Developers Line Up Grocery Store For Exit 17 Parcel In Concord

CONCORD, NH — It's been a multi-year effort, with a lot of ups and downs, but Penacook, Boscawen, and Canterbury residents are closer now than they have ever been before to getting a supermarket in their area. Interchange Development, the 42-acre parcel on Whitney Road near Exit 17 on I-93, has lined up an anchor tenant for a project they have been working on for at least eight years. Laurie Rauseo, who co-owns the parcel, with her husband, David, confirmed that they have a grocery store tenant for the parcel.

"Unfortunately, I can’t make public the answer to the obvious question of who it is," she said in an email. "We hope to be able to do so soon."

Rauseo said they are working now to figure out how to improve the intersection at Route 4 and Whitney Road in order to handle the increase in traffic that comes with the proposed development. The city has set aside $100,000 to survey the area, which officials hope will include new development, at some point, along the Merrimack River, from the intersection to the former Concord Monitor printing press location.

The battle to bring a full-service grocery store to the area has been going on for nearly two decades after the city acquired the tannery site and began cleaning it up. Residents hoped a grocery store would be an anchor tenant for the tannery site, as part of a mixed-use development, after millions of dollars were spent to clean up the site.

The Rauseos proposed, instead, to develop the Exit 17 parcel for a new grocery store in mid-2011. That rezoning effort was shot down in late 2011; it was hijacked by some who continued to have what one city official privately called at the time "a pipedream," since there were no interested companies willing to build a grocery store on the tannery site. Despite countless studies and work by officials, location issues and the economic makeup of the region hampered the effort.

The first major tannery deal was with Weston Solutions, a Connecticut company, which proposed building an assisted living facility with 45 apartments and a retail/restaurant space in 2012. That deal, however, quickly fell through and the site languished.

Fast forward to 2017.

After many years of searching, a developer was found for the tannery site, and a mostly low-income apartment complex, Penacook Landing, has been proposed for the parcel. Caleb Group, much to the chagrin of some residents concerned about more school children moving into the Merrimack Valley School District and paying already higher property taxes than the rest of Concord residents, are building 54-units at the site.

With the grocery store plan for the tannery site all but over, the Rauseos floated a request for a revised rezoning plan for their parcel last year. The project included a supermarket, warehouse, retail, restaurant, and medical/office space on the site, right off the Interstate. The plan, which was unanimously approved by the Concord City Council in April 2018, and could result in nearly $40 million in new assessed property to the city's tax rolls.

After surveying by the city, a public-private partnership will be worked on to find a way to address the added traffic issues and the cost of the new intersection. Revenue concepts being floated include tax increment financing, bonding the project, economic development funds, impact fees, and working with officials in Canterbury to offset the cost to Concord taxpayers. Funding is expected to be discussed in the spring.

The state of New Hampshire, which is responsible for the Route 4 corridor, has declined to put the new intersection in its 10-year improvement plan, despite the need for traffic improvements on the road even before the development was proposed.

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