For Concord's Chamber, a New Beginning [VIDEO]

Last week, the held an open house for its new Downtown Concord storefront in the Smile Building on South Main Street.

The event was a festive one, with members, staffers, and dignitaries celebrating with munchies, drinks, and jazz, with Chamber President even picking up the sax for a few tunes.

While the move had been in the planning stages for a bit of time, it wasn’t completely expected.

The previous Chamber space – off the parking lot at the – was a condominium space purchased by the Chamber 11 years ago, according to Sink. The Chamber expected to be there for a long time, he said.

At the same time, , the owner of the conference center, was finding a need for more breakout space at the center. Duprey, according to Sink, was considering adding an addition to the side of the current facility, which would have cut into the available parking spaces.

During a conversation between the two about three or four years ago, Duprey was talking to Sink about the potential Smile Building and how excited he was about the project. Sink told him at the time that the Chamber would love to be downtown.

“There were a lot of twists and turns along the way,” Sink said. “But the long and short story here is that this is essentially a space swap.”

Sink said the conference center now has a mini-ballroom and breakout space, allowing Duprey to book other functions, and “we end up in a very cool downtown location.”

, the current board president of the Chamber, called the new space “spectacular, phenomenal, upscale … a whole different feel to it, welcoming the community.” He said more than two years of thinking went into planning for the trade and the creation of the new space. Morrison said an executive committee was put together to help with the planning.

Jonathan Chorlian, the co-owner of the Smile Building with Duprey, said the additional space at the conference center was “critical” and “significant” to the future of the center. Now, they were able to book bigger functions they were not able to land in the past.

“But we are really grateful to have the Chamber here … to us, it’s just a perfect fit,” he said.

Chorlian said it all made sense since the Chamber’s Creative Concord was a large initiative and the organization was now across the street from the Capitol Center for the Arts, next door to the new League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s storefront, and abutting the M. T. Mennino apartments, which has set aside units for artists. The new space also has display opportunities for paintings, sculptures, furniture, and other artwork.

Chorlian also said that having the Chamber downtown, right next to the upcoming Bindery project, which he hoped would close next week, was an attractive selling point to potential tenants of that building too.

“They love the mixture of organizations that are in this building and will be in that building,” he said.