Developer William Binnie confirmed Sept. 26 his company is bidding to acquire and redevelop the Thomas J. McIntyre federal building property.
Binnie, president of the locally owned Carlisle Capital Corporation, entered the online auction “to see if we can make this project something the city and our family can be proud of.”
“I don’t want to see this turned into high-rise towers, we live and work right next to it,” he said. “It’s been painful for everybody, including us, to see this process play out.”
The federal General Services Administration — which owns the property — before this week had received just one $5 million bid since it started the auction of the 2.1-acre 80 Daniel St. property in June. Carlisle Capital is located at 126 Daniel St. Binnie’s company made its first bid Monday, he said.
As of early Wednesday, Sept. 27, the high bid was $5.65 million, according to the GSA’s auction website for the property. Binnie said his company made that bid. There had been a total of 13 bids made on the property as of mid-day Tuesday with nine being made Tuesday and three on Monday in what has become competitive auction.
Binnie and the first bidder made a series of bids on the property Tuesday in an effort to be the highest bidder in the online auction, which has a “soft close” date of Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 10:29 a.m. EST, according to the auction site. A third bidder joined the process on Tuesday, according to the GSA’s online auction page, which does not identify the bidders.
A representative of developer Mark McNabb stated late last week the well-known Portsmouth developer had not placed a bid.
The initial $5 million bid was made on July 1, according to the GSA.
Binnie said he does not know the identities of the other bidders.
Binnie and his company have made previous proposals to the city of Portsmouth to redevelop the McIntyre property, including a $45.9 million plan in January 2022. The city is still trying to acquire the property from the GSA after a private-public partnership with the development team Redgate/Kane failed earlier this year.
Binnie envisions return of the post office and open space
Binnie’s top priorities for the redevelopment of the property, if his company acquires it, are to “bring back the post office to the site in the center of downtown Portsmouth,” he said.
The second is to ensure there are “no high rise towers” at the McIntyre “and to maintain as much open space as possible,” he said.
Finally, he wants to use the existing federal building “in its best and most economically capable way,” Binnie said.
He replied it was “premature to speculate on that stuff” when asked specifically how the federal building could be used.
The first question to answer, he said, is “can we secure the asset at an economically viable price? Can we deal with the terrible asbestos in the building, which will cost millions of dollars to remediate?”
He added redeveloping the site “for public use or something that would benefit the city would make all the sense in the world. We’d be happy to work with the city.”
Binnie’s company previously redeveloped the former Citizens Bank building on Elm Street in Manchester into more than 100 apartments, he said.
“We have experience doing this, it’s not a foreign project for us,” he said.
But he declined to say what he thinks the best use of the existing building would be.
“It’s going to take us a long time to determine,” he said.
Binnie thanked the community for “all the positive feedback we’ve gotten” when the company has shown interest in the McIntyre.
“We’re a family-based company, we live here, we work here,” he said. “The city of Portsmouth is important to us.”
He described the ongoing and often contentious deliberations about what to do with the McIntyre property — which is located in the center of downtown – as “heartbreaking.”
“It’s been so disruptive politically, it’s a shame and it’s been unnecessary,” Binnie said. “We want to work with the city and find a way for this to make sense for all the various constituents.”
The city tried for the past several years to secure the 2.1-acre McIntyre property for $1 through the government’s Historic Monument Program.
GSA dropped Portsmouth from that program earlier this year when the city and its private development partner Redgate/Kane couldn’t agree on a redevelopment plan and subsequently sued each other.
This article is being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
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