Here are some of the infamous blight sites not owned by the Handy family! I hope that this increases the civic education in Burlington and increases awareness about the people that are our biggest threat to our civic vitality.

Bonus Blight

68 Pearl St

  • Boves Purchased: 2002 (Source)
  • Vacant Since: 2015
  • Assessed Property Value: $361,300
  • Boves Asking Price: $1.5M (Source)

This property on Pearl St, the former site of the Boves Restaurant, has now sat vacant for more than a decade. It is almost completely destroyed from graffiti, and is one of the biggest eyesores in the entire city. It is barely worth the $361,300 that is its current assessment. Yet, the Boves are trying to sell this building for $1.5M, more than 4x its assessed value. You don't have to sit here and wonder for very long why it is that nobody has scooped up this property and redeveloped it. As with many of these vacant buildings, it sits on a site that has been rezoned as a transit corridor, so you could build an apartment building here with enough space to house every unhoused person in Burlington. The Boves won't let that happen though, not unless you are a sucker willing to pay more than 4x the amount the property is worth.

108 South Winooski Ave

  • Merrill Jarvis III Purchased: 2003 (Source)
  • Vacant Since: 2024
  • Assessed Property Value: $1,562,300
  • Merill's Asking Price: $2.7M (Source)

The closing of Merrill's Roxy Cinema was a scandal, not just because Burlington, for a brief moment, did not have a movie theater, but also because Merill Jarvis III still outright refuses to sell this building to anybody who would be willing to operate a movie theater. That's right, he's demanding that anyone who purchases this building sign a non-compete clause clarifying that they will NOT operate a movie theater here. That is a huge problem, since literally the only thing you can do with a cineplex buliding like this is operate a movie theater. And when you are selling the building for more than $1M its assessed value, you'd think you'd be a little less picky with what your buyer does with your stuff. Of course, Merrill is just trying to make sure his other movie theater, Majestic 10 in Williston, stays open. But everybody knows that now that Partizanfilm is in Burlington, there's no reason to ever go to any other theater but Partizanfilm, and for the occassional blockbuster, Essex Experience. Sorry, Merrill!
Please support Partizanfilm as much as you can! They are everything we should be trying to become in Burlington.

67 Cherry St

This property hasn't been vacant for very long, but Don Sinex should have had plans for it, given that he knew for years and years that the high school would vacate the building once the new building on North Ave was complete. Instead, Don Sinex has implied that he's going to leave this perfectly functional building empty until at least 2030 (Source). This is a building that just barely hosted an entire high school. That means it has a functioning cafeteria, can host almost 1,000 people, and has a ton of space. Don Sinex could single-handedly end homelessness in Burlington if he used this as a shelter. He won't, though, because he views buildings as investments that need to make him richer, rather than what they actually are, which is places for people to live, move, and have their being. Sinex has also briefly hinted that he might turn this into an Amazon Fulfillment Center, further mocking all of us who live here.

101 Cherry St

Once again, we have a Don Sinex property that has gone through various "plans" for something to happen here, and of course, nothing actually has happened here. This is a giant building that could again be imagined as any number of communally useful things, but instead, it sits empty, right in the middle of the Church St Marketplace. It's amazing that these people have essentially no sense of either communal responsibility or shame.

108 Cherry St

This one is interesting, because this building is fully owned by the State of Vermont, and was built entirely using the tax dollars of Vermont residents. Yet, it has sat empty for almost half a decade at this point, with no clear end in sight for when it will be either torn down or utilized again. Phil Scott should be hounded about this at every single public appearance until this buildilng is reopened to either build housing or otherwise house the unhoused. Apparently the building is too derelict to outright re-open without major repairs or redevelopment, but given that the land and building are both fully owned by the State of Vermont, it makes zero sense why this hasn't happened yet. Please call your State Legislators and Governor Scott and demand that he actually do something with this building.

145 South Union St

This is the one where we all get to eat some crow because the only reason this building is so derelict is because all of us, as the City of Burlington, failed to maintain it. There were many votes that failed that would have kept this building alive. Fortunately, there is a promising redevelopment plan to turn this back into usable public space. I encourage everybody to follow along as those plans unfold and ensure that something is done to bring this commons back to all of us. In the future, we should all plan to steward our commons more responsibly.