Burlington’s city manager has given the city’s elected leaders a glimpse of what lies on the horizon now that the local electorate has approved $68.5 million in general obligation bonds that had appeared on November’s ballot.
During a city council work session on Monday, city manager Craig Honeycutt recalled that roughly 57.4 percent of those who went to the polls had seen fit to support one of the city’s two bond packages, which proposes to raise $21.5 million for various road-related improvements.
Honeycutt also reminded the council that 50.5 percent of the city’s voters agreed to back an even larger package that sought $47 million for three big-ticket recreational ventures.
The local electorate ultimately approved both sets of bonds notwithstanding the anticipated debt payments, which between them are expected to cost the city the equivalent of 5.7 cents on the property tax rate.
“Now is where the work really gets started,” the city manager went on to inform the council, “and we need to move forward on this.”
Honeycutt said that, thanks to some preliminary work by city staff members, the city will be able to issue portions of each bond package in the spring of 2025.
He added that the proceeds from this sale will include $16.5 million for road and sidewalk improvements as well as another $17 million for two of the projects in the recreation department’s domain.
Rec schedule
Honeycutt identified the two recreation-related endeavors to subsided by this first bond issue as an $11 million expansion of Burlington’s Paramount Theater and a $6 million structure to house the Maynard Aquatic Center at City Park. In each case, he said that the construction plans for these projects are already “substantially complete.”
[Story continues below rendering of the future Paramount Theater.]
Honeycutt admitted that it may be some time before he can say the same for a proposed “sportsplex” in the western part of the city, which is expected to consume another $30 million of the recreation-related bond package.
“We will have to get public input about location, programming, and those types of things,” he went on to acknowledge. “This is a long-term process, and we have seven years to sell the bonds. We do not have to sell the bonds until they are ready.”
In response to Honeycutt’s admission about the proposed sportsplex, Burlington’s mayor Jim Butler insisted that the city shouldn’t drag its heels on this project given that it was first identified as a priority in 2012.
“I know we have seven years [to issue the bonds],” he added, “but there’s an argument to be made that we’re 12 years behind. So, time is of the essence.”
Road work ahead
In the meantime, city officials offered a much quicker turnaround time for the lion’s share of the city’s road-related proposals.
Bob Patterson, the city’s executive director of water resources and engineering, told the council that a company called Good Roads has been enlisted to assess the state of city streets to determine which should be first in the queue for repairs. Patterson added that the work itself, which comprises $15 million of this package’s $21.5 million price tag, should be ready to bid out in the first quarter of next year.
Honeycutt added that these road repairs as well as another $1.5 million in sidewalk improvements, should be ready to bid out in the first quarter of 2025. He conceded, however, that it will take somewhat longer to break ground on some proposed streetscaping in the downtown business district that comprises the remaining $5 million of the smaller bond package.
He pointed out that these aesthetic touches are dependent on a proposed overhaul of the downtown district’s underground utilities – a project that has been temporarily set back by a bid process that drew a single submission and now has to be put back out to bid.
In the final analysis, Honeycutt said that the city expects to take the first batch of bonds to market in April in order to obtain the necessary funds for the street repairs, the sidewalk upgrades, the Paramount Theater expansion, and the aquatic center’s new housing.
