The developers of Burlington’s downtown mall won’t say when construction on the much-delayed project will begin, but sought to reassure city councilors Monday night that they are making progress.
The $235 million dollar redevelopment has been stalled and is months behind schedule. Earlier this year, international developer Brookfield Properties, the managing partner in the project, took over day-to-day operations from developer Don Sinex.
Monday night’s meeting was the first time since January that Brookfield representatives gave a public update.
Will Voegele, a senior vice-president of development at Brookfield, told the city council they’ve made “significant progress,” including having a fully executed term sheet for financing and “100 percent complete construction documents out to bid.”
Voegele also said they’ve addressed all the “key milestones” for the University of Vermont Medical Center, one of the core tenants for the redeveloped mall.
But Voegle would not give any specific construction timelines.
“What we don’t want to do is give you conjecture,” Voegele said. “I can just say that nothing has changed in terms of our motivation to get the project under construction.”
Voegele also told the council that the scope of the project hadn’t changed and the construction bids that are out are for the project.
Besides pressing for specifics on a timeline, several councilors expressed frustration that it had been months since Brookfield appeared before the council.
“Our constituents want to know what’s happening and we repeatedly get asked for information and we often don’t have a whole lot of information to share,” said City Councilor Brian Pine. “So if you sense a little bit of frustration from the council, it’s because we’re expressing what the people are expressing to us.”
Voegele told councilors he took their concerns seriously and would work to provide more information and contact going forward, including meeting individually with all 12 councilors.
