Five Decades of Support from the Pomerleau Family

For more than five decades, the Pomerleau Family has been actively contributing to Burlington’s downtown and the Church Street Marketplace as business owners, property owners, philanthropists and civic leaders. They have acquired a reputation in our community for hard work, integrity and community service.

Antonio Pomerleau is chief executive officer of Pomerleau Real Estate.

In 1996, he received the Thomas Chittenden Award for Exemplary Community Service from the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. He has served on the boards of the Downtown Burlington Development Association, Burlington Transportation and Parking Council, Cancer Wellness, Mater Christi School and the Great Burlington Industrial Corporation. Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, his family moved to a farm in Barton Vermont, before moving to Newport where his father ran a general store. After high school, Pomerleau moved back to Sherbrooke to attend St. Charles Seminary. He left the seminary in 1937 to work for Endicott Johnson Company, a national shoe chain working along the East Coast. In 1942, he was sent to Burlington, fell in love with the city and decided to settle his family here. He purchased a failing grocery store at North Winooski Avenue and North Street. Three years later, he had four stores and a wholesale beverage business. In 1951, he sold his businesses to go into commercial real estate, and insurance.

Ernie Pomerleau is president of Pomerleau Real Estate.

He is Chair of the Board of Directors for the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation (GBIC), and serves on the boards of directors for Chittenden Bank and the Visiting Nurses Association. Polmerleau has been active on othe rboards in the community, including Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, and the Downtown Business Development Association, United Way Campaign, the Flynn Theatre for Performing Arts and many others. He was chair of the Downtown Business Development Association for a decade and first chairman of the Burlington Transportation and Parking Council. Ernie was the first son of 10 children. He is a graduate of St. Michael’s College

Recently, we asked Antonio and Ernie Pomerleau to share their remembrances and thoughts about the Marketplace.

QUESTION: What were your first involvements on Church Street?

ANTONIO: In the mid 1950s, all of the neon signs along Church Street were broken. We decided to volunteer to take down and throw away every one of those signs. Those signs looked just awful. We wound up spending thousands of dollars to do it, but it was well worth the effort. I always felt it was small steps like that, that began the renewal on Church Street.

QUESTION: What was going on in downtown in the 50’s and 60’s?

Back in 1961-62, my biggest success was building the Woolworth’s building (currently housing Old Navy) because everything seemed to be moving out of downtown. Montgomery Wards had left. All across the country downtowns were going down and not recovering. For most small towns like Burlington, suburban shopping centers were taking over and businesses were running away from downtown. We were starting to see that happen in Burlington. I remember a point in time when there were 14 vacant buildings downtown. We started to buy buildings, remodel them Burlington is one of the few downtowns that’s been successful. A lot of towns have tried, but they’ve done things on a piecemeal basis.

What did it take to rally the community to make shift in its thinking?

ANTONIO: Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. To bring IBM to this community back in the 1950s, the community rallied to make that happen. Eighteen business people stepped up, signed a note and bought a piece of land in Essex Junction and built a 30,000 square foot building. The Chairman of IBM made a decision to build a plant Burlington over Portland, Maine because we had a good airport and we were the only community in the country that had come together as a group to purchase a piece of land. Can you imagine Burlington today without IBM? We’d have an economy similar to that of the Northeast Kingdom. Why did the Marketplace succeed? I think one reason why the Marketplace is here today is that at the time of its creation, people were willing to stick their necks out and take risks. There were enough people who could see that the growth of suburban malls meant downtown needed to take some risks and try a concept like the Marketplace. I’d ask the same question then about our downtown. Can you imagine Burlington today without the Marketplace? I can’t. It would be a much different, less richer place.

ERNIE: I remember all of the long hours and meetings required to make it all come together. All of us attended and chaired countless meetings on Marketplace design, traffic, Marketplace fees. And there were always feisty dialogues. But ultimately, what was the very best for Burlington always seemed to prevail. I learned from that experience that the devil you know is worse than the devil you don’t know. I remember we heard from people that if traffic were removed from Church Street, the downtown would die. Clearly, just the opposite occurred and today we have a lot to be proud of.

QUESTION: What was the mood like in the 1970’s?

ERNIE: I remember in the early 1970’s, there were rumblings about Pyramid Company building a mall in Williston. At the Merchants Bureau (which later became the Burlington Business Association) we began talking about efforts to counter Pyramid. We knew we needed help. There had been a schism that had occurred between the merchants bureau and City Hall. That’s a schism that today is almost unimaginable. We were able to demonstrate to city government that we supplied 20% of the city’s tax base and slowly got City Hall to agree that a dramatic shift in downtown was needed. Mayor Paquette got on board and in a way really stuck his neck out politically for the creation of the Marketplace. We collectively pursued a public process with the creation of dozens of special advisory groups and committees. All of that effort resulted in the design of the Marketplace. There was serious discussion about putting a double-decker mall through the center of Church Street. One would be a subterranean mall like you find in Montreal and Toronto. There was a lot of dialogue. I remember when Burlington Square Mall was proposed. There were arguments about not letting it happen, but the downtown business community argued that it would create a bigger pie from which shoppers could choose.

What was your most humorous remembrance about the early days of the Marketplace?

ERNIE: I remember the first lighting ceremony on the Marketplace. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving. My wife Dee had orchestrated the entire ceremony and my sister Rosemary was the first Snow Queen. BED and merchants were busy hanging Christmas lights. I remember even scaling a few trees. Before the lighting ceremony, the downtown tradition had been a Thanksgiving Day parade. I remember I was in charge of turning on the lights, which were located in the Maintenance break room behind Vermont Floral. I was holding a walkie-talkie, talking to some friends at Sweetwaters, and clearly not paying attention All of a sudden, I hear a count down and realize I have ten seconds to make it from Sweetwaters to Vermont Floral – and that’s making my way through a packed street!. John Gravel, who was serving as acting mayor at the time, was in charge of the countdown. When the lights didn’t go on after his first countdown, John said, “Well everybody, I guess we’ll have to reverse the order and count up.” This time, he counted very, very slowly and I probably broke a land speed record up to the break room and managed to flip the power switches, just in time.”

ANTONIO: I think it’s important to remember that there were two generations of contributors who helped Church Street and downtown to develop to what it is today. Gordon Pacquette, Mary Sculley, Art Hogan, Pat Leahy, P.C. Kirby, Meg Harris, Hertzell Pasachow, Bill Preston, Sr., George Little and Bill Aswad to name just a few. A bunch of us started with an idea and literally created something out of nothing.
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