Even as the future of Concord’s gasholder building remains in doubt, the city would like to see the iconic round brick building placed on a national historic registry.
On Monday, the city council passed a resolution instructing City Manager Tom Aspell to submit an application to the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, seeking money to help put the gasholder on the National Register of Historic Places.
The application seeks Certified Local Government grants, which the city would not have to match. The move was requested by the city’s Heritage Commission.
The gasholder was built in 1888 to store gas made from coal in the days before natural gas was readily available. Although many similar buildings remain, Concord’s may be unique in the country because it still contains the inner mechanism that stored the gas under a massive floating cap.
The building is no longer safe to enter and it would cost at least $500,000 to stabilize it and much more to make it usable again, according to rough estimates by Liberty Utilities.
Liberty Utilities obtained the site when it bought the state gas business from National Grid but has no need for it. The company is putting together a proposal of future plans for the site, which will go before state and local government this year.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313, dbrooks@cmonitor.com, or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
