After years of fleeing cities, many give urban living a second look

By Karen Spiller
Telegraph Staff

NASHUA – The “in” thing in real estate used to be sprawling suburban homes with 1-acre lots, picket fences and plenty of lawn to mow.

But these days, many young professionals, empty-nesters and retirees across the country are either downsizing or looking for a more chic and affordable lifestyle.
And they’re finding it downtown.

The number of downtown residents in the nation’s largest cities is expected to grow by 2010, according to a survey by The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy and The Fannie Mae Foundation. The movement is also being seen locally, with 10 projects ranging from high-end condos to elderly apartments either under way or in the planning stages.

“This is a national trend, and we here in New England are going to get hip to it,” said Alan Manoian, a planning and development consultant and the city’s former assistant economic director and downtown development specialist.

Hoping to capitalize on the trend, local developers are hard at work in a city where there’s almost no room left to build homes.

Take John Stabile, who has partnered with Southern New Hampshire Services, a nonprofit community-services agency, to develop the largest project that has been approved thus far: Cotton Mill Square. The mixed-income development on Front Street will offer 32 of its 162 new condominium units – 20 percent – as what is referred to as “affordable” housing, priced at $180,000 and mixed in among higher-priced units. That’s almost $70,000 less than the 2005 median home value in Nashua, according to U.S. Census statistics.

The affordable units are targeted for a worker who earns in the $40,000 range, based on a 6.25 percent mortgage interest rate.

“We’re going to bring in the teacher, the policeman, the firefighter,” Stabile said.
The Cotton Mill development, which also will include 9,000 square feet of commercial space and a remainder of condos priced at about $250,000, is set to open late next fall.

Another developer, Mark Maynard, is building the upscale – $337,500 to $439,9000 – Jackson Falls condominiums along the Nashua River. He’s also turning the former Beebe Rubber Co. site on Marshall Street into “Hollis East,” 80 garden-style
condos, starting at $145,000.

Then there’s Mario Plante, the Hudson contractor who plans to spend $10 million redeveloping the 1886 Estabrook-Anderson factory building on Palm Street – formerly the location of the Batesville Casket Co. – into 80 apartments for people 55 and older. Plans call for the mixed-use development to include 25,000 square feet of commercial space.

Those developments are among the 445 housing units that have been approved. Of those, 158 are already built. And another 440 are still in planning or preconstruction stages. When all is said and done, some 885 units could open downtown to residents of varying ages and income levels.

“That area is a quilt, and this is just a piece of the quilt,” Stabile said of Cotton Mill Square. “The quilt is going to be the betterment of the redevelopment of downtown Nashua.”

Changing face of downtown

“Living in a downtown, it’s trendy, it’s exciting. People want to be where the action is,” said Sarah DiSano, executive director of Great American Downtown, the nonprofit organization that promotes the downtown area, which has become home to a number of upscale restaurants and shops.

So, what’s the attraction?

Downtown Nashua didn’t become trendy until an outdoor seating ordinance was approved in the late 1990s and restaurants such as Martha’s Exchange became sidewalk cafes and started drawing an evening scene. Places such as Michael Timothy’s, Surf, Villa Banca and Peddler’s Daughter followed suit – all of which feature outdoor seating. After the restaurants came chic, trendy stores such as Pompanoosuc Mills, Design Wares and Junz, to name a few.

“All of a sudden, the place is pretty cool,” said Manoian, owner of Northeastern New Urban, a planning and development consulting company.

The most important part of revitalizing a downtown – besides bringing back an evening scene – is making it so that people are living there, Manoian said. And that, he said, is what a lot of smart developers are working on now.

They’re creating more compact residential opportunities in mixed-use zones where people can walk, take the bus or even ride their bike.

“This is a very appealing lifestyle product,” Manoian said. “That is at the root of all this.”

And while all the downtown-area developments are very different, they all share something in common: They’ll change the face of downtown.

“I think it’s good,” said Roger Bertrand, 60, who has lived at 71 Palm St. for a decade. His house is right across the street from the massive Estabrook-Anderson factory buildings that could become senior apartments.

“You don’t want to leave those buildings (vacant), especially in this neighborhood,” Bertrand said. “For older people who can’t afford their houses, it will be super.”

Mike Peterson, co-owner of Weichert Realtors, a franchise opening next month in Nashua, agreed.

“It should improve the neighborhood,” Peterson said. “Hopefully, it will be affordable homes.”

Peterson said he wasn’t surprised at all of the downtown area developments.

“The demand is there,” he said, adding that 40 percent of buyers he has dealt with come from Massachusetts.

The range of housing alternatives offered will provide people of differing income levels, lifestyles and family types the opportunity to live, work and enjoy their leisure downtown, said Jay Minkarah, the city’s economic development director. They will also help support existing retail and service businesses while encouraging new establishments to open that cater more to the immediate needs of a residential community, he said.

The developments will increase the number of people patronizing downtown establishments without significantly adding to traffic or increasing demands on parking, Minkarah said.

“To Nashua as a whole, we will begin to see the emergence of a vibrant, pedestrian-oriented, 24-hour city center – something more akin to a typical European city today or to the way American cities were before the middle of the last century – a model that is more environmentally friendly and more economically and socially integrated,” he said.

