The Development of the Church Street Marketplace

The Church Street Marketplace is a four-block area along through the central retail district of downtown Burlington. The north end of the street is bounded 'by the First Unitarian. Church, built in 1816. City Hall and City Hall Park are on the south end. This 'retail district' is composed predominantly of three and four story buildings along a 6-foot wide street (Voorhees 1977,. Burlington).

The street level of the buildings was originally owned or rented by a wide mix of retailers and the upper stories were usually used as office space, storage, or vacant. One hundred four retail units are located along Church Street, and the Burlington Square Mall, an enclosed retail center, is at right angles to the third block with more the 150,000 square feet of retail. Before implementation of the mail, pedestrians were allocated only 31 to 40 percent of the public street place, with the remainder going to parking, autos, buses and service vehicles (Voorhees 1977, Burlington).

The concept of the Church Street Marketplace originated as early as 1958 as part of the Urban Renewal discussions. During the summer of 1971, a one‑day experimental street fair was held on the four blocks of Church Street by the Burlington Downtown Merchant's Association. Merchants and City officials report that approximately 15,000 persons attended. The success of the one day street fair was taken as a demonstration of the feasibility of a mall.

By late 1971, Patrick Robins, the president of the Downtown Burlington Development Association, a downtown merchant's organization, had been appointed as chairman of the Burlington Street Commission, and a local architect Bill Truex had become chairman of the City's Planning Commission. Both men recognized the potential of the mail for supporting the retail district and as a way to bring Church Street into the Urban Renewal plans. Traditionally, the City of ‘Burlington had a north and south orientation paralleling Lake Champlain.

The efforts of the Urban Renewal project were to change the orientation to an east-west direction in order to develop the land areas between downtown and the lake shore while using the lake as a focal point. Church Street was seen as a potential anchor on the east side of the redevelopment project. Possibilities for this redevelopment scheme were aided by the exchange of property for St. Paul's Church lot along St. Paul Street when fire destroyed the building in 1971. The Urban Renewal developer exchanged the church lot for one closer to the lake. The Church property that is now the site of the Burlington Square Mall was acquired by the developer as a private acquisition to connect the urban renewal project with Church Street.

As further investigation into the feasibility of the 'Church Street mall, the City Planning Commission, the Street Commission and the Transit Authority director planned a second experimental street fair along Church Street for a week, in the summer of 1972. Traffic was rerouted from the four blocks of Church Street to the parallel streets, extra transit was added for the week and short-term physical modifications were made on the street, such as adding trees, benches and booths. Merchants were allowed full use of the area for display of retail goods and special events were planned.

Reports by city officials and merchants indicated that the experiment was successful. It was estimated that 50,000 persons attended during the week. The success of this demonstration facilitated the planning of a pedestrian mall and reinforced cooperation between the Planning and Street Commission, the Traffic Department and the downtown merchants.

Interest in the downtown area, especially in the creation of a Church Street mall continued to grow, and in 1974, the Downtown Burlington Development Association prepared impact studies of the Church Street mall project on pedestrian flows, traffic, and space usage. In 1975, Mayor Gordon Paquette appointed the Church Street Mall Steering Committee as a separate committee to further study the mall concept.

The Mayor and the Planning Commission Director, Randall Kamerbeek, both strongly in favor of the project, were able to convince the City Council/Alderman of the merits of the mall. Patrick Robins was made chair of the new Steering Committee, which included professional and business concerns. The committee commissioned Alexander and Truex, a local architectural firm to begin preliminary design work.

The Steering Committee and the architects collaborated to develop criteria for a
design that included use for vacant building space in the mall area, provision for shelter from Vermont's weather along the mall, a system of snow removal along the mall and sidewalks, and a maintenance and promotion revenue scheme.

By late 1975, the architects had completed a preliminary design that included access to the vacant upper stories of buildings by means of ramps and elevators, walkways covered by canopies to provide protection for pedestrians, and retail for space in the street for small‑ shops and booths (Kamerbeek 1980). Support for the Steering Committee and preliminary designs came from the Downtown Burlington Development Association, which helped raise capital and merchant support, and from money from Vermont's Bicentennial Commission. 1