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

Market Square Architects, Portsmouth, has hired Michael Murphy as a project manager. Murphy, who has 16 years of experience in commercial, senior living, aviation, residential and hospitality projects previously worked for over 10 years with a large Northeast design-build firm.

Waltham, Mass.-based Benchmark Senior Living has acquired the real estate and operations of the 40-unit memory care community Evolve at Rye. Located on Route 1, Benchmark said, Evolve at Rye is the only dedicated memory care community in the Seacoast area. Benchmark is the largest senior care provider in New England, with 62 communities offering independent living, assisted living, mind and memory care, and continuing care. Six of them are in New Hampshire.

Christopher Norwood of Portsmouth, president of NAI Norwood Group, Bedford, and Anthony Poore, executive director of New Hampshire Humanities, have been appointed to the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority’s board of directors by Gov. Chris Sununu. Norwood’s, whose primary focus is commercial real estate sales, is also on the board of the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. Poore, who has previously worked in the economic development sector addressing the needs of urban and rural communities, serves on the boards of the New Hampshire Endowment for Health and Currier Museum of Art. Donald Shumwayof Hopkinton is the board’s chair and Kendall Buck of Wilmot is vice chair.

Attorney Jim Kerouac, a shareholder in the Bernstein Shur law firm and a member of its Real Estate and Commercial and Governmental Finance Practice Groups, has been elected as a fellow of the American College of Mortgage Attorneys, the second attorney in New Hampshire to hold this designation.