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Commercial Vacancies Down In Burlington

Burlington, Vermont -- December 13, 2002

The economy in Chittenden county is showing surprising strength in spite of job layoffs, although a new survey shows a growing vacancy rate in the county's commercial retail space. One big exception is Burlington, where business is booming.

Regardless of the recession, downtown Burlington thrives. Vacant storefronts are hard to find. "Yeah, downtown's doing great," Steve Allen of the real estate appraisal firm Allen & Brooks told Channel 3. His firm tracks commercial vacancies among other trends in real estate.

Through most of the 1990s, vacancies in downtown Burlington remained under ten percent, then more than doubled in 1999 when the old Burlington Square mall fell into disrepair. Now, vacancies are under five percent, due largely to success at finding tenants for the newly-renovated downtown mall.

"The redevelopment of the mall, the Burlington Town Center, you know was a big part of that," Allen explained. "Church street has always been strong."

Commercial vacancies in the rest of Chittenden county saw a similar pattern through the 90s, but over the past six months vacancies outside of Burlington have risen to ten percent. Still, the future looks brighter than the higher vacancy rate seems to indicate.

"Virtually all of that increase is explained by the big store closings," Allen said, referring to Ames department stores which closed all of its stores. "If you take those closing out of the equation, then there was actually a little bit of an improvement."

The Ames closing is only a temporary set back for University Mall, which expects to replace it with another retailer as soon as the Ames bankruptcy is settled. As a whole, suburban retailers are doing well. U-Mall, along with the big box stores and Maple Tree place, long since eclipsed Burlington in retail sales.

Burlington has lost market share to the rest of Chittenden county, down from forty percent of retail sales ten years ago to just twenty percent today. But a transition from predominantly retail to entertainment, such as bars and restaurants, has preserved downtown's vitality.

Community & Economic Development director Michael Monte observed, "I think that's what's working is that we have a wide diversity." He attributed a variety of attractions to a successful effort to keep the city strong. "You don't come downtown to buy one thing," Monte said. "You come downtown in fact to go to the theater, to eat at a restaurant, to participate in some other event... to shop at one of the retailers -- and in truth we have more variety in retailers than we've ever had."

Burlington officials say downtown has the potential for more commercial growth, if not much more room to locate new stores. Outside of Burlington growth is still happening. Allen noted, "We still have some more supply coming on line this year with Maple Tree Place and a couple of big boxes. But when you look at the average growth over the last several years, it's not out of line with the other real estate markets."

But all of this growth is due for a slowdown. Maple Tree Place appears to be the last large planned development for the time being. It means that contrary to some officials who predicted an oversupply of retail space, commercial development in Chittenden county is considered in balance with demand.

Andy Potter - Channel 3 News