Neil Stanley, owner of CVS Paving, was buying lunch recently at Tacos Nayarit, a Mexican vendor across Palm Street from the factory building where Manoian’s client, Plante, plans to build 80 senior apartments.

Stanley called the recently proposed downtown residential developments “cool.” Referring to Cotton Mill Square, Stanley said, “I’m thinking of buying a couple of them.”

That excites people such as Mayor Bernie Streeter.

“Downtown is now once again a destination, not only for shoppers, but a destination for a neighborhood,” he said. “I’m excited about it.”

‘Burgeoning market’

While roughly half of the 885 residential units remain in the planning stages, downtown’s residential renaissance is already under way.

The real-estate agent in charge of the upscale Jackson Falls project on the Nashua River said the 83 Main St. sales center isn’t even open, but six of the 22 units are already under nonbinding reservation agreements.

“We’ve got a lot of interested parties,” said Martha Baroody of Prudential Rush Realty. “Nashua’s booming.”

The people willing to spend $337,500 or more to buy one of the condos next to Margaritas Mexican Restaurant are mostly empty-nesters or professionals with good jobs, she said.

“A lot of people are looking to sell their homes in suburbia – Bedford, Hollis, Nashua – and they’re looking for a maintenance-free lifestyle,” she said.
Those people may be downsizing, but they aren’t downgrading, Baroody said, noting the granite countertops, marble baths and hardwood floors in a Jackson Falls condo.

But if they build it, how do they know if the people will come?

For one thing, the concept of living downtown isn’t new. One of the first large downtown residential projects developed in the late 1980s was Clocktower Place. The 326-unit brick mill buildings almost always has a waiting list for apartments.
“That was an extremely innovative and bold development,” Manoian said of the project, which was developed by Ed Bryce of Boston. “He came in and said, ‘Look at this massive mill structure.’ That man was such a visionary.”

So, maybe there’s a market for more?

Stabile paid a firm to conduct a market study of the area before committing to the joint venture with Southern New Hampshire Services.

That study found that people are moving to Nashua, families are getting smaller and the fast-growth 55-plus demographic is surrendering to the lure of downtown life in southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts.

More baby boomers are expected to join that empty-nester group, adding thousands of people in the next five years, Stabile said. Retirees will grow faster, with a projected 4 percent average yearly increase from 2005-10.

“It’s an opportunity for the baby boomer to get rid of their four-bedroom garrison and still stay in town,” Stabile said.

And there is demand to support up to 140 new units in 2005, according to Stabile’s research. That number is expected to increase over the next five years, topping off with a demand of up to 208 new units in 2010.

The numbers are working so well that DiSano said the city’s Great American Downtown organization is modifying its strategy to focus more on business recruitment so the people who live downtown can walk to work.

“I get to walk to work,” said DiSano, who lives downtown. “It’s two minutes. It’s the best commute I’ve ever had in my life.

“People who live downtown in the summer have been able to enjoy the farmers’ market on Sundays. There’s nothing better than that.”

“Frankly, downtowns are better,” Manoian added. “It started happening in Lowell, it’s happening in Manchester and all around metro Boston. There’s a burgeoning market of people out there looking for this alternative thing.”

The future

Is there such a thing as too much downtown development in Nashua? Does downtown run the risk of getting overbuilt?

No, according to Donnalee Lozeau, director of program and community development for Southern New Hampshire Services.

Lozeau chaired the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing, which came out with a study in 2003 addressing the lack of affordable housing in the area.

“There’s not enough housing for businesses to expand in the community and have their help live here,” Lozeau said.

“I think it’s valuable to think about how long it’s been since we’ve really built the housing stock that the community needs.”

For example, only 57 percent of city employees live in Nashua, according to the study. A full-time firefighter and part-time store clerk who together earn $46,000 a year and have two children, can spend only $1,149 a month on their home in the city’s rental market, according to the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing report. That rent would give them access to only 34 percent of the units in the city.

Finding something big enough would present a problem, since only 16.3 percent of the rental housing offers three bedrooms, according to that 2003 study.

That study called for about 500 units to be developed downtown area. The number that’s being proposed now is consistent with that study, Minkarah noted.

“You’re not going see 540 units hit the market at one time,” he said, adding that the other projects are in various phases of the approval process.

City Planning Director Roger Houston agrees.

“It may be 885 units, but you aren’t talking about a major influx of people,” Houston said.

For years, the Nashua River has been an industrial area, and now it’s shifting to something that has jobs, as well as residential and office space.

Lozeau said she would like to see more projects where nonprofits partner with private developers and the city to bring online not only affordable housing, but also mixed-income housing projects.

“It’s good for the community,” she said. “It’s good for the people who live there.”
In the future, Houston sees more people strolling along the Riverwalk – a 700-foot walkway that will run along the north bank of the Nashua River off Main Street to the Jackson Falls condos – and more people calling downtown their home.

“Hopefully in the future with rail access, they might be able to go north or south or maybe west,” Houston said. “That’s long term, probably, but there are always those opportunities.”