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Staring directly at 2024
DECEMBER 26, 2024
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
WWW.WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
BY JASON STARR Observer staff
It’s not your typical new year. We are turning the page on the first quarter of the 21st Century. And these last 12 months have amounted to one doozy of a year. From the monumental — an eclipse, the election and flooding déjà vu — to the complex — the education funding-property tax increase balancing act — the events of 2024 have kept us on our toes. Please enjoy the Observer’s lookback at the stories that shaped this past year in Williston. And on to the next quarter-century!
JANUARY MAPLE TREE PLACE CHANGES HANDS, SPRINGS TO LIFE
Williston’s largest retail hub was acquired by a New York commercial real estate company, changing hands from the Texasbased equity firm that had owned it since 2016. The $77 million deal includes 64 acres of national retailers, locally owned restaurants, a movie theater and office space. The new owners returned a summer concert series to the plaza’s central green, and by year’s end had a commitment from two national retailers to open their first Vermont stores there: Boot Barn and Bob’s Discount Furniture. SELECTBOARD APPROVES GLASER SUBDIVISION
After 18 months of planning, public hearings and committee approvals, the Williston Selectboard
The April 8 total solar eclipse as seen in Williston and captured by Vermont Astronomical Society President Terri Zittritsch.
voted to change the town’s zoning rules to accommodate a 107home subdivision on the corner of Mountain View and Old Stage roads. The deal unencumbers the subdivision of the town’s typical annual caps on new housing in exchange for public acquisition of about half the 96-acre parcel. Later in the year, the landowners, working with Sheppard Custom Homes of Colchester, submitted an application for final approval from the Development Review Board. The neighborhood will add two new roads, and a combination of four-bedroom homes and three-bedroom condominiums while preserving mountain views and horse pasture for nearby Windswept Farm. Ten percent of the homes will be deed restricted as affordable.
FEBRUARY TOWN INQUIRES ABOUT TAKING OWNERSHIP OF STATE POLICE BUILDING
The new owners of Maple Tree Place brought the popular summer concert series, left, back to the plaza’s central green. Plans for the Glaser subdivision show two new roads and 107 houses and condos. OBSERVER FILE PHOTOS
Williston Town Manager Erik Wells went to the Legislature in February to request the state look to the town first when putting the former Vermont State Police barracks near the Exit 12 interchange up for sale. The House Committee on Corrections and Institutions subsequently asked Wells for a report on how the town might use the parcel. Wells discussed before the committee the town’s interest in putting a community center on the see 2024 page 2
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DINE-IN/TAKE OUT/ORDER ONLINE GetBlissBee.com Market Street (COMING!) & Shelburne Road, S. Burlington • Maple Tree Place, Williston