of operations at the Burlington International Airport over the past year. And this summer, the company announced a plan that would more than double its footprint in that part of South Burlington, to 100 acres, over the next decade.
If this master plan is green-lit by the city’s Development Review Board, the company would begin renovating some buildings, tearing down others and constructing new ones. What’s emerging in this eastern section of South Burlington along Route 2 could effectively be called “Betaville.”
Fueling the massive expansion is the $1 billion the company raised by going public last November. Founder and CEO Kyle Clark said Beta will double its local workforce, adding about 1,000 employees by the middle of next year as it competes to bring its innovative electric aircraft to market.
Local, state and federal officials have cheered on the company, which is bringing high-paying jobs and an entrepreneurial spirit to the Green Mountain State at a time when its population growth has plateaued or even shrunk. The company has workers in other places, including Québec and North Carolina, where officials have been courting the aviation industry. But Clark, a Vermont native, has committed to expanding in the Burlington area.
“Vermont has created a business environment that has enabled Beta to grow,” said Nat Bol, a company spokesperson. Business and political leaders have invested time into understanding Beta’s needs and helping the company scale up, she added.
That expansion, though, is gobbling up an established, affordable neighborhood, once home to an RV dealership, auto shops and residences. South Burlington has experienced this before, when the Federal Aviation Administration bought up and leveled modest family homes beside the airport as part of a noise-mitigation program before the arrival of the F-35 jets. In 2020, Beta scooped up a handful of condos on Lily Lane that were once slated for demolition; the company wanted homes for employees.
During this year’s property shopping spree, Beta paid a little more than $2 million for four homes on Shunpike Road, a residential neighborhood tucked between Route 2 and Kimball Avenue. Beta has been renting them to employees who have relocated to Vermont for lucrative and specialized jobs with the company and have yet to find permanent housing.
That’s changed the neighborhood, according to Shunpike Road resident Dani Fisette, who spoke up at an October Development Review Board meeting.
“As you contemplate the 100-acre master plan for them … it puts our one street of South Burlington residents right in the middle of it,” Fisette warned.
Beta’s big plans come during a good year for the company. In a quarterly earnings call with investors in August, Beta reported $14.7 million in revenue, more than double the previous year’s amount — and exceeding the company’s own projections. By the end of the fiscal year, Beta executives predict the company could bring in as much as $50 million.
But without aircraft, its most valuable product, on the market, the company posted a net loss of $148.8 million. The results were good enough for the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which announced in August that it would extend Beta’s financing by $1 billion to give the company an even longer financial runway.
Beta continues to test the capabilities of its Alia aircraft for uses such as rural medical transport and expects initial approval from the FAA for specific hardware, such as its engines, sometime next year. Full approval of its vertical-takeoff aircraft could come in 2028.
The U.S. military has become an increasingly important patron for Beta, too. The company has received at least $100 million to develop technology for the U.S. Air Force, industry publication Aerospace America reported last December. In July, Beta unveiled a new autonomous electric cargo plane, no human pilot needed, developed with GE Aerospace and a subsidiary of defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
Clark said in previous public filings that he expects “multiple military branches” to eventually make use of Beta’s electric aircraft.
“We’re in conversations with all of the services and with the Pentagon to talk about how we can integrate our aircraft in their fleets,” Bol said.
Beta’s stock price has fallen back to Earth since its debut at $36 per share last November. It reached a nadir of $13.61 in March before rebounding after the second-quarter earnings call. It currently hovers at $18.56, and most analysts still see it as a desirable stock to purchase.
In the months after Clark’s company went public last year, he sold off a chunk of his Beta stock in a series of smaller transactions for $9.3 million, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Beta declined to comment on the purpose of this stock-to-cash conversion.
As the company reaches new heights, Clark has repeatedly said he’s committed to keeping it headquartered in his home state of Vermont, and Gov. Phil Scott and his administration have been enthusiastic Beta boosters. When Scott hosted the New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers at Shelburne Farms in August, Clark was on hand for a live demonstration.
Beta hasn’t limited its expansion efforts to Vermont, however. Clark made an appearance at the Raleigh Executive Jetport alongside North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein last month to demonstrate the latest in Beta technology. Clark told Axios Raleigh that his company will open another section of its engineering office and is “exploring manufacturing” in North Carolina.
On the August earnings call, Clark said the company has a backlog of 1,001 aircraft on order, which is valued at $3.9 billion. The company’s planned build-out is all about keeping its manufacturing in-house and even selling parts to other electric plane producers, but it’s not yet mass-producing the planes.
“We’ll reach a limit of how big we can grow in Vermont, and the conversations about North Carolina are still very preliminary,” Bol said. “But our team is always on the lookout for opportunities to expand as this grows and as our [production] backlog grows.”
So far, the Scott administration is not worried about geographic competition. Lyle Jepson, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Economic Development, thinks there’s plenty of Beta to go around.
“We’re pretty excited and proud of the fact that Beta is a Vermont company, that it’s based in Vermont, that the founder is indicating that it will always be in Vermont,” Jepson said. “It makes absolute sense that they will scale, to a certain extent, outside our borders.”
