Heavy machinery clanked and rattled on Burlington’s Main Street one afternoon last week, as it has every week for more than a year. Hard-hatted workers stuck shovels into a hole near the intersection with South Winooski Avenue, a popular approach to downtown. Near the Church Street intersection, a dump truck was parked behind a bright orange sign. “ROAD CLOSED,” it warned — as if anyone needed a reminder.
The work is part of the “Great Streets” initiative that will outfit the road with protected bike lanes, trees and art installations. It’s also the first step in redeveloping nearby empty, deteriorating properties to create a grander entrance to the Queen City’s downtown.
“We are trying to build a resilient city for tomorrow, and this infrastructure is paramount to getting to that promised land,” Public Works Director Chapin Spencer said.
“Sacrificing now for later is a really tall order.” Travis Walker-Hodkin
But for Main Street businesses, that future is harder to envision when there’s a work zone outside their windows — and will be, until November 2026. Nearly 100 people, most of them business owners, attended a late-March meeting in city hall to vent their frustrations and plead with city officials to help them recoup lost revenue — a request that is unlikely to be granted. Some businesses worry they won’t be around when the construction finally ends.
“Sacrificing now for later is a really tall order,” said Travis Walker-Hodkin, who owns the Café HOT. on Main Street with his brother, Allan. The restaurant has had to cut back on staff and operating hours to stay afloat.
“Ostensibly, this is to make a better city,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s hard to argue that, right now, it’s doing the opposite.”
The Main Street project has been unpredictable from the start. In 2022, voters approved a $25.9 million tax-increment financing bond to revamp six blocks of the city’s primary east-west artery, from South Union to Battery. The debt will be repaid with property tax revenue generated from the improvements. But when construction bids came in nearly twice as high as expected, officials cut the project in half. The work now extends only from South Winooski to Pine Street.
Main Street is the city’s second foray into its “Great Streets” initiative, which aims to make roads friendlier for walkers and cyclists. Neither has been smooth sailing. The first makeover, on St. Paul Street in 2019, was delayed for months when officials discovered contaminated soil and petroleum tanks underground.
What lies beneath Main Street is even more challenging. Crews have rerouted a 160-year-old sewer line buried 30 feet underground in a former ravine, the deepest dig Spencer has overseen in his 13 years on the job. Initially estimated to take seven months, that job dragged on for a year and is expected to finish up this week.
“The complexity of this cannot be overstated,” Spencer said.
Work on water lines and street finishes will continue through November, when the project will shut down for the winter. Two-way traffic will be restored until work restarts in spring 2026.
That’s a daunting prospect for business owners who are already dealing with rampant shoplifting and other public safety challenges downtown. Some tie their struggles directly to the construction.
Sales are down 50 percent at the Bern Gallery head shop since the project started, co-owner Tito Bern said, though revenue from his newly opened cannabis dispensary inside the store has helped reduce his losses. At James Beard Award-nominated restaurant Honey Road, business has taken a 20 percent dip with fewer walk-in customers, according to co-owner Cara Chigazola Tobin. A few doors down at the Café HOT., the Walker-Hodkins haven’t taken a paycheck this year.
The brothers have tried to pivot by selling frozen versions of their signature chicken-fried eggs at local grocery stores. They’ve leaned into the disruption by inviting their Instagram followers to watch crews “mutilate Main Street” from the “best seats in the house.”
Perrywinkle’s jewelry store, meantime, has put up signs all over downtown directing customers to its alternate driveway on King Street, where owner Perry Sporn has created a temporary storefront. One employee tends to the street signs full time.
“We’re just doing what we have to do to survive,” Sporn said.
City officials see the construction as a means to a greater end. The ravine sewer makes the ground above unstable, hampering plans to redevelop above it, including the so-called “Memorial Block,”a 3.81-acre area bounded by Main Street, South Winooski Avenue, College Street and South Union Street. The quadrangle is home to historic but deteriorating Memorial Auditorium, which has become a magnet for graffiti since structural weaknesses forced its closure in 2016. A city-owned parking lot, in the southwest corner of the block, is another eyesore.
