Burlington’s CityPlace project could break ground as soon as late April, according to developers of the long-embattled venture.
The project — which has left a bare patch downtown that locals affectionately call “the pit” — is waiting on an appraisal of the property to take place later this month, said Don Sinex, CityPlace’s lead developer.
Once that appraisal is complete, phase one of the project can get approval for a $130 million loan, allowing construction to begin in late April or early May, Sinex said.
The construction plans for phase one call for three new buildings and a parking area on the city block.
Also this spring, Sinex said the developers plan to file for zoning permits to approve the project’s second phase, a redesign of the former Burlington mall from Church Street to what is now L.L. Bean.
“I don’t see anything that could disrupt that schedule at this point,” Sinex recently told a Zoom meeting for residents of Burlington’s Hill Section. “But one never knows, of course. This project has had its ups and downs over the years.”
That history of ups and down began in 2014 when Sinex and Mayor Miro Weinberger pitched CityPlace as a chance to revamp the withering Burlington mall.
Yet their vision has not panned out so far. Mired by financing and legal challenges, the project has not seen any work completed since the 2017 demolition of a city block between Cherry and Bank streets.
After handing over the project to a massive real estate investment firm in 2019, Sinex regained control of CityPlace the following year and brought on three local investors to see the project through.
Yet the quartet almost immediately faced a lawsuit from city officials, which claimed the project’s hibernation went against an agreement Sinex made with the city. The two groups settled in February 2021 with the condition that Sinex and company pay for the reconnection of St. Paul and Pine streets, two north-south thoroughfares that were bisected by the former mall, even if the project flops.
The mall’s decline, meanwhile, has continued amid the project’s stasis. Starbucks, the former mall’s last tenant along Church Street, left in late 2021, and the L.L. Bean store plans to relocate to Williston this summer.
At the former mall’s western terminus, in a space that used to be a Macy’s, Burlington High School has set up shop on a temporary basis after toxic chemicals were found at the school’s old campus.
Despite the years of failed attempts, Sinex told residents he plans to finish what he’s started.
“I’ve had a long history with this project,” he said at the meeting last week. “I’m either stupid or stubborn. Or maybe both.”
