 Hello and welcome to the Burlington mayor's show for the month of December at the end of 2022. Thanks for joining us It's been a little while since we've had one of these shows and I'm excited to come and kind of do a little bit of a year of reflection In particular, we're gonna talk about some of the major projects that we've been Moving forward and I've hit major milestones in 2022. It's it's been a satisfying year in that way I'm joined today by The communications director for for the mayor's office for city of Burlington Samantha Sheehan and we're gonna kind of tag-team this Samantha's got some some questions and we also would be happy to take your questions I Say that and then I look around and I don't see a phone. I assume we can still take Take take take questions. I'm looking at the Town meeting TV folks and I think I think we can take your your calls if we can we'll get the phone number up but Well, we're gonna dive in and we'll see what happens with that so Samantha, where should we start so I think we should start with a Project that's not complete, but I think folks are really happy to see activity and progress on and that is the city place project Yes to say it's not complete is Is certainly accurate. It's only it looks a little bit more Worked on then that photo there on the left side of the screen, which was the day Really for the first the day that after four years of construction completely being stopped since the demolition ended in 2018 it started up again, and that is a picture of the Three local partners as well as one of their top lieutenants Patrick O'Brien the three partners are Dave Farrington Al Seneca on Scott Ireland and that's me in there as well and The project that project is underway again, and if you go to the site right now, there's some a lot of heavy equipment on the site and It is They are preparing for the first concrete it's possible. I didn't check it on it today, so they know they were building forms and basically the plan is to work through the winter and start pouring concrete and They are still working on the financing for some of the for each of the three buildings that they're planning on building there that's on the right you can see a Image of what one of the buildings will look like if people are Interested in seeing more than they go to the city place website, and they've got they got videos and renderings But I mean this is this is a big step forward So, you know, this is a project that we have been pursuing Really as a city for a decade in some ways and that we laid out there in the the plan BTV planning document a decade ago that we wanted to see this This the former mall returned to being a mixed-use neighborhood as it was for for many years And but hasn't been since it was torn down in the 60s. We want to get back the public streets There's the pretend, you know, this is an opportunity for us probably to take the single Biggest step we could take in any one project towards addressing the housing crisis with more than 400 homes planned for the site including You know over 85 permanently affordable homes When this project is done it already this site is one of the biggest property tax payers in the city when this is done It will be by far the biggest property tax paying block of any block in the city for both this the municipal taxes as well as the education tax and It does feel like after some real trials and challenges in this project is on its way And this represents some really significant investment Not just by the partners here But also in terms of building new public infrastructure Yes, exactly right. So the the the project will result in the Pine Street and St. Paul Street these streets that were kind of cut off and severed in the 1960s During urban renewal. We are getting those street connections back And we are also Going to be building up to Another as many as seven Rebuilt blocks of infrastructure in the surrounding blocks. We just got I think we're we're expecting here very soon on whether We are successful at securing some federal funds through the new infrastructure bills that are out there that would be in addition to the Local funds generated by the tax increment financing. So the future taxes that this project will pay Can be kind of Banked on now we can borrow against them and and make public infrastructure improvements based on those taxes And it's you know, I think that what people should have in mind are the two blocks of the newly rebuilt St. Paul Street really Attractive Appealing public spaces created by you know that kind of public investment We're gonna have that on up to nine blocks when this project is done and staying on the theme of Infrastructure projects This one might be lesser known But a really important Long overdue investment for the folks in this neighborhood in Franklin Square. So this is one of these really Generational projects. It's been in the works for about 45 years here at Franklin Square. Yeah, that's right So the Franklin Square is a Burlington Housing Authority property where That was built. Yeah, 45 years ago, and I guess it was always Unclear exactly where the different responsibilities lay with respect to the the public infrastructure the streets that are rounding the around the property and so for a long time there was disagreements between the city and In the Housing Authority over over what should happen and as a result very little happened and you really saw the streets and sidewalks and Some lighting and other I think some water infrastructure fallen to disrepair Chapin Spencer working with so Chapin Spencer our public works director working with Ali Jang the Ward 8 City Councilor Were able to work