local news

At Monday’s Burlington City Council meeting, councilors unanimously voted to approve a new plan for the CityPlace project.While it was approved unanimously, several city councilors, such as Ali Dieng, Melo Grant, and Zoraya Hightower, expressed their frustrations to project leaders by saying they felt there had been a lack of transparency throughout the process.They also feel project leaders have not engaged with the community enough before forming their proposal.However, they all ultimately voted to approve it because they said they understood the difficulties of getting a construction project like this off the ground.They also say anything is better than just the pit being there.This new development agreement includes a minimum of 350 residential units.Seventy of which would be guaranteed to be affordable housing.There’s also a maximum of 350 hotel rooms.The city is now working with Giri Group on the project, after their former partner Champlain Housing Trust has shifted their focus to the Cambrian Rise Development, because of high construction costs.The new developers plan to bring two hotels to CityPlace.They promise they can build new units without a local or federal subsidy.Mayor Miro Weinberger said this is a 30% increase in housing units from when the City Council approved the original plan in 2018. The original amount of units was 272.Weinberger also said CityPlace will become the 2nd largest housing project in the state’s history.”After years of hard work, adversity, and perseverance, we can finally say with confidence that this daring and worthy effort to reshape our downtown,” Weinberger said.Weinberger also said that CityPlace will become one of the tallest building structures in the state.The South Tower is expected to be completed by next year.The North Tower is slated for 2026.