New downtown building provides homes for workers, veterans and people exiting homelessness
Downtown Burlington has gained 38 new affordable apartments after the completion of a five‑storey development on South Winooski Avenue that also includes space for community organisations previously located on the site. The project, led by Champlain Housing Trust with codeveloper Evernorth, will house 46 residents, including veterans and households moving directly off the streets.
Officials and volunteers gathered Friday to mark the opening, with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.) among those who helped celebrate the new complex. The ground floor will be home to the Chittenden County Community Justice Center and VFW Post 782, organisations that occupied the building that was demolished to make way for the new development.
The new residents are largely people who already work inside or near Burlington, Champlain Housing Trust CEO Michael Monte said. They include retail and service workers at City Market, Santiago’s and Leunig’s Bistro; employees at restaurants such as McDonald’s and Chili’s just outside the city; and people employed by nonprofits, banks or in labouring jobs.
“From what I can tell, the people we are housing, the people we serve, are often the ones who serve our community in return,”
Monte said a staff member wrote that note to him, and he described it as emblematic of the project’s purpose. “This is what this project is about,” he added.
Costs, contamination and timelines
The development cost roughly $24 million, a figure driven in large part by the expense of remediating contaminated soil on the property. The site had been considered a brownfield, and Champlain Housing Trust reported spending seven times more on soil remediation and development costs than it did on its 40‑apartment Cambrian Rise development in Burlington’s north end.
Those remediation and development costs, a trust spokesperson said, would likely have discouraged a private developer from taking on the site without nonprofit involvement and public support. The VFW first approached Champlain Housing Trust about the project five years ago, and construction began two years ago.
- Units: 38 affordable apartments
- Residents moving in: 46 people
- Veterans: 4 residents
- Households moving in from the streets: 10
- Project cost: ~ $24 million
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Apartments | 38 |
| Residents | 46 |
| Project cost | $24 million |
Local services and social impacts
Beyond providing units, the project preserves local community space by relocating the Chittenden County Community Justice Center and the VFW into the building’s ground floor, maintaining services that had been based in the previous structure. The mix of residents — workers who keep the city’s shops and restaurants operating, nonprofit staff and people transitioning from homelessness — was highlighted by local housing officials as a core intention of the development.
The project’s developers framed the housing as both support for vulnerable people and a means of sustaining the local economy by keeping critical workers in the city. Champlain Housing Trust and Evernorth teamed up on the build after years of planning and consultation that began when the VFW first raised the idea with the trust.
Housing advocates and officials involved in the build point to the substantial remediation costs as a reminder that brownfield sites can be reclaimed for community benefit but often require public or nonprofit leadership to be viable. The trust noted the disproportionate spending on remediation compared with other projects, a factor it said would likely have deterred private developers.
For now, the complex stands as an example of a mixed‑use, nonprofit‑led effort to add affordable homes in a city core while preserving community services — a model that project leaders say was aimed at keeping long‑time community institutions and local workers in place.
