Downtown mall plans ready for prime time
- Burlington Town Center owner Don Sinex has completed plans for redevelopment of the mall.
- The public will have another opportunity to comment on the plans, and Sinex may make more changes.
- Sinex and the city have yet to conclude a development agreement as more review of plans is required.
- Sinex's attorney in Burlington is looking into whether an Act 250 review will be required.
Imagine walking into the Burlington Town Center mall about where Starbucks is now and having a view all the way back to Macy's. Light floods in from glass walls, and "arcades" cut through at St. Paul and at Pine streets.
That's part of the vision Sherida Paulsen and William Fellows, principals at the New York architectural firm PKSB Architects, laid out Wednesday for the Burlington Free Press. Tuesday night, the architects presented the plans in a public meeting at Burlington City Hall.
The mall's new owner, Don Sinex of Devonwood Investors, LLC in New York, told the Free Press the plans from PKSB reflect input from about 1,000 Burlington residents with some 4,000 recommendations.
"We unveiled what we thought we heard the public tell us in January and again in February," Sinex said.
One of the most significant results of that public input was Sinex's decision to drop a hotel and convention center from plans for the redeveloped mall — a $200 million project. Sinex said public support for including those features in the mall ran from lukewarm to nonexistent. The mall still would include new housing and office space, more room for retail, and a public park that would cover some 90,000 square feet on the roof of the mall.
"We think the design is both bold and invigorating," Sinex said. "I know from a financial point of view we'll refresh, revitalize and strengthen the downtown. We can do without the hotel."
Still early
The project remains in the early planning process and will be subject to extensive review, David E. White, the city's director of the Department of Planning and Zoning, said Wednesday.
Brian Dunkiel, local legal counsel for Sinex, is exploring whether a broader, statewide environmental review — an Act 250 permit — would be necessary. Dunkiel said Sinex's team is working closely with state regulators.
Peter Owens, director of the city's Community and Economic Development Office, said the preliminary designs showed promise and hewed closely to planning guidelines for increased height, mass and connectivity in the downtown, reached through broad consensus in PlanBTV.
Earlier coverage:
The public engagement process of the past few months, coupled with a technical review by an "all-star team" of experts hired by the city at Sinex's expense, "doesn't replace the normal review process, but it's designed to make that process easier," Owens said.
"The current designs show that the developer listened a lot to the public and to the concerns of the city," Owens added. "We've really felt that he's not treating this like another line-item in a portfolio of national properties."
A major improvement, he said, would be the restoration of passages between Cherry and Bank streets that were blocked three decades ago when the mall was built.
New designs show street-level pedestrian arcades that would cross the mall at St. Paul and Pine streets, and the passage of cars and bicycles beneath Pine Street between Cherry and Bank streets.
But, Owens added, the Sinex team and the city haven't yet nailed down a financial agreement.
"We haven't formalized what he's expecting from the city, and what the city's expecting from him," he said.
A 14-story tower
Sinex told the Free Press in February that he has never been through such an extensive public planning process as he is experiencing in Burlington for his proposed $200 million makeover of the Burlington Town Center mall. But, he added, he embraces the process.
Sherida Paulsen of PKSB said that after re-establishing the north-south connections between Bank and Cherry streets, the second most important aspect of the project in the minds of Burlington residents was housing.
Sinex has set aside 300,000 square feet for housing, which would be built in a tower rising 14 stories if the city agrees to the zoning change that would be required.
When the planning process for the redevelopment of the mall began, there was "great concern and anxiety" about building what would be the tallest structure in downtown Burlington, PKSB's Williams Fellows remembered. But Fellows said he is now feeling a "growing consensus" that what is being proposed is acceptable.
Paulsen said the design takes into account the "context" of shorter buildings surrounding the mall, and uses setbacks to get to the 14-story tower, rather than bringing the structure next to the street.
Current zoning rules limit downtown building height to 65 feet, with so-called "bonuses" available that could raise the height to as much as 105 feet. The 14-story building proposed in the redevelopment plan would be 150 feet high.
Sinex said the tower is necessary because he is devoting so much space to the public park for the roof of the mall. He said the alternative would be an unattractive box built within current height restrictions.
"When they built the mall 40 years ago, they built a rectangular box in the middle of the city 20 feet high," Sinex said. "If we built a box 65 or 70 feet high, it would be a monster and wouldn't serve the public."
Instead, Sinex said, he is asking the city and its residents to "be bold" and embrace a new vision for the mall.
"Let's do something good here — but we've got to be able to get some revenue off the site to get a return on $200 million or it can't be done," Sinex said. "Let's be practical."
Room for Target, if needed
The proposed design also allows room for a Target, should Sinex be successful in convincing the retailer to come to Vermont. Target topped the list of tenants members of the public said they wanted to see in the mall. Target builds stores as small as 40,000 square feet, Sherida Paulsen said, which could be accommodated once the parking garage goes underground, as called for in the redevelopment plans.
The public embraced the underground parking.
"Replacing the parking above grade was a non-starter," she said. "Nobody wants to see parking on the street."
Paulsen is the former chairwoman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in New York and has extensive experience incorporating public input into development projects.
"When Don bought the site and said, 'There's a public process,' I said, 'No problem, we know how to do this,' " Paulsen said.
A lot of projects go through a public process but go nowhere, William Fellows said. But he is anticipating success for the Burlington Town Center project.
"The assurance of success is higher when all parties have a vested interest and want to see something happen," Paulsen said. "In this case this property has been left languishing for so long everybody wants to see something happen."
Contact Dan D'Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DanDambrosioVT. Contact Joel Banner Baird at 802-660-1843 or joelbaird@FreePressMedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/vtgoingup.
