Q&A Jeff Davis: Just who is this guy?

Vermont Business Magazine, May 01, 1998

When your profile rises, you become a bigger target. That's certainly what happened to Jeff Davis, a native Vermonter and one of Chittenden County's prominent real estate developers, when Wal-Mart decided to locate at his partnership 's development at Taft Corners in Williston.

The project became the focal point of general discontent over rapid growth in Chittenden County, as well as fears that Wal-Mart and other big box: retailers, including Circuit City, Toys R Us and Home Depot, would devastate existing retail establishments. Since then Governor Howard B Dean has singled out Taft Corners as an example of what Vermont should avoid, and the Williston selectmen have been trying to close the door on further development there.

It's less well known that Davis also is active in real estate in downtown Burlington. For example, he is one of the partners in the revitalized Abernathy Building at the head of the Church Street Marketplace, and his own office is on the top floor of the building. In the interest of full disclosure, we must add that he is also Vermont Business Magazine's landlord.

Davis notes that Taft Corners is one of the first growth centers designated under Vermont's landmark planning law, Act 200. He answers the governor and other critics with a question: If you can't locate high-traffic retailers in a designated growth center, where can you put them? And he says Taft Corners is not an exception to his determination, which he shares with most other local developers, to build only projects he can feel good about 30 years from now.

Richard Andrews and Timothy McQuiston interviewed Davis in his office at 2 Church Street in Burlington in mid-April. Beyond Taft Corners and Wal-Mart, we discussed prospects for business and development in Burlington and Chittenden County, Act 250 and Act 60, and the urgent need to preserve open space in Vermont.

VBM: What is your business?

DAVIS: Mostly real estate development--sales and leasing--and construction management. What I enjoy most is that it changes. Every deal is different.

My main business is JL Davis Inc, which is a construction and development company. That's me, but I'm also involved in some partnerships with others. The stuff at Taft Corners is a partnership--Taft Corners Associates. This building is owned by a couple of other partners; it's an entity with a different name.

VBM: Your development at Taft Corners is your most visible property. When did you buy it?

DAVIS: Nineteen-eighty-three, It was the Rowley farm and the Blair farm on the south side of Route 2. There also was a Blair farm on the north side of Route 2, which is now Blair Park.

VBM: That was quite a while ago.

DAVIS: Yeah, it was. The Rowleys had stopped farming four or five years before that.

Most people felt it was five to 10 years away from being viable for development, because development hadn't pushed out that far. But we thought it was a good investment. The property sat for about five years before we did much with it.

VBM: hat was your original intention?

DAVIS: To develop it as a commercial park. We had the land about two years, and then met with the town and spent some time trying to see what they would like and we would like. We spent about two-and-a-half years exchanging ideas and coming up with a plan, rather than trying to push a plan through. We formally applied in 1985 to Williston for a permit for a mixed use park, which is what we have ended up doing.

VBM: So you haven't had to change your plan?

DAVIS: No. Some say we've put more retail in than we planned. But the town actually had asked us to do the larger lots along Route 2A and along the interstate, and the original permits talk about large retail. In the litigation over Wal-Mart, the opponents questioned whether we planned retail of that magnitude, but the record shows we did. But clearly the interstate side is almost all retail, whereas the Route 2 side is more of an office park, with Copytek (Boise Cascade), UPS and so forth.

VBM: When was your umbrella Act 250 permit granted?

DAVIS: In '87. We got the town of Williston subdivision approval then, too. That's essentially the local umbrella.

VBM: Many environmentalists support umbrella permits to encourage cluster development and discourage sprawl, yet some people resent the freedom your umbrella permit has given you.

DAVIS: That was behind the four-and-a-half years of Wal-Mart litigation. I think an umbrella permit stands for careful planning in advance. But some people said, that's not fair, we should be able to take another crack at it now that you know the name of the tenant. Our permit says our effort was a bellwether of cooperative planning. Yet six or eight years later some people acted like we just came up with the idea for these projects.

It's created some strain on the umbrella permit process. Now district commissions are less likely to say, you've satisfied that criteria, we'll close it now. They're more likely to leave it open and force you to come back.

VBM: But there has to be some incentive for a developer to take the trouble of going through an Act 250 umbrella permit application.