Concord has been trying to improve its connection to the river that runs through it for decades, with mixed success. That effort could soon get a boost, though not in a way most people anticipated.
The former site of the Concord Drive-In Theater on Black Hill Road, a short, potholed street opposite Carlson’s Motor Sales on Manchester Street, has been vacant for decades. Woods conceal abandoned appliances and camps used by the homeless, but the 22-acre parcel boasts several thousand feet of frontage on the Merrimack River.
Last Tuesday, the city council approved changing the zoning of the drive-in site from Open Space Residential to Gateway Performance district. The change clears the way for a type of development new to Concord, a planned village of sorts, one that could include multi-family housing, retail and office space, restaurants, a brew pub, and a bike and walking trail along the river.
Ari Pollack, the Concord-based lawyer representing the trust, made clear in his presentation to the council that the plan submitted to the city was a preliminary concept subject to change. So far, we like what we see.
The property is owned by ROI Investment Trust. Records on file at the Merrimack County Registry of Deeds show the old drive-in movie parcel was transferred to the trust by one Richard M. Nault in 2009. According to city maps, the same trust also owns the land between the back boundaries of the homes and businesses on Garvins Falls Road and the river. The combined trust properties total roughly 82 acres, with extensive river frontage.
The plan Pollack presented includes not just a bike, hike and ski trail, but a canoe ramp to the river. A public trail along the river close to the heart of downtown, like the Merrimack River Greenway Trail still under construction on its east bank, is exactly the kind of recreational amenity young people and their families want and employers want to offer.
The 57.6-mile Northern Rail Trail currently extends from Boscawen to Lebanon. Efforts are underway to extend the trail to downtown Concord and beyond. Once completed – let’s think positively – the trail would be a draw for tourists and a plus for restaurants, hotels and other businesses.
As Concord City Planner Heather Shank noted, in a conversation with Monitor reporters, town-center style, walkable developments that mix housing with retail stores, restaurants and offices are replacing suburbs as desirable places to live. The trend makes social and environmental sense, particularly when accompanied by public transportation, and we welcome it.
Such developments rarely provide much in the way of inexpensive housing, attracting instead seniors and young professionals who can afford to pay market rates. The new housing stock would, however, help reduce what has become a near-critical housing shortage that’s driving up rents for everyone.
If village-style development in Concord does expand south along the river, as seems likely, it will make it even more crucial that the city, state and federal government get the expansion of Interstate 93 right. Any widening of the highway as it passes through downtown must be done in a way that increases, not decreases, the public’s connection with the river.