Mayor targets industry, housing and parks

Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess gives his 2024 State of the City Address at Nashua Community College on March 20. (Photo by Ashley Theobold)

Nashua is “strong and growing,” Mayor Jim Donchess declared to an audience of the city’s chamber employees and member businesses in mid-March. But he says you don’t need to take his word for it — just look at the city’s recent accomplishments.

Amid population growth, the Gate City has made investments in defense contractor BAE Systems’ Electronic Systems division locally, the city is reimagining its riverfront, and plans are underway for a renovation of the Nashua Public Library Plaza and the creation of an adjacent recreational park.

“Moving Nashua forward is a long-term project,” Donchess opened in his 2024 State of the City Address held in Nashua Community College’s gymnasium March 20.

Thanking Nashua’s 2,800 municipal employees, the mayor championed these developments and more in his address, following remarks from Greater Nashua Chamber President Wendy Hunt and Doug Foley, president of New Hampshire electric operations at Eversource.

BAE in Nashua was the inaugural recipient of a $35 million federal CHIPS Act grant from the Biden administration late last year, which Donchess credited in part due to the city’s collaboration with the company. That partnership comes in the form of a microelectronics workforce-training program offered at Nashua Community College, which spurred the grant award and was made possible by a $200,000 contribution from the city.

“We are preserving well-paying manufacturing jobs,” Donchess said of the city’s ties with the company, which boasts an employment of about 6,000 in Nashua.

In response, the company is pledging to invest about $50 million over five years to revamp its foundry on Spit Brook Road, with the grant funding poised to offer workforce increases and semiconductor manufacturing.

Near the Merrimack River, the introduction of an aluminum can plant to the city is well underway, being built on Burke Street within the former Nashua campus of industrial products supplier Ingersoll Rand. Can-One USA began development of its North American plant in Nashua in 2022. The company is a division of the Can-One Berhad International family of packaging and container manufacturing companies, headquartered in Malaysia.

“Can-One has invested millions of dollars to improve the former factory, and it soon will employ up to 200 people making cans for soft drinks and beer,” Donchess said in his address.

Additional preparation is already planned to grow manufacturing capacity after completion in light of an aluminum shortage, NH Business Review reported at the time of the plant’s announcement.

Meanwhile, on the municipal end, Donchess emphasized the city government’s work to lengthen the Nashua Riverwalk. After a considerable planning process, he said officials “expect construction to begin shortly,” in line with wording reported last fall that the city would begin installing boardwalks this spring.

“The project will create a continuous Riverwalk, providing a new productivity for downtown Nashua to the surrounding neighborhoods and Mine Falls Park,” the mayor said. “There will be an expanded Renaissance Park with a performance space that will provide opportunities for recreation, and the project will add suspended walkways.”

Donchess also gave kudos to outgoing U.S. Rep.

Annie Kuster for securing funding that provides for the revitalization of the multilevel plaza outside the Nashua Public Library, financed by $3 million in federal money and $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act. Plans call for the project, designed by architecture firm Arcadis, to feature a new park with a playground, improved lighting and minimal irrigation, with a performance space for events.

Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce members listen in as Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess delivers his 2024 State of the City Address. (Photo by Ashley Theobold)

“We held a public input session in the library in February, and we received many suggestions as to how to refine the park and improve the park’s design,” Donchess said. Residents were surveyed during the session on two design concepts presented.

The public library notes that part of the motivation behind the revitalization stems from safety concerns within the community due to limited use by the public and low lighting in the evening and night hours.

Considering this, Donchess stated that Nashua remains steadfast in maintaining a safe city and neighborhoods. He hearkened back to WalletHub’s list of “Safest Cities in the U.S.,” which has repeatedly named Nashua the top safest city nationally based on metrics like home safety, financial safety and natural disaster risk, including in 2023.

But where it’s strong in safety, it’s deficient in housing, as with other New England cities. That was a focal point of Donchess’ speech, drawing parallels to first-term Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais’ address to the Queen City’s chamber in February.

However, unlike Manchester’s approach to easing planning board requirements for accessory dwelling units (ADUs), Donchess said Nashua’s city government is facing opposition from residents of some neighborhoods to amending rules to allow such housing alternatives to be detached from the primary dwelling on a property.

“ADUs have the potential to expand housing supply if homeowners wish to do that,” the mayor said in response to a question of whether the city was eyeing them. “Owners in those neighborhoods do not want residents in those areas building (additional) dwellings in their backgrounds. I think long term, ADUs are not going to make a big impact.”

Rather, he led with a report on the Nashua Housing and Redevelopment Authority’s work converting the historic Indian Head Bank property on Main Street to affordable residential apartments. The municipal-owned building has received 22 units that became available in the past few months but were “filled almost immediately,” Donchess said.

He noted that an additional 150 housing units opened at the privately owned Flats on High Street earlier this year, with studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units remaining available as of late March.

But by far the biggest housing project that lies ahead for Nashua will be developer Blaylock Holdings’ introduction of 546 housing units and some condominiums to the former Mohawk Tannery, currently designated a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup of the 40-acre site comes at a cost of $16 million, which Donchess said is to be covered by the EPA.

“Over 200 apartments and the remaining 20% of the condominiums will be affordable, and the (project) developers will contribute $2.3 million to affordable housing,” Donchess said, referencing the city’s Housing Trust Fund Committee.

Other attention is on the property of the defunct Daniel Webster College, and an asphalt plant proposed by Newport Construction Corp. to be built at 145-147 Temple St. but rejected by the Nashua Planning Board last summer amid community concerns about impacts on nearby residential areas.

Daniel Webster College, originally a nonprofit private college acquired by for-profit ITT Educational Services Inc. in 2009, shuttered in 2017 when ITT declared bankruptcy. Its 54-acre grounds have remained unchanged since. The college campus was acquired by a bidder from China who won the land on auction for $212.5 million, Donchess said, but that party has been “not that interested in working with the city and not very communicative,” he noted.

City leaders would like to see medium-density housing there, but for now, the owner is only leasing parts of the land property for varying uses. Recently among those is for aerospace business Rotor Technologies, which is using the former college library as its research and development center, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported in February.

“If we can work with the owner or the developer, we would like to see something more long-term constructed there,” he said. “But without the cooperation of the owner, in a private capitalist system, they can do whatever they want.”

As for the asphalt plant, the project is on appeal as Newport Construction has sued the City of Nashua to reverse the Planning Board denial in a filing to the Hillsborough County Superior Court. A hearing by the court’s Land Use Review Board is slated for July 15.

“We are optimistic that, in the end, the city will prevail and the planning board decision will be affirmed,” Donchess said.