CEDO, two nonprofit technical assistance providers (the Intervale Center and the Women's Small Business Program) and ReCycle North expended $258,777 in CDBG funds this year. CDBG-funded economic development activities supported the start-up of 39 new businesses, helped to retain/expand 39 businesses, and led to the creation/retention of 690 FTE permanent plus 1,128 construction jobs. The accomplishments of each program are described below and in the Goals, Strategies and Funded Activities section of this Report as they relate to each economic development priority. Overall, economic development programs leveraged $42,676,370 this year in private and other public funds for program operating costs and costs – a ratio of over 165:1 of leveraged to CDBG funds.

Technical Assistance and Entrepreneurial Training

CDBG funding supported the provision of technical assistance to local businesses and entrepreneurs through a variety of programs and in a variety of ways:

The Community & Economic Development Office (CEDO) provides one-on-one assistance to businesses and entrepreneurs. This year, CEDO provided information, referrals and/or technical assistance to 438 people, businesses, nonprofits and government agencies. These services helped 25 new businesses to start up and 34 businesses to survive and/or expand, with 582 FTE jobs created and 91 FTE jobs retained.

CEDO sponsored and/or helped to organize the Art Hop; the Vermont Software Developers Alliance; a Micro Business Alliance meeting; and two SEABA workshops.  CEDO's Guide to Doing Business in Burlington was updated this year.  Available online, in print and in a cd/web version, it includes comprehensive guidance, a collection of nearly every local, state, and federal form of use to a business, and business planning templates and spreadsheets to forecast and evaluate financial data.  The 196-page Resource Guide for Chittenden County Employers and Employees is also available online, as are the Business Refugee Resource Guide and Business Location Information.

CEDO maintains and distributes to the public, free of charge, a commercial space database averaging close to one hundred listings throughout the City. The database is offered as hard copy printouts or emailed as an Excel spreadsheet. The listings are sorted by square footage and show acceptable uses, location, floor, broker name and telephone number, rental costs, and a description of each space. The database is updated two times per month and is a convenient one-stop list for business owners. Requests for the database average 12 per month.

The Women’s Small Business Program continues to train entrepreneurs through Start Up, a 15-week course that covers business financials, establishing markets, creating business strategies, and personal skills necessary for successful business ownership.  CDBG funding supports the tuition for low/moderate income participants in the Start Up Training.  Thirteen of this year's 34 participants were low/moderate income.  Of the CDBG-supported participants, nine completed bank-ready business plans, 2 have started up or grown their businesses, six have plans to start in the near future, and three plan to start up in the next three to five years.  Examples of those businesses include a residential landscaping business, a clothing and knitwear boutique and a handbag design and manufacturing company.  The Women's Small Business Program also offers Getting Serious, an introductory course to explore business ownership. In the fall, 13 low/moderate income women participated in the Getting Serious course, and this spring, Getting Serious was offered to 14 women at the Dale Correctional Facility.

In the Intervale, 325 urban agricultural acres currently produce 6 to 7% of the City’s fresh food. CDBG helps to fund the Farms project, which recruits farmers and provides technical assistance to farm operations. This year, the Intervale added 3 new farms to the program and saw all participating farmers maintain their employment levels.  The Farms project also expanded irrigation and supported the Burlington Food Council action plan development.  CDBG also funded the Healthy City program, which recruited and trained 15 low and moderate-income youth entrepreneurs (out of 40 applicants) in an eight-week farm business program, with an enhanced curriculum.  This program also harvested and distributed produce to low-income residents at ten sites throughout the City.

Business Loans

In addition to technical assistance, CEDO provided working capital loans to two businesses this year: Amir's Kebob Kart and Ken Sanders and Son Painting.  CEDO also provided grants to two businesses: one to correct code violations at a North Street business and one to help demolish a blighted property on No. Winooski Avenue.

Tax Incentives

Renewal Community tax incentives are available to spur economic development in the downtown and Old North End areas of Burlington. To date, almost $23 million in Commercial Revitalization Deductions (which allow for accelerated depreciation) have been awarded to assist with the construction/rehabilitation of over 198,000 sq. ft. of commercial space. Information on the use of other Renewal Community tax incentives is difficult to gather, since the most accurate data source – the Internal Revenue Service – is not available. Telephone surveying among Renewal Community businesses suggests that the wage credit – up to $1,500 a year for each employee who lives and works in the Renewal Community – is one incentive that some businesses are finding to be useful. For example, the businesses that have responded to our surveys have claimed over $187,000 in wage credits since the incentives became available in 2002.  CDBG funding pays for outreach and administration of the Renewal Community program.

CEDO also assists businesses with tax incentives for commercial renovation available through the City’s Designated Downtown District.

Job Training

Several livable jobs training programs were underway locally this past year. Dealer.com, expanding in the Maltex building, recruited seven people for their second free apprenticeship program (software development) and ten new employees for their third free apprenticeship program (account management. Pratt and Whitney, at the Airport Industrial Park, received a $45,000 state workforce training grant. A CNC training program offered retraining to former Specialty Filaments employees. And among its array of job training programs, ReCycle North continued the YouthBuild program this year. This last program was supported with CDBG funding.

