Vermont Business Magazine
Burlington is one step closer to a new high school and technical center. Today, demolition began on the first of five buildings on the sprawling campus of the former high school and technical center. EnviroVantage, the company overseeing demolition, has been working for months, marking, removing, abating asbestos, and creating remediation plans for contaminated building materials. Last Friday, the company received final air clearances for asbestos, meaning the building was ready for exterior demolition to begin.
“This is obviously a huge step forward for our project,” said Burlington School District (BSD) Superintendent Flanagan. “I want to thank the citizens of Burlington for supporting this project, first and foremost. I also want to thank EnviroVantage, our environmental consultants Fuss & O’Neill, PCI Capital Project Consulting, and our property services team for getting us here today. It has taken an enormous amount of collaboration and partnership put us in the right position to continue this project.”
Flanagan noted that BSD teams worked closely with EnviroVantage to clean out the buildings, salvaging hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. “Because we were able to work so closely together, we were able to salvage things like the bleachers in the gym and the auditorium seats which will eventually go to Hunt Middle School. We also were able to give older machinery that was in good operating condition to other school districts in the state who needed that equipment.
Flanagan also noted through the District’s environmental Corrective Action Plan, dust mitigation measures will be underway throughout the project, with dust monitoring devices spread throughout the campus to ensure chemicals and contaminants are controlled. As demolition continues on “A” building, EnviroVantage will now begin to focus on cleaning out and remediating the campus’ “B” building, the next portion slated for demolition.
BSD expects the project’s construction manager Whiting-Turning to begin construction this July while EnviroVantage continues demolition, remediation, and removal of material. The District expects substantial completion of the project to be done in November of 2025, with students and staff slated to begin in the new building in January of 2026, though as with any project this size and scope, those dates are subject to change.
To keep the community updated on the project, the District recently launched a refreshed website with project information, photos, and more: www.bsdvt.org/bhs-btc-2025.
Burlington School District (BSD) is a pre-k-12 public school system of about 4,000 students in Burlington, VT. BSD’s mission is to graduate students who: value different cultures, engage with the community, communicate effectively, think creatively, skillfully solve problems, and achieve at their highest academic, intellectual, and personal potential.
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