What’s Happening on Fisherville Road?

Recently, the towering pines in the lot next to the Penacook Place Apartments, between 120 and 180 Fisherville Road, were clear-cut from seven acres of land and the change had a lot of people wondering, What’s going on there?

Patch asked around and we weren’t able to find out much information about potential development at the site. Here’s what we do know.

The parcel is owned by Richmond Penacook Development LLC out of Wilmington, Mass., a subsidiary of The Richmond Company, a developer of shopping centers and high-end housing. The company has developed a number of residential and retail properties around the Northeast, and was reportedly involved in a controversial plan in 2000 to build a shopping plaza at the old rail yard off South Main Street, where Concord Steam is hoping to build a new plant. The company also developed a Stop & Shop grocery store in Exeter in 2003.

City Planner Steve Henninger said the company had no application pending or proposed. He added that sometimes, large landowners will clear-cut timber from their parcels to sell the wood to pay property taxes and to make the parcel look more desirable for a potential developer. Henninger said the company had paid the city’s timber tax. 

The lot is assessed around $1.18 million, according to the city’s online assessing database, which would mean that annual taxes would come in around $37,000 a year. The company purchased the land in April 2005, from a trust. It’s zoned “general commercial.”

Some residents believed that the lot was part of the West Village Open Space but it’s not. The open space is just to the south of the Richmond lot, Henninger said. The space, a kind of “no man’s land” that was created in the original subdivision in 1979, was owned in common with all the property owners and was supposed to be control by a property association that never was created, Henninger noted.

Henninger said the parcel is large enough for a grocery store - something Penacook residents have wanted for a long time - or something like a Whole Foods specialty market, but the economics might not be viable for that kind of store. Henninger added that “there’s more reaction on this than I’ve seen in a long time.”

Company officials did not return a phone call or email request for comment.