The company is certainly investing in its Vermont operations as if it will be here for the long haul.
Its 100-acre master plan is separated into three development zones, according to maps submitted to the South Burlington Development Review Board. The largest is the 61 acres around its “airside operations and production” at BTV and to the immediate south. Another 22 acres to the south would be dedicated for “mixed-use and manufacturing.” Beta plans to build out “support services and specialty manufacturing” on 17 acres on the southern side of Route 2.
The plans are a boon for the airport, according to its director of aviation, Nic Longo. The company has paid to develop areas of the airport and has directly contributed to its commercial growth, he said. Beta has a 75-year lease at the airport and pays $1.7 million annually, plus more for smaller spaces. Beta won’t technically pay on this lease for years, however, after earning an $11.5 million credit by funding infrastructure improvements the airport otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford.
“Actually witnessing and watching the development of electric aviation right here at this airport, right here in this region, is something that’s going to be talked about for the next 100 years of the aviation industry,” Longo gushed.
Beta’s expansion has been anticipated for years, according to city manager Jessie Baker. It’s become a cornerstone of South Burlington’s economic planning efforts and seen as a vital part of its plans for growth.
“These kinds of homegrown businesses are the kinds of businesses that I think are going to help Vermont realize our climate and population goals,” Baker said.
Beta has generously compensated some of the owners of land needed for its expansion. The company paid $8 million in 2025 to acquire Pete’s RV Center, a parcel by the airport that was appraised at $2.2 million in 2021.
Other property acquisitions left some tenants in the lurch. The Other Paper, South Burlington’s weekly community newspaper, reported last winter that two auto repair shops had been forced out after Beta acquired buildings they were renting. One, the Auto Shoppe on Gregory Drive, was a long-established small business that ultimately moved to a much smaller location in Williston.
Jason Marshall, owner of Marshall Tire Group, is holding out. His father started the company at the warehouse on Palmer Court in 1988, and Marshall has worked at the industrial tire dealer for 27 years. The owner of the building directly adjacent to his sold to Beta in April, and Marshall’s property is now nearly surrounded by land that the aviation company will eventually develop.
Beta has tried to buy Marshall’s property and even offered to help him relocate, he said. A warehouse with enough space and loading docks to support his business is hard to find in Vermont, Marshall said, but “nothing’s off the table.”
Beta’s South Burlington operations aren’t confined to its master plan, either. The company began leasing space just south of its airport-adjacent facilities at the Technology Park campus, where it plans a $4.5 million renovation.
The company also owns warehouses in nearby Williston and operates a battery production facility in St. Albans. Across Lake Champlain, Beta conducts flight tests and demonstrations at the Plattsburgh International Airport, where there are fewer FAA restrictions than at the busier Burlington airport. Last week, the company opened a paint booth for its airplanes in Plattsburgh. Beta keeps offices in Washington, D.C., and Montréal as well.
Beta’s plans for South Burlington could be approved within the next few months. City zoning regulations require at least 10 percent of developable space within the plan be set aside as “civic space” that benefits the entire community. The company is also asking the city to share the costs for the infrastructure improvements the project requires. The plan will require a new electrical substation, pump house and utilities.
At the October Development Review Board meeting, only Fisette stood up to share her concerns about Beta’s rapid expansion in the neighborhood.
Fisette, 50, formerly worked in the real estate industry and lives in the house she grew up in. She described a tight-knit neighborhood. Earlier this year, she said, a quarter of the homes on her street became transitional rental housing for Beta workers.
“I can’t see how our property values are not going to diminish because of this massive project, particularly when Beta owns so many houses on our street,” Fisette told the board. She said the homes should be rented on yearlong leases rather than the shorter-term leases now in place.
I can’t see how our property values are not going to diminish because of this massive project.
Dani Fisette
Baker, the city manager, said Beta has been proposing changes to the area to manage the traffic increase. She also noted that South Burlington has continued to add new housing to accommodate the population growth spurred by companies such as Beta.
“South Burlington aspires to be a very welcoming community, and that means being welcome to anyone who wants to come and join us,” Baker said. “I hope our neighbors are willing to welcome new neighbors to their neighborhoods as well.”
In a written response to questions, a Beta spokesperson said the company was trying to be “mindful of the impact our growth has on the neighborhood” but could not commit to long-term leases for the homes it owns on Shunpike Road.
Beta representatives have previously said just 10 percent of their growing workforce will come from out of state. At October’s meeting, Beta’s head of facilities and real estate, Alex Gagnon, offered his own experience after moving here for the job.
“There’s a housing crisis in Vermont. It’s really hard to find a house when you get here,” Gagnon said. “This housing provides employees with a place to land when they get to Vermont just to take away some of the anxiety around what is a challenging housing market.”
Fisette was unmoved. As the company’s current plans take shape, she’s worried there will be no room for her or her neighbors in Betaville. ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Spreading Its Wings | Beta Technologies’ growing electric aviation business is reshaping a section of South Burlington”
This article appears in The Tech Issue • 2026.
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