This commentary is by Devin Colman. He is a board member of Preservation Burlington and the director of the UVM historic preservation program (though these are his own views and are not endorsed by the university.)
As a longtime advocate for the adaptive reuse of the former Catholic cathedral property in downtown Burlington, I have been told for years that the property would be better suited for affordable housing, and therefore, the cathedral should be demolished and its landscaped grounds clearcut.
However, there are many properties in the downtown core where affordable housing can and should be built, such as the site of the former Walgreens, the parking lots behind the old Bove’s Restaurant, and the former Simon’s Gas Station. All these sites have been vacant and undeveloped for years, and no affordable housing has been built on them. Why? Because such projects do not pencil out for developers given today’s interest rates and the cost of building materials and labor.
Last year the City Place project, right across the street from the cathedral property, had to eliminate 70 housing units from its plans and replace them with 350 hotel rooms because that was, according to the developers, the only means of making the project financially viable.
Hoping and wishing for affordable housing construction is not a sound urban planning policy and will not result in the creation of desperately needed housing units. If the Cathedral is demolished, there is no plan for redevelopment of the site. Nothing.
The permitted project allows for the removal of the building and parking lot and reseeding the site with grass. But it does not have to be this way. It will cost an estimated $400,000 to demolish the existing cathedral building. Wouldn’t that money be better spent on the construction of housing units on the site?
Preservation Burlington has a preliminary plan that shows how to construct a new building in the existing parking lot on the cathedral property, while retaining the cathedral building and opening the landscaped grounds for public enjoyment. A new five-story building would provide below-grade parking, ground-level retail and 45 to 50 one-bedroom apartments on the upper stories.
The rehabilitated cathedral adds 14,000 square feet to the project, for use as support services for the new housing or a stand-alone use. This is a viable and achievable approach to urban infill development that can provide the best of both worlds: housing units downtown, adaptive reuse of an architecturally and historically significant building and the conservation of an urban forest for public benefit. Surely, we can all get behind such an idea.
I invite the Catholic Diocese, the affordable housing development community and the city of Burlington to sit down with Preservation Burlington and figure out how to make this plan a reality.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Devin Colman: A proposal for the future of the Burlington cathedral property.