Brownfields

Brownfields are commonly discovered in Burlington during real estate transactions, when an assessment has been performed in advance of property sale and/or redevelopment. Another time when contamination is unearthed is during excavation when a previously unknown condition is found. There are also a large number of abandoned underground storage tanks (possibly several hundred city-wide) that are discovered during site assessments, ground penetrating radar surveys, and/or site excavation.

Whenever a site is found to be contaminated at levels considered hazardous to human health and/or the environment, this information must, under state law, be immediately submitted to the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. This information is then placed in a hazardous Sites database, assigned a Site ID number, and a publicly accessible file opened. A short description of activities at each site is published on-line in a searchable database. Sites remain on this database until they are considered not a threat to human health or the environment. The database includes everything from contaminated properties just discovered to relatively “clean” sites that have been undergoing follow-up monitoring for years.

The City uses CDBG funding to help pay for professional staff to run the brownfields program, an expense not fully covered by EPA brownfields funding. Over the first three program years covered by this Consolidated Plan, 18.25 acres of brownfields in the City have been remediated. A number of the development projects listed below are brownfields projects, as are several housing projects and public facility projects.

Major Development Projects

The Community & Economic Development Office is actively working on the development/redevelopment of the following projects:

• Under construction on the last remaining vacant parcel in the City’s Urban Renewal area are a new 127-room hotel, a new 147-space parking garage, 41 units of housing and 20,000 sq. ft. of commercial space. Expansion of the Lakeview public garage is complete. Redevelopment of this site was facilitated with a $1.8 million Section 108 loan, which has been repaid.
• CEDO and the Burlington Community Development Corporation are working with Chris Cornell to develop commercial space and housing on the waterfront at 131 Battery Street.  Public infrastructure will be installed including sidewalks, currently non-existent on either side of the property.  The project received a $5 million Commercial Revitalization Deduction allocation this year. The project received city zoning approval on December 21, 2004.
• The City is working through a public process to develop and decide on ideas for redeveloping the waterfront Moran Generating Station, a former coal-fired generating plant. CEDO has solicited public ideas, including hundreds of idea cards, phone messages, letters and e-mails (scanned, transcribed and posted online) and a ballot survey of preferred uses on Town Meeting Day.
• Main Street Landing opened a new building at the corner of College and Lake Street in 2005. The $13.5 million project includes a 56-car underground parking garage, a movie house, a black box theater, 100,000 sq. ft. of office and retail space, sculpture gardens, and public promenades and terraces. The project received a 2003 Commercial Revitalization Deduction allocation of $10 million, which was critical to moving it forward. Seventh Generation moved its world headquarters to the site in 2006, is working on LEED certification for fit-up, and is providing free office space for Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.
• The Vermont Center for Emerging Technology at the University of Vermont’s Trinity Campus had four tenants this year, with two graduations.
• Infrastructure renovations on the Church Street Marketplace will continue with $6 million in new federal funding.
• At the City’s request, the U. S. Post Office received a waiver from the national moratorium on building new post offices in U.S. and designated the Ethan Allen Shopping Center as the preferred location based on community feedback. The new 7,200 sq. ft. Post Office is now open at that location.
• CEDO is working with the new managing partner of the Burlington Town Center to increase visibility (including a "facelift" on the Church Street entrance) and sales as well as on Cherry Street redevelopment options.  The Town Center picked up five new permanent retail tenants this year.
• General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products started construction on the final phase of its $50 million engineering Center of Excellence, their premier technology incubator nationwide.  The City continues to work with General Dynamics and Gilbane Properties on redevelopment opportunities on property across the street.
• North Street construction is complete, with over $6 million of improvements to the public infrastructure. CEDO continues to support economic opportunities and housing improvements along the North Street corridor.
• Coffee Enterprises has a five-year lease for the Blodgett Office building and is doing a gut rehab of the 10,000 sq. ft. building.
• The City worked with Specialty Filaments on the sale of its Pine Street property and on support for the 130 laid off employees. CEDO helped the company get a $1.4 million Trade Adjustment Assistance training grant. Champlain Chocolates has begun renovation on 46,000 sq. ft. of the property and is working on LEED certification. Two of the former employees have been retrained and hired as CNC machinists at other area manufacturers.
• The City has received federal transportation monies for pre-development of the South End Transit Center. The land for the project has been acquired and a site assessment performed.
• On Pine Street, a local investor has acquired an option on two adjacent lots. An environmental assessment is complete, but further testing is ongoing.  Redevelopment possibilities include the transfer of one property to City for park/trails and development of other parcel into 75,000 sq. ft. mixed use commercial building.
• CEDO worked with the Koffee Kup Bakery on a land acquisition which allowed the company to stay in Burlington.
• The Airport has received state and city permits to expand the Industrial Park. CEDO secured the largest VEDA industrial loan in its history for the construction of a new facility for Heritage Flight.
• The City is working with Redstone Commercial and the Burlington Community Land Trust on the mixed-use redevelopment of the downtown BankNorth site and on the redevelopment of the former Shanana (Hunts Armory) site on Main Street.

 

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