with the Housing Authority and really put all just address all of these These concerns and this uncertainty there had been a tentative agreement apparently for some years ago that that had never been followed through on We got the agreement done in about six hundred thousand dollars of infrastructure investment happened in 2022 and that That that that section of town which does have some of our lower income residents of the communities in much better shape than it was at the beginning of the year and with an opportunity to Enjoy this project coming up just this weekend You want to talk about the Moran frame in in October we celebrated or sorry in November We celebrated the end of phase one and the opening of the new Moran frame Yeah, this is this is also pretty exciting and yes, so here's That's it. I You can see on the screen now. There's there's the Power plant when it was I think still operating. I'm not sure exactly the date on that but sometime It was built in the in the 50s and it operated until the mid 80s And then it has been shut down ever since and the city's been trying to figure out what to do with it ever since there's You know, I'm sure some of the what viewers know been a series of different proposals for the building that never quite worked out What we move forward with starting in 2020 with the full support of the city council was using six million dollars of tax increment financing dollars that really their economic development dollars that really need to be used on the waterfront and we were able to take down the bricks and really clean up the site as you can see there on the left image and You know Samantha what I Have been saying to folks of late is I think ever just about everyone. I've talked to you agrees that this is a big improvement I mean you that picture on the right isn't what the Moran plant looked like in recent years I've been completely overgrown and the windows were broken and it was really falling apart It really becomes some kind of derelict eyesore on the on the lakefront Pretty much everyone agrees that we a this is a big improvement what we have on the left But I do sense that a lot of people don't really get it yet. It's a little unusual to just see this iron works Shooting up out of a park. I think What my hope is and belief is is that over the course of 2023 people are gonna start to get it a lot more as we start using the site for Events for recreation for our food for arts There's a there is a first example of that coming up on December 31st during our highlight celebration There is going to be an exhibit down there Call it's got a fun name. Let me see lost objects Lost objects lost objects from the subsurface experience. Yeah, there you go I thought it was a little more than just lost objects from the subsurface So you can go down there between 5 and 9 p.m. During highlight on On New Year's Eve and there's gonna be some lights and various art pieces there and there's this is the first of a series of Events that are gonna take place over the course of really the first half into the summer of 2023 We're gonna be kind of experimenting with it as we also develop plans for a second phase that will Really enhance our ability to use the area and and there's a lot of work already going on on the second phase It's pretty exciting and I'm pretty optimistic in 2023. We'll be able to announce Further where we're headed with this this new This new resource when we built it It was built with the idea that we were creating this framework that could be added to over time And I think we're gonna try to follow up on on that right right away One of my favorite fun facts about the Marianne frame project is that This was a hundred-day commitment when you were first elected We made that go-no-go decision on day I think we slipped into day 101 which was to not go forward with With the previous concept which I I was sure it was quite expensive had a lot of risk and uncertainty involved in it It took us a little while longer to figure out what we would get done. But yes, I do feel I'm excited that we've been able to bring some resolution to this Big issue that has been hanging out there for for decades. It's definitely been one of my you know when I That was a campaign promise that we'd figured out in the first hundred I had this larger kind of campaign theme, which was that we would get stuck-installed projects moving and You know as we go through here this 2022 has definitely been a year in which some projects that had been You know In suspension in one form or another there were a challenge in one for another In 2022 not just Marianne. We've had some progress with some others. They've been waiting for a long time Like the next one on our list, which is the Shelburne roundabout Yes Shelburne roundabout Apparently, you know a little less high high profile than then some some others But this is it's really been a problematic intersection for a long time. I think it first went on to the state's high crash list back right around the turn of the century and Really you had a very awkward Rotary there Before this I would I live not too far from this intersection and you know very frequently when you come by this intersection You'd see people navigating at the wrong way this roundabout really does away with that and makes it It's a seven point seven million dollar investment all of it state and I guess actually all federal highway funds and If you haven't been there yet, you should check it out. It's I think it's pretty intuitive for most people driving through a lot of it is someone on you usual feature to see in this part of The only one in Chittenden County the first one in Chittenden County