I am very pro business, and very pro growth. That said, the wounds of 2008 are still fresh and we need to learn from such disasters. One of those lessons is that there is such a thing as too much development and too much leverage. Like anything in this world, moderation is often the best path to happiness. So here in tiny Burlington, VT several money men have seen decent demand (in this case for housing), and are going to crush it into the ground! I was just watching the BFP round table discussion w/ Don Sinex on his overly ambitious mall project. Now, that mall has been a train wreck over the last decade and is currently about 50% dark, although due to various paper means they will claim it is leased up at closer to 75% I would guess. So what should we do? Add housing, offices, and more retail! There are only about 45K people in Burlington and 250K or so in the metro area. We have another dead mall 5 miles away and various retail in the for of box stores and strip malls less than 10 miles away. The last thing we need is more retail. Office space? Arguably one of the weaker sectors in the city w/ somewhere in the neighborhood of 9% vacancy rates. Better add more space to a city that has had stagnant population growth for decades!!! We do have very tight housing. That is soon to be squeezed as this project adds 200+ units, the old BTV college property developer has proposed another 600+ units, and there are projects ongoing up at UVM and smaller ones in South Burlington and in the North End as well. Hey, what could go wrong w/ a little extra housing? Well, according to 2008 Miami that would be a massive drop in the value of downtown property that then spreads to the surrounding suburbs. Unlike Miami, nobody in London or Dubai wants to drop a million bucks on a Burlington condo so they can party on the weekends!!!
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2016/05/23/table-don-sinex-talks-mall-revamp/84770708/
The fallacy in these plans is that new construction will result in growth. Jobs bring growth and not retail jobs at a Target Express. We need tax reform and easier permitting to bring real business to Vermont from other tech or industrial corridors. But forget that, according to old Don, "the ladies that live in the mall condos can bring their kids to the new preschool space and then go ahead and do their shopping in the retail space." The apron store will be on the 3rd floor, next to the place where "the ladies" can eat bon bons and watch soap operas. This plan cannot fail!!!
**numbers are very loose, not to be used for professional purposes, and pulled from http://nedderealestate.com/chittenden-county-commercial-market-update/
as well as Wikipedia for general city stats.
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