by Paul Bean

The Burlington City Council voted to approve an amended development agreement for the downtown CityPlace project on Monday February 12, making room for a second hotel and reducing the number of housing units.

In a unanimous decision, the council voted to approve the amendment for the CityPlace project after the previous developer hit the road in 2018, leaving a giant pit in the middle of prime downtown Burlington real estate for the larger portion of the past six years. 

Monday night’s decision did not come without push back from Progressive city councilors who were unhappy about the amending due to the decrease of residential units from 420 to 350. The decrease in residential units was made in order to allow for more hotel rooms, increasing the number of rooms from 140 to 350.

“I’m not a fan of the loss of 75 units,” said City Councilor Gene Bergman. “That’s a concern at least that I’ve got, but there are benefits for there being the hotel, not the least of which is the gross receipts tax, not the least of which is having people come down.”

70 of the 350 housing units will be permanently affordable, per Burlington zoning requirements. 

“I mean I obviously don’t love the amendment, but I’m obviously supportive of the agreement as a whole,” City Councilor Zora Hightower told the developers. “I know that many of my constituents do feel very blind sided, because even though you’ve been very transparent with the administration, this was not released to the public until the end of last week.”

Hightower’s motion to delay the voting on this amendment until the second meeting in February was not supported by her colleagues.

“I am supportive of the change,” said Councilor Joe McGee, “I recognize this is a hard environment to get anything done in from a construction standpoint… it’s a relief to many of us who didn’t want to look at a dirt pit for another several years.”

It was celebration time for Mayor Miro Weinberger:

“What is different tonight, as we engage in this project again, than at any previous time over the last decade when we have talked about this development agreement, is that after years of hard work, adversity, and perseverance, we can finally say with confidence that this daring and worthy effort to reshape our downtown will succeed.”

The CityPlace go-ahead follows the January 29 council meeting, where the imminent “Great Streets” transformation of Main Street & Downtown was announced. Crews broke ground February 5.