apparently this is I think 20 some odd others in the rest of Vermont, but this first in Chittenden County and It it is much safer there will be many less fewer crashes here when there are crashes and rotaries they tend to be low speed not very dangerous crashes and This rotor was built in such a way that there's good pedestrian infrastructure and bike infrastructure as well It's it's a big improvement And we haven't really talked about it in the other projects. We've discussed But in those and here in the Shelburne roundabout this included some really significant storm water and wastewater investment as well Yeah, that's right The there you can't really you can't see it if you go there, but there is an enormous Underground tank when we were first it's in the early stages of construction It kind of looked like we're building a swimming pool or something because it really has this pool length underground concrete tank that can hold an enormous volume of water during big storm events This is sort of an interesting thing that people often misunderstand almost every time we do a major public infrastructure project Or you see a new building built in Burlington When we do construction today, we really think about storm water in a way that people didn't used to we think about protecting the lake and almost Always there is some kind of New infrastructure that that helps with our storm events that slows down How quickly water that falls on the roof of a building or a roadway enters into the storm system Want during it during a storm it really reduces the storm surge And that's really the problem that we have here in Burlington is that we have these combined wastewater storm water pipes that that get overwhelmed in a big storm and Really can lead in a few times a year to these overflow events Where some untreated mixed storm water and wastewater flow flows into the lake Projects like this project city place as well make that less likely to happen because Because we create these ability to sort of hold back water during the storm events and reduce that storm surge Yeah, the the engineering and the design and planning that went to the Shelburne Road roundabout are all impressive including over 7,000 bulbs planted and There will be Beginning early next year a process for public art under the new newly instituted 1% for public arts It's it's gonna be quite a nice little gateway to the city when those bulbs are blooming and when we get some a nice Significant piece of public art in the middle of that. Yep Okay, I've lost track of where I am in my notes. All right. I think maybe the next is a Champlain Parkway So the Champlain Parkway Also moved forward in 2022 after in this case a 34 year hiatus between when the federal courts shut down the project in One of us 34 years ago I'm 35 so that's impressive to me The And you know, it's easy to miss if you don't get kind of down in the You know west of Pine Street, you might not know this a massive construction site under underway right now multiple blocks of new Roadway has been cleared and and some store and here too Stormwaters definitely one of the big themes a lot of new storm water improvements related to the Parkway have been installed We are still waiting for the final go-ahead from a federal judge that will happen we hope and are pretty optimistic about in the spring of next year and This is a project too It's I think one that people have been talking about for so long and people actually Get surprised by some of some of the details the what the image that people see here is one of the intersections on Pine Street Where you can get an example there how Pedestrian safety is going to be significantly improved by these sort of bump-outs at the intersections Where the road is narrowed and the sort of raised intersections that's going to slow down car traffic We will also the new section of roadway will connect to a kind of road to nowhere that goes under One you know from the extension of 189 To the street grid at home Avenue and Flynn and Sears and then Lakeside Avenue that that's where the work is happening currently and When it is done there will be some real benefits to getting trucks out of neighborhoods that Currently on trucks on their way down to that industrial area on Flynn Avenue have to go through these sort of small residential neighborhoods They won't have to do that anymore and there also be you can get a sense for it in that photo actually there's the left the kind of upper Left side of the screen you can see the multi-use path that will be a significant improvement for bikers and and pedestrians on the on the west side of Pine Street, so You know it's got some really positive features to it. I also just think it is great to get this resolved and done I definitely think these projects we have to keep working on year after year talking about year after year taking staff time taking public attention it's it's really a problem and It's especially a problem when we know the challenges that we face in the decades ahead our Infrastructure challenges with our aging infrastructure. It's we adjusting to an electrified Society we're gonna have to do a lot of a lot of renewable installations and Electric infrastructure is gonna need to be built. We need to build a lot more housing We need to get these projects resolved and keep keep moving forward And I do think that's gonna require some systemic changes going forward because it's it's too hard to get projects like this done Way too hard. I mean it's 34 years since the construction stopped, but Almost 60 years or maybe even over 60 years since the project started. Yeah, that's right Even before before that shutdown there