Silt Botanica will break ground on Pine Street in the spring

The plan to build a Nordic-inspired bathhouse and commercial building at 453 Pine St. is moving forward after the Burlington Development Review Board approved the project July 18.

Work on Silt Botanica, a three-story, 30,000 square-foot bathhouse, is expected to break ground in April 2024 and open in early summer 2025, said co-developer Jovial King. The bathhouse will have outdoor botanical gardens, indoor and outdoor heated pools, cold plunges, steam rooms, saunas, two greenhouses and designated areas where people can relax and socialize.

Plans for a bowling alley co-located on the property were nixed and replaced with a commercial building which will sit on the northeastern corner of the property near the southern driveway of the Maltex building's lot. The building will have three commercial spaces for lease.

While the bathhouse was originally slated to open late this year or early 2024, delays have pushed back the groundbreaking date, King said. In addition to the approvals all construction faces in Vermont, the development of 453 Pine is complicated by its contaminated soil from exposure to factories on Pine Street in the 1900s and its location next to a Superfund site. The presentation to the development review board included extensive soil and storm water management plans that still require approval from state entities.

What is a Nordic bathhouse?

Silt Botanica will be a "Nordic-inspired" bathhouse. Nordic bathhouses or spas are based on the combination of cold-plunges and saunas and are said to drain the body of toxins and help with muscle and joint pain.

King was inspired to open a Nordic spa from her fascination with gathering places in her travels to foreign countries and her desire to create a gathering space in Burlington. She said Nordic spas have taken off in popularity in Quebec and with Burlington's similar climate, she sees them becoming equally as popular here.

King said the plan is to have people go through the cold-plunge/sauna cycle and then provide indoor and outdoor spaces to relax, have a cup of tea or a bite to eat and socialize with others. A separate small building is planned on the site for small parties and gatherings. King will grow herbs onsite as well.

A delicate site: How engineers are addressing environmental concerns

To make development possible on 453 Pine St., the state of Vermont is giving landowners a $6 million to remediate the land which is currently categorized as brownfields. A brownfields designation means the land is contaminated enough to require state approvals for redevelopment.

The Barge Canal Superfund site is also directly adjacent to 453 Pine, a complex relationship that engineers must take into consideration. The main concern is how much weight will be added to the property due to the real threat of additional weight impacting the way coal tar has been contained in the neighboring site. If too much weight is added, the soft, peat-filled soil will compress, which could squeeze water out of the peat and toward the coal tar underneath the surface of the adjacent property, leading to the possibility of coal tar dissolving in the water and getting into the lake.

Construction will be strategic to prevent disturbance of the Superfund site.

"Every ton of soil that is brought into the site to build a parking lot, for instance, we need to compensate by taking away soil that is in place now," said Daniel Voisin, senior geologist at Stone Environmental.

The foundations of the bathhouse and the commercial building will require strengthened soil underneath them to support the weight of the buildings.

A foot of topsoil will also have to be removed in some parts of the site due to industrial contamination. Engineers estimated that 6,600 square yards of soil will have to be removed and sent to Coventry Landfill.

Graham Bradley, hazardous sites manager for Vermont's Department of Environmental Conservation, said engineers recently submitted the plans for the site's methods to reduce exposure of contaminants to the lake or humans and now his team will review them as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the legacy companies that owned the Barge Canal property while it was a functioning coal gasification plant. Bradley said the state hopes to have feedback for developers by the end of August on whether their plans are approved.

Address: 453 Pine St,, Burlington

Groundbreaking: April 2024

Expected completion: Early summer 2025

What's being built: Silt Botanica, a Nordic bathhouse, and a commercial building

Features: Gardens, hot and cold pools, saunas, steam rooms, areas to socialize and relax, space for small parties, commercial building with three units to lease.

Previously here: This is currently an empty lot

What’s in the neighborhood: Maltex Building, Burlington City Arts Studios, Speeder & Earl's Coffee, Dealer.com, Arts Riot, The Lamp Shop

Project cost: Still in flux

Developer: 453 Pine Enterprises

Architect: Weimann Lamphere Architects

Engineer: Stone Environmental, Trudell Consulting Engineers

Contact Urban Change Reporter Lilly St. Angelo at lstangelo@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @lilly_st_ang.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Burlington spas: Nordic spa passes development review board