Parking concerns Burlington Town Center neighbors

For the next several years, motorists in downtown will lose the convenience of parking at the Burlington Town Center garage — but new spaces elsewhere (and easier ways to find them) will pick up the slack, according to city officials.

The Town Center’s 500-space parking garage will be razed later this year, to be replaced by about 960 spaces when the entire block’s redevelopment is complete in early 2020.

In the interim, upgrades to municipal garages east and west of the mall will provide enough spaces for Queen City shoppers and commuters — even if the total number of spaces dips slightly, predicts Department of Public Works Director Chapin Spencer.

“There’s always been a couple of hundred spaces available downtown,” Spencer said.

RELATED: Burlington fights "zombie-cars" in local garages

Temporary displacement of University of Vermont Medical Center offices from downtown will reduce demand during construction, he added.

At a question-and-answer session Thursday at Burlington City Arts, some local business owners remained uneasy about the inconvenience their customers might face.

The city’s calculation of sufficient parking spaces will not reassure motorists whose frustration levels are already high, said Dave McLeod, owner of Tradewinds.

Noelle MacKay, director of the Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO), sympathized.

“We need to make sure that we communicate where the spaces are, so people know where to go,” MacKay said. “That’s going to be part of the communication stream.”

EARLIER:

• Mid-July: Settlement reached between developer, opponents
• Early December: Sinex announces his construction team

Interior deconstruction work could begin soon, Spencer said.

But any work that would impact streets, sidewalks or greenbelts, South Burlington-based PC Construction, the primary contractor, must first secure approval from City Council.

That process will likely be finalized in September, Spencer added.

“We’re finalizing plans with the city and with local businesses on how we can co-exist,” Art Klugo, PC's director of business development, told Thursday's gathering.

From permit to completion will take about 32 months, he added.

Klugo also summarized some of the proposed changes to downtown’s street- and sidewalk-level landscape:

• Bank and Cherry streets would retain two-way traffic.
• Thirty-three parking spaces would be lost on those streets during the first 20 months of construction.
• Sidewalks on Bank and Cherry streets adjacent to the project would be closed; pedestrians would encounter detours like those at the Eagles Landing project on St. Paul Street.
• Bus service at the new transit center would continue as usual.
• St. Paul and Pine streets would see an increase in truck traffic.
• Workers at the construction site would be shuttled to and from off-site parking.

Questions followed Klugo’s presentation.

The progressive deterioration of streets and sidewalks in the neighborhood worried Chuck DesLauriers, co-owner of Hotel Vermont.

Cherry Street, he said, has fallen to “third-world” standards.

Assistant Director of Public Works Norman Baldwin counseled patience.

A key part of the Burlington Town Center project is the re-opening of Pine and St. Paul streets, and a significantly more inviting streetscape on Cherry and Bank.

“We want to make it better than it is,” Baldwin said.

“It wouldn’t take much,” DesLauriers quipped.

Walk this way?

The developer’s earlier assurances that pedestrians and cyclists would have access across the east and western edges of the new city block have been put on hold.

Safety concerns outweighed good intentions, Liz Miller, an attorney for Sinex.

If those narrow corridors are opened to non-motorized traffic, it would take place after the first, 20-month stage, Miller said.

“Don has an interest, as you can imagine, in getting public access as soon as possible,” she added. “If it’s possible, he will.”

Jason Van Driesche, who leads advocacy work for Burlington nonprofit Local Motion, urged the city to include that provision in the developer’s upcoming “encumbrance” permit for impact to public rights-of-way.

MacKay declined, citing the priority that must be given to a sequence of road and utility upgrades.

"But," she added, "we will do our best."

A product of compromise

Redevelopment of Burlington’s sleepy downtown mall has been on the drawing board for several years.

The proposed 14-story residential, office and commercial building between Cherry and Bank streets has been heralded by many as a transit- and pedestrian-friendly addition to the skyline.

Opponents maintain that the structure is out of scale with the rest of Burlington, and they challenged the project in court.

A settlement earlier this month with developer Don Sinex failed to reduce the building’s size, but capped any subsequent construction by the owner at 10 stories.

Sinex, who had originally planned for 760 parking spaces, agreed to add 200 spaces, for a total of 960.

Contact Joel Banner Baird at 802-660-1843 or joelbaird@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@VTgoingUp.