had been a long history leading up until then I really think this is one of the most significant issues this country has to confront in the years ahead is how do we get away from kind of Having the kind of vetocracy that we have in many cases now We're a very small number of individuals or one person even can hold back community progress When we have so many important things for the public to do we We need to find a way to be able to make these decisions and get them done that works very differently than it does today absolutely And then in a totally different part of the city we also celebrated the opening of Of a long-awaited not not 34 year long-awaited, but a long-awaited improvement up on the UVM campus Yeah, people Well, no university place it cuts through the UVM campus. It's actually a city-owned street And this is a collaboration where UVM really Basically this collaboration came about in part people remember when we did the big infrastructure push in 2016 UVM came to the table with Champlain College with voluntary contributions to that infrastructure effort They put millions of dollars in really an unprecedented level of infrastructure investment by UVM and Champlain College and As part of that agreement we agreed that this would be one of the priority projects in the in the coming years And you can see it's a really nice upgrade of University Place the bike infrastructure now be much better The again, they're sort of raised intersections that are attractive and that will keep vehicles feed speed slow It's become a one-way street now There it's been designed in such a way that you can have food trucks In a sort of central section there always there always were some food trucks there But they there's now the proper infrastructure for it. It's it's a really nice enhancement of the center of the UVM campus and That other photo showed the the groundbreaking we had with pressing Caramela. It was a it was a nice nice nice Collaboration and a nice accomplishment together and another Roughly quarter million there in ARPA funds for stormwater investment five minutes. Wow Okay with five minutes left We have Amtrak and then the airport which one do you want to do well quickly? Hopefully people have heard for the first time in About 70 years. We now have Train service coming to downtown Burlington once again That's a picture of me with my two daughters as we boarded the train to head down to New York City for weekend we were all worked great we had great fall views and There's good Wi-Fi on the train and it's spacious and I thought it's a It's a very positive experience. I'm glad we have it back and the train leaves every day at 10 10 a.m. And you can go check out, you know, go to the Amtrak website if you're looking for tickets and On the transportation theme big year at the Burlington International Airport Yes, so this is there are two big projects one just finished construction One is mid-construction this one. So on the right there you see the project that's done which is recall. It's It's the we call it the Tip which stands for what terminal integration project and it is a 19 million dollar project It's all paid for by the federal government really funds that Senator Leahy Secured to make this substantial Addition to the airport. This has immediate positive impacts on the airport. It's a much more streamlined experience now going through security it There's also all new equipment in there, and it's it's working quite it's working great I was just through there recently It also is built in such a way that future expansion will build off of off of that terminal and It's really a very forward-looking project. I think well-positioned the airport for decades to come that when you're at the kind of Edge of that building the tip as we're just looking at you can kind of look across the airfield and See this which is the first phase of what will ultimately be a 350,000 square foot huge building Manufacturing building owned by beta industries where they Very soon we'll start fabricating new electric airplanes as they continue to Pioneer and innovate in just a remarkable way. We worked very hard You know, we've done a number of agreements with beta Over the last I don't know five years or so as they've been growing It was a real priority of mine to keep them at the Burlington international airport as they pursued this really kind of remarkable vision and That building is now part of a 75-year land lease that We certainly hope means that they will continue to grow and expand here in Burlington for for many years to come and You know if they do that it's gonna have a real positive impact on this Regions economy there there will be hundreds of jobs directly in that building and we know that every new tech job creates something like seven Additional jobs in the immediate area. So this is this is really one of the most exciting things that's happening in the Greeter Vermont economy right now Chittany County economy And it's awesome that the airport's been able to be a big part of that in 2022. It's really exciting I think they're at already over 400 employees with hundreds more to Occupy that manufacturing facility Yeah, it's sorry. It's hard to keep up with they've been on such a hiring Sprint for for years now and and hoping that facility's gonna Propel that even further so Whoo, I think we are just about out of time. Thank you all for for tuning in tonight Samantha Thank you. It was fun to do that together We will be back in the new year with more Burlington mayor shows we try to do these basically every every month. Thank you for for tuning in tonight Happy holidays. Have a great new year, and we'll see you in 2023