People and Property: Real Estate and Construction News From Around NH

Timberlane plans how to use $25 million to repair schools

Timberlane Regional School District is deciding how to spend money from a $25 million lease-purchase agreement to improve and repair the district’s seven schools.

The belfry undergoes repairs at Atkinson Academy.

The 20-year agreement was approved by residents in Plaistow, Atkinson, Sandown and Danville in March. The project aimed to make immediate repairs and maintenance to the district’s five elementary schools, middle and high schools, along with the Timberlane Performing Arts Center and administrative offices.

It’s a calculated decision as the school board, administration and construction committee work out which building improvement projects should take precedence and are in most critical need.

The board heard from the construction committee about projected costs for some needed repairs at its last meeting.

This year, the committee recommended repairing Atkinson Academy’s historic belfry. Two parts of this project are estimated to cost $270,000.

Four of the elementary schools’ heating, ventilation and rooftop air conditioning system units were replaced this year with money from the lease agreement. School officials are now looking at how to update climate controls and possibly move exterior duct work inside which could save energy in the future. A boiler update is planned in the future as well.

Repairs to Timberlane Regional High School’s roof were also discussed. Officials said they hope to recover one section which extends from the building’s front to a back wing during this next phase.

Other work at the high school could include replacing 17 energy recovery ventilator units on the roof along with dehumidification, duct cleaning and upgrading controls with valve replacement.

Phase 2 improvements at the high school could total $8.5 million – or 34% of the $25 million purchase agreement.

Various high school repairs, when completed, were projected to account for 38% of the agreement. — Angelina Berube/Eagle-Tribune

Temple talks housing solutions

After five months of collecting feedback from Temple residents about the types of housing they’d like to see to increase options for homebuyers, without overly impacting the town’s rural character, planning consultant Ivy Vann presented several of the most-popular options during a forum Monday night.

Vann said housing in Temple is almost entirely detached single-family homes, with only a handful of other options in the town’s entire inventory. But Temple’s population, about 72%, is made up of mostly one- or two-person households, with the median age in town being 47, and 46% of residents are over age 50. As residents age, they may look for smaller homes or single-level homes where they can retire, but those are not common. The median price of a home in Temple is currently $450,000.

Vann said in exercises where residents selected the types of infill they’d most like to see in Temple, the prevailing choice was dwellings that “looked like houses,” keeping Temple’s current aesthetic, but allowing for more units, such as accessory dwelling units (ADUs), duplexes and dividing existing large buildings into several smaller apartments or units.

To encourage more ADUs, Vann said the town could allow both attached and detached apartments, allow up to two ADUs per lot or not require that the property owner live in one of the units on the property. She said the town could also create documents to assist homeowners with how to finance building ADUs, as some banks will allow a homeowner to leverage future rent when applying for a loan to build one. Some towns have created a revolving loan fund, which is paid back at no interest to those willing to build ADUs on their property, or creating plans that would be pre-approved for those who want to build detached ADUs.

Conservation subdivisions — a type of development that clusters houses together on a large parcel and conserves the remaining open space — were another popular choice with residents. Vann said there are pluses and minuses to the model. It preserves green space, an often-stated town goal, but she said these types of developments should be carefully located, so as not to lock out the potential for future growth where the town might want it.

Vann said the infrastructure would save money in the long run, as the clustered houses would need less frontage and therefore less road maintenance, but are just as expensive and often more complicated for developers to build. She said to entice developers, the town could offer a “density bonus” — allowing more houses closer together, if the developer uses this type of model.

Vann discussed several models that allowed for the creation of multiple units that would be built together, including pocket neighborhoods and various types of farmstead housing that would allow multiple units.

Pocket neighborhoods are groupings of eight to 14 homes grouped around a green, often with the homes sharing resources such as septic, water and even heating. Vann said the key with these developments is finding places in town they fit and allowing them there.

