Success Story - Burlington

Information by State  Print version   jump to...   Main Street Landing Company Lake and College Street Redevelopment Project   The Nelson Block Redevelopment Project Church Street Marketplace   Burgess Electric Supply Archibald Street

Burlington, Vermont Renewal Community: 2003 Commercial Revitalization Deductions - New Projects on the Waterfront, Downtown and in the Old North End

Main Street Landing Company Lake and College Street Redevelopment Project

Once the region's lively, bustling center of transportation and manufacturing activity, Burlington's Waterfront played a major role in the early history of the City. During the last century, however, as commerce and transportation turned away from Lake Champlain to locations more convenient to roads and highways, more than 100 acres of urban waterfront land were left blighted, neglected, underutilized, and/or inappropriately utilized. Remnants of past industrial uses, such as junkyards, auto body shops, coal plants and oil storage terminals were abundant.

The City of Burlington has worked hard to convert a decaying industrial area into one of the community's most important visual, economic, residential and recreational resources. Main Street Landing Company's Lake and College Street Redevelopment Project advances those efforts.

The project site, at the corner of Lake and College Streets, once housed a large lumber mill which burned in the 1920's, leaving the location neglected and disused. Currently black top parking and an embankment retaining wall, the project will create public access, mixed-use environs, cultural amenities, and an architectural backdrop to Lake Champlain. The 113,000 sq. ft. project includes a 56-car underground parking garage, a movie house, a black box theater, a restaurant, office and retail space, sculpture gardens, and public promenades and terraces.

A series of pedestrian friendly businesses and shops staggered along Lake Street's edge will provide a mix of small retail spaces housing locally owned businesses, shops, and artist studios. The office space on the second floor will also house local businesses. The architectural style will use brick, stone, slate, and traditional local materials, accented with New England forms and geometry. A mix of exterior designs will give the look of several individual buildings like those seen on lower Battery Street. A greenhouse/solarium will create a view corridor at the corner of College & Lake.

The project abuts the Battery Park Extension to the west. A pedestrian linkage from the Extension to the Waterfront has been developed with a central overlook, stair, and elevator system whereby the public can walk from the park through the project to the waterfront. The steeply sloped embankment will be improved into a terraced usable public environment, creating approximately 18,000 square feet of new City park space.

The overall cost of the project is estimated at $12 million. The project received a 2003 CRD allocation of $10 million, which was critical to it moving forward. An estimated 500 people will be employed during project construction, and approximately 250 permanent jobs will be created - all with the opportunity for use of Renewal Community wage credits.

Groundbreaking for the project took place on July 1, 2003.

The Nelson Block Redevelopment Project
Church Street Marketplace

The ability to enhance and maintain the vitality of Burlington's downtown is a core economic development strategy for the City. One tool in that strategy - one which fights urban sprawl, preserves the City's historic heritage and helps to overcome the City's lack of vacant developable land - is rehabilitating vacant upper stories of existing buildings for both housing and commercial use. Much of this space is not functional because it is not currently accessible nor in compliance with current building codes.

The Nelson Block is located on the Church Street Marketplace, Burlington's downtown outdoor pedestrian mall. The three-story building was originally built in 1864. The first floor is rented to retail tenants. The upper floors, however, have long been vacant - the third floor since 1932 and the second floor for approximately 20 years. Each of the upper floors has 4400 sq. ft. of floor space.

The Nelson Block Redevelopment is facilitating continued commercial occupancy of the first floor as well as renovation of the upper floors for commercial and/or residential use. Redevelopment of the building is taking place in two phases. Phase I, already complete, included critically important infrastructure improvements to the building: new rubber membrane roof with new insulation, reinforcement of the wooden roof support beams and renovation of the storm drain system for the flat roof. Phase II will involve, among other things, reinforcing the floors with metal beams to meet code requirements for floor loadings - an exceptional expense. The project cost inhibited completion without tax relief, available through a 2003 CRD allocation of $144,000.

Burgess Electric Supply
Archibald Street

Burlington's Old North End was the pre-Civil War connector between Burlington's waterfront commercial district and the textile mills on the Winooski River. The residential neighborhoods of the Old North End, within walking distance of both lakefront and riverside industries, became home to most of the City's working class residents. Thriving neighborhood businesses served those residents.

With the closing of the textile mills in the 1950's, the Old North End began an extended period of decline. Homeownership and commercial activity diminished, and by the end of the 1980's, the blighted condition of the area - abandoned buildings, arson, DEA, FDIC and bank foreclosures, environmental contamination and deteriorated infrastructure - reflected the neighborhood's status as the most impoverished area in the state.

The 1990's saw the beginning of a variety of revitalization efforts in the Old North End. The City and its partners have made aggressive use of federal and state programs (including the Enterprise Community, Brownfields, and Vermont Redevelopment of Contaminated Properties programs) as well as private investment (including the Low Income Housing Tax Credit) to address environmental hazards; create new affordable housing, commercial space and nonprofit facilities; and improve public infrastructure.

Burgess Electric Supply has been a stable business fixture on Archibald Street in the Old North End for 39 years. The company sponsors neighborhood baseball and softball teams, and supports the Boys & Girls Club a few blocks away. A family owned and run electrical wholesale house, it has been a registered WBE for the last 12 years. It is the only electrical wholesale business in Burlington. The business has at times employed up to 18 people. Currently, the company has five employees, many of them long-term.

Burgess needs to rehabilitate its site to create a more pleasant business atmosphere and a more modern facility, to help ensure it remains competitive in the marketplace. The current design of the building, with a windowless façade on Archibald Street, gives the appearance of an abandoned store front. This, coupled with chain link fencing surrounding the property, creates an unwelcoming site. The current PVC shed in the back of the building is an eyesore visible from the homes on adjacent streets.

The rehabilitation project will move the PVC shed square footage to the front of the building, resulting in a façade that is closer to the street and more in line with other adjacent buildings. The exterior of the building will also be improved, and will include colors and materials that will complement a new housing development behind the building. Site improvements, including paving of the parking lot and removal of the chain link fence, will also be completed.

Burgess purchased the site two years ago after leasing it for many years. The purchase left the company without sufficient reserves to complete the renovations without CRD assistance. The company received a 2003 CRD allocation of $400,000.

For more information on using the CRD in the Burlington Renewal Community, please contact Ms. Margaret Bozik of the Burlington RC at (802) 865-7171.