Construction starts on 30 permanently affordable condos at Burlington’s Cambrian Rise
Burlington Bay on Lake Champlain, seen from North Beach, near the New North End neighborhood where Shale Beach is being built. Photo: Tony Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Elected officials joined Champlain Housing Trust on Friday, Oct. 9, to mark the start of construction on Shale Beach Condominiums, a 30-home building in Burlington’s Cambrian Rise neighborhood that will be kept permanently affordable through the trust’s shared-equity program.
The trust said the five-story building, on North Avenue, will have 20 two-bedroom homes of about 1,000 square feet and 10 three-bedroom homes of just over 1,400 square feet, each with two bathrooms and washer-dryer hookups. Thirty parking spaces will sit underneath. Anticipated sale prices range from $175,000 to $210,000, with construction targeted for completion and occupancy by the end of 2027. WCAX covered the groundbreaking the same day.
Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said a $900,000 investment from the city’s Housing Trust Fund is helping make the 30 homes possible. “This project is a great example of what we can accomplish when the City, private developers, and affordable housing partners come together with a shared vision,” she said.
The building will sit next to 100 Cambrian Way, a 40-apartment building that Champlain Housing Trust and Evernorth developed and that was scheduled to open in November 2026. Wright and Morrissey is construction manager on both buildings, and Duncan Wisnewski Architecture designed them. Amenities at Shale Beach will include storage closets, ground-level bike storage, and a fifth-floor community room and deck. The building is designed to use electric air-source heat pumps.
Michael Monte, the trust’s CEO, said the condos “are making Burlington more affordable overall” by adding jobs and tax base, and that shared-equity restrictions will keep the homes affordable for later buyers. The trust said it has used the program to provide homeownership to almost 1,500 Vermonters over 40 years.
New Markets Tax Credits arranged with Smith NMTC Associates, committed by Mascoma Community Development and Community Housing Capital and purchased by U.S. Bank’s Impact Finance, will cover roughly 20% of the cost, the trust said, an approach it described as having been used only once before for homes for sale in Vermont. Other financing includes the city’s Housing Trust Fund, state support through the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, state and federal grants allocated by the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board, gifts from EastRise Credit Union and the Argosy Foundation, and energy incentives from Burlington Electric Department. The Local Investment Advisory Committee also approved financing through Treasurer Mike Pieciak’s office for neighborhood infrastructure being developed by Eric Farrell.
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