Farmsteads are groups of separate buildings, not all of the same size, that could include a large house with multiple units and other converted buildings such as former barns or cottages within the same parcel. Vann said there are several examples of this type of construction in the region, many of which wouldn’t be recognizable as such from the street. Another similar model, is a connected farm, which Vann characterized as “a big house, little house, back house, barn.”

Vann said in general, the town could consider allowing multi-unit buildings in all districts, but create forms that are acceptable to them such as the farmstead models, or establish design standards such as building footprints that are allowable, rather than based on the number of units. The town could allow buildings of certain sizes and shapes, or specifically define what they look like and where the parking can be.

While Monday’s forum concluded a series of housing discussions with the public, the Planning Board’s Housing Opportunity Program Grant Steering Committee members are offering to continue one-on-one or small group discussions with town members who would like to continue the conversation on housing needs in Temple, and what solutions they would support. People who are interested in meeting should send email to committee co-Chair Pam Kingston at pam@kingston-assoc.com.

The committee is also continuing to meet to discuss zoning solutions and updates to the town’s master plan, with the next meeting scheduled for Jan. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall annex. — Ashley Saari/Monadnock Ledger-Transcript

Concord city council approves purchase of empty office building for new police headquarters

Concord Police headquarters will move to the vacant Concord Group Insurance offices as early as next year, pending a favorable inspection, after the city council voted to approve a $4.1 million purchase and sale agreement. 

The move will allow the department to relocate to a larger site that maintains a central location in the city, according to Deputy City Manager Matt Walsh.

But for Tracy Nabstedt, a Ward 5 resident, the same feels like a hasty purchase he’s seen play out in the city before.  

It goes something like this: The city buys a piece of property for a hefty price tag. The council then votes to spend more money on an asbestos evaluation. After that comes asbestos mitigation, which is even more expensive. Then the site needs a new roof. And after all this money is funneled into the site, the council changes course and decides it’s best to tear down the building and start anew, he said. 

“What is the guarantee to the people in Concord that this is going to be a good deal?” he asked. “Concord taxpayers are just going to keep paying and paying and paying, and personally, I just don’t see the value in it.”

Constructed in 1957, the office building on Bouton Street was home to the Concord Group Insurance for more than half a century until they relocated to Bedford earlier this year. 

The city was interested in purchasing the site directly from the Concord Group, however, they were not willing to hold onto it long enough for the city to conduct a thorough inspection and evaluation, said Walsh. 

Instead, Steve Duprey agreed to purchase the building for $3.5 million and now will sell it to the city for $4.09 million. 

Duprey said he will make zero profit from the sale, and jokingly asked the council to amend the purchase price so he could make one dollar. 

The additional $500,000 in the sale price covers short-term financing costs of the empty building, closing costs, bank fees and interest. 

“I am not making a penny,” he said. “It takes a lot of time and effort and potential risk and incumbrance of my credit while we do this. I am doing this because I love this city.” 

Following a clean building inspection, the city anticipates closing on the property on or before June 12, said Walsh. 

However, it will just be the beginning of expenses. The city has earmarked another $27.5 million to design and create a new police station. The city did not present any cost estimate to convert the existing building into a police station, which would include holding cells, a booking area, security measures and a sally port. Those financial decisions will be made at a later date.

With the Bouton Street building that faces North State Street, the police department will be able to expand its headquarters, which has been an ongoing conversation in the city council over the last few years. 

In 2021, a study from the city recommended that the station be nearly 28,000 square feet, which is nearly 6,000 more than the current facility. This new building would provide roughly 38,000 square feet of space. 

With that, the city could also consider relocating the prosecutor’s office to the new site. The current police station headquarters at the Green Street campus could also be repurposed for other city departments. 

The council approved the purchase and sale unanimously, with Ward 5 Councilor Stacey Brown recusing herself, as her husband is a police officer in the city. — Michaela Towfighi/Concord Monitor