Construction is under way on an apartment complex that will provide much-needed housing in downtown Burlington.

When complete, the Post Apartments on South Winooski Avenue will include 38 permanently affordable apartments, with nine reserved for unhoused people. The complex will also be home to the city’s Community Justice Center and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 782, whose former building was razed to make way for the project.
With a mountain of dirt as a backdrop, housing officials and local dignitaries, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), broke ground Friday on the project, which is slated to open in fall 2025.

“Today is a celebration,” said Sanders, who secured $1 million in federal funding for the $24 million project. “Let's hope that we're going to continue to go forward in building the affordable housing this state and the country needs.”



The effort is a collaboration between affordable housing developers Champlain Housing Trust and Evernorth. Earlier this month, Evernorth and COTS celebrated the opening of an apartment building on Main Street for 16 families transitioning from homelessness.

Planning for the Post Apartments started more than three years ago, when members of the VFW approached Champlain Housing Trust about redeveloping the lot.
Executing the project hasn’t been easy. It relies on 19 different funding sources, including federal tax credits and coronavirus relief money. The city chipped in close to $422,000 from its Housing Trust Fund, which supports affordable housing projects. Another $1.6 million in state and federal brownfields money paid to remediate contaminated soils.

The site is ideal for its future tenants: The homeless health clinic Safe Harbor is next door, and the Turning Point Center of Chittenden County, which offers programs for people in recovery, is across the street.

Officials hope the project will alleviate the housing crisis in the greater Burlington area, where more than 300 people are living unsheltered. In the Queen City, unhoused people are sleeping in business entryways and in city parks.

“Creating housing that is safe, affordable and accessible is a top priority for my administration,” Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said. “There's a lot of positive things happening in our beautiful city, and this will become one of those real gems right here in the downtown corridor of Burlington.”
Members of the VFW agree. Louis Hanlon of Shelburne, a U.S. Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam, said the former post felt like home for members, who are temporarily using the Winooski VFW during construction. He hopes Burlington’s new post will attract veterans of more recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It won’t be the same old thing, and that’ll get people interested,” Hanlon said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”