Lincoln Financial's Concord Property Put On The Market

CONCORD, NH — A global financial company that has been slowly consolidating its operations has reached its last stage of moving most its workforce out of the city of Concord — selling its land holdings and building assets.

Last week, Lincoln Financial put its 1 Granite Place property up for sale with an asking price of $6 million. The property includes two separate buildings with more than 210,000 square feet of office space and 181.6 acres of land zoned as institutional district and open space residential.

The holdings are split into four separate pieces: The North Building, assessed at $4.4 million, is locked in a lease agreement with Steve Duprey's Foxfire Property Management through 2040 (five years ago, the building was assessed at $7.7 million). Another building, known as the South Building, along with 34 acres of land, is assessed at $9.4 million. There is a warehouse and 41 acres of land which the North Building sits on, on the north side of the property, which is assessed at $1.6 million. Part of the land, about 10 acres, is zoned open space residential (RO). And nearly 107 acres of RO zoned land with two access points off Penacook Street and one off Little Pond Road is also part of the deal. The parcel is assessed at $132,700.

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Thomas Farrelly, an executive director of New England Regional Brokerage Services for Cushman & Wakefield, said even though the property has only been on the market for about a week, there have been some curious buyers looking at the holdings, which is on the market for the first time. At the end of the lease with Duprey, the new owner is slated have control of the North Building, Farrelly said. Duprey did not return an email about the sale.

The North Building was originally constructed in 1975. About a decade later, the South Building was built. Originally owned by Chubb Life, the company later merged with Jefferson Pilot Corporation. In 2006, Jefferson Pilot merged with Lincoln Financial.

During the 1980s and 1990s, hundreds of people were employed at the complex. At one point, the company was one of the city's largest employers. Its cafeteria was a go-to stop for presidential candidates such as Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, giving employees the chance to kick the tires and ask questions directly to first-in-the-nation primary candidates. The philanthropic arm of the company has also made substantial donations to arts organizations, housing interests, and others in the city.

But during the past decade or so, the company has been cutting its workforce, moving to remote employment, and consolidating operations.

While promotional materials pitch the buildings lush grounds, "corporate campus environment," lease income from Duprey, and access to major thoroughfares, its biggest potential future is for redevelopment, specifically, housing.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, a combination of many factors including lack of housing production, restrictive zoning in rural and suburban communities, people migrating into or being settled in Concord and the state, and retirees choosing not to leave to warmer climates has created a housing shortage — hitting renters and entry level buyers the hardest. Recent reports by the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority show the state, including most of its counties, with exceedingly low vacancy rates: The rate was less than 1 percent in 2019 and this year, that rate increased to 1.8 percent. The tiny increase in vacancies was due primarily to the construction of multi-family buildings in the southern part of the state. But the rents on those apartments and purchase price of condominiums are much higher than other units driving up costs.

In Merrimack County, the vacancy rate is 1.2 percent — up from 0.5 percent in 2019, according to the reports.

The overall national vacancy rate is around 6.6 percent while it is 5.5 percent in the Northeast — about what the vacancy rate was in Merrimack County a decade ago.

Most of the land, about 120 acres, is zoned RO which allows for single family detached dwellings or cluster developments at densities not exceeding half of a dwelling unit per acre. "Low impact" outdoor recreational uses such as walking trails, forestry, and agriculture are also allowed uses.

However, with the housing crunch being what it is in the city, if a developer comes forward, there will be pressure to maximize the property's usage. At that price point, many units will need to br constructed to turn a profit, too. Potentially, three development sections are possible with some single-family homes on the western ledge of the property and cluster developments in the central and eastern sections of the property where access to water and sewer through the institutional district is easiest. There will be wetlands setbacks due to Woods Brook, which runs from Little Pond, through the property to the north, abutting Blossom Hill Cemetery.

The third leg of the Northwest Bypass-Langley Parkway, a proposal of many iterations, across decades, that neighborhood residents in the West End and North End do not want constructed, will also play a role in what happens on the property since the southeastern side of the South Building's parcel will be affected by any new road construction proposal.

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