Retail parcel has been vacant for years
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
The City of Burlington Community Development Authority on Tuesday tentatively agreed to draft a proposal to sell property for an as-yet-undetermined downtown retail development to the Burlington Core Upgrades II, LLC.
While an option will remain open for other potential buyers, the CDA gave permission for the offer to stand while the city looked for other possible buyers.
The site was once earmarked for a commercial and professional building at the corner of Chestnut and Dodge streets, adjacent to the city’s parking structure. However that proposal withered for lack tenants during the recession in the final years of the last decade.
The land is appraised at $70,000, which is the offer that Tom Stelling and Bill Stone – the heads of the Core Group – made to the city.
City Attorney John Bjelajac said he would draft the agreement with leeway for the offer to stand unless another buyer came into the picture for a period of time – somewhere between 90 days and six months.
In the meantime, Mayor Bob Miller said the city would move forward with grading the land, planting grass and making small beautification changes once winter had passed.
The move forward represents the first real action with the property in two years. Back in 2014, the Common Council balked at the idea of selling the land for $1 to the Core Group.
As Stelling pointed out Tuesday night, improvements would already be made on the land had that happened.
“If we had owned the property, there would have been grass growing there for two years,” Stelling said.
The land has remained vacant in spite of the other two parts of the downtown redevelopment – the Hampton Inn and the parking structure – having been long finished.
How the land will be developed remains to be seen. At the meeting Tuesday, the consensus seemed to be leaning toward commercial – not residential, which has been raised in the past, and argued against for a number of reasons, including parking issues.
But most appeared to agree that getting a higher price for the land might not result in the best development for the city.
CDA member Jack Eckola said, “I don’t know if you’ll get a better group than these guys.” He also said he trusted the members of the Core Upgrades group and that they are “here” as opposed to representing out-of-town interests.
Bjelajac reassured authority members that the proposal could be drawn up to protect the city’s interests.
“Price won’t necessarily be the determining factor,” he said.
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