The city expects to finish rerouting and filling in parts of the ravine this week. In the short term, that will allow the nonprofit Champlain Housing Trust to continue construction on the Post Apartments, a five-story affordable housing complex on South Winooski Avenue. Longer term, it means the ravine won’t be a hindrance to Eric Farrell and Joe Larkin, two local businessmen who are trying to negotiate a partnership with the city to redevelop much of the Memorial Block. They haven’t formally announced their plans, but a recent property appraisal suggests they’re considering a hotel, public gathering spaces and more than 100 housing units.
The fate of the auditorium is unclear, but the buildings fronting College Street — Fletcher Free Library and the College Street Congregational Church — would remain. A predevelopment agreement with the city, however, says the fire department would have to vacate its historic station on South Winooski Avenue. The building, which needs millions of dollars’ worth of work, would be repurposed as public space or used by an adjacent hotel, the agreement says, though the terms could change if and when the partnership is made official.
Late last month, the Burlington City Council signed a $152,000 contract with a Massachusetts firm to scout out space for a new public safety facility to house not just downtown firefighters but the police force, whose North Avenue headquarters needs $15 million in repairs.
Samantha Dunn, Farrell and Larkin’s development consultant, was careful not to overpromise this early in the process. But she’s excited about the possibilities: Before the consulting gig, Dunn worked for the city’s Community and Economic Development Office, where she managed large projects — including the Memorial Block.
“Hopefully this is at least moving us closer to something happening,” she said. “I know folks are frustrated, but I think it’s gonna be worth it.”
Business owners are growing impatient. At the March meeting, some urged officials to open the street for one-way traffic; others suggested the city should compensate them for their losses.
The answer, on both accounts, was a resounding no. Creating a travel lane would cost $500,000 and push construction into 2027, officials said. And with a possible $8 million revenue gap in next year’s municipal budget, the city has no cash to spare.
Alex Leopold, who plans to open Bar Renée two doors down from the Café HOT. this month, is adjusting his expected revenues based on the city’s response. Instead of hiring an additional employee, he’ll likely end up behind the bar more than he originally planned.
“I have to just double down. I knew I was getting into this situation,” Leopold said. “I’m trying to be optimistic.”
The city has taken some steps to support businesses, such as buying advertising, including in Seven Days and on Front Porch Forum. The social media company is separately donating 10 weeks of free ads to Main Street businesses. Love Burlington, the marketing arm of the city’s Business and Workforce Development department, is creating Instagram reels and newsletters that highlight businesses in the thick of the roadwork. Staff have painted wayfinding signs on the sidewalk and purchased sandwich board signs that proclaim, “Main Street Businesses Are Open!” State grants totaling $50,000 are helping cover the marketing efforts.
The city is also paying $70,000 a year to subsidize parking rates at a garage on South Winooski Avenue, and, starting April 16, will offer two hours of free parking downtown on Wednesdays and Thursdays for four weeks. The TIF bond is covering the cost of connecting businesses to the new utility lines, saving property owners thousands of dollars.
“We’re digging deep to try to find new approaches,” said Spencer, the public works director. “If we’re missing something, I’m more than happy to hear it.”
Walker-Hodkin at the Café HOT. said the city’s solutions are the bare minimum and would make sense for a shorter-term project, not one that is taking three years.
“I really do believe everyone is doing their actual best, but we’ve received no real meaningful support from the city,” he said. “All we’ve been asked is to just keep being patient.”
Back on Main Street, a worker pushed a machine to level a stretch of gravelly roadway near the intersection with South Winooski. Another, holding a traffic control sign, spoke to a curious driver. Just inside the chain-link fence that surrounds the worksite was one of the city’s sandwich board signs. Someone had propped it up against a portable toilet.
Correction, April 9, 2025: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Front Porch Forum as a nonprofit. The company is a for-profit Vermont Public Benefit Corporation.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Main Concern | A yearslong street reconstruction project is proving painful to downtown Burlington businesses”
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