One year in, more businesses are setting up in South Burlington’s City Center

This article was originally published by The Other Paper.

As South Burlington’s City Center has built up and out, the last year has seen a series of businesses taking up residence on Market Street. The city’s renewed downtown nonprofit South Burlington City Center Collaborative is rounding out its first year, and according to its leaders, this is a good sign.

“More residents are living there, more businesses are opening their doors — more reasons for people to come to Market Street,” Sophia Babbitt, the inaugural director of the collaborative said. “I see this next phase as about activating what we’ve built and creating the kind of downtown that people intentionally choose to visit and work and shop and dine and gather.”

At the group’s annual meeting Aug. 27, the collaborative invited Amy Bernhardt, who co-owns Leunig’s Bistro and Café in Burlington to speak. Bernhardt is a South Burlington resident and is in the process of renovating a space on Market Street to open the long-beloved restaurant’s second location.

“South Burlington is up and coming,” Bernhardt said to the school district’s superintendent, Joe Clark, who was acting as her interviewer. “It’s far enough from downtown, and people still come out. I think it’s just it’s a good place to be, community-wise.”

Leunig’s is one of a string of businesses that have opened nearby. The street level of the area’s new buildings now also house an outpost of the popular local pizza chain Folino’s, poke bowl spot The Scale, Bliss Bee Market, Judi’s Ice Cream and a new location for ALIGN studio and a wellness studio and spa called Bijou Blue.

Bernhardt has some hopes for how the area might further develop. She told Clark that she’d love to see some more retail find a home nearby, imagining a scenario in which shoppers are able to stop by for a meal or ice cream after browsing at local stores.

While the City Center collaborative might not outright court potential businesses — the leases on spaces are at the discretion of building owners — Babbitt said the organization acts a kind of “connective tissue.”

“If we hear things or businesses reach out to us to say ‘we’re thinking of relocating,’ or it’s a new business opportunity or whatever, then what I just do is I just connect the pieces,” she said. She can give someone the name of a property owner or a real estate agent that’s been looking for a good fit for a location.

The businesses, however, are just one piece, Babbitt said. As an organization, they’re hoping to build a sense of place. This, she said, comes from things like events and public space and art that give the city an identity.

Several years ago, Babbitt said, the area around Market Street was open space and a dirt road.

“We’re becoming a place,” she said.