Ralph Odell has driven past the crumbling, contaminated remains of the old Allied Leather Tannery on Commercial Street in Boscawen for more than 20 years.
Now, he’s relieved to know the site will finally be cleaned up within a year and transformed from an “old building that’s kind of an eyesore” into something far more vibrant.
“All of a sudden they’ve come up with plans that can be a real plus for the community,” he said at a town charrette to gather input from residents on various projects. “We’re close enough to Concord, and people are looking for business sites, small businesses, a lot of startups, it’s just a good, healthy thing to have somebody else coming around.”
Odell, a 76-year-old Boscawen resident, isn’t exactly sure what he’d like to see replace the site — maybe a coffee shop, a bookstore, or something else entirely. But he does have one certainty: Almost anything would be better than the vacant shell left behind when the tannery burned down in 2002.
The town recently secured a $500,000 grant to help clean up the contaminated brownfields site.
The project is part of a broader effort to revitalize Commercial Street, which sits alongside the Northern Rail Trail, and has the potential to build new housing, a brewery, a canoe launch, trailhead parking and more.
For 40-year-old Ashley Bathgate, these possibilities are especially exciting for younger people in the community.
Bathgate said she wants to see projects that turn Boscawen into more than just a pass-through town — not like Concord or Manchester, whose busy downtowns are crowded with hotels and retail chains, but something in between: a welcoming place with its own identity that still honors the town’s agricultural roots.
“Boscawen is rich in a lot of ways and what it has to offer, but we have to also be inviting to an outside community and people who are from far away,” she said.
She thinks more local gathering spots, like a bar, would be a beneficial addition to the town.
Park improvements
Boscawen isn’t just looking to revitalize Commercial Street.
A group of residents looking to improve the town park on Depot Street is now just $50,000 shy of their $450,000 fundraising goal.
The project includes building a 24-by-48-foot timber-framed picnic pavilion, creating a river overlook on the old bridge abutment, improving access to the historic Dorval House and redesigning the lower section of Depot Street for safer pedestrian and vehicle access, all while adding extra parking for park visitors.
Charlie Niebling, a member of the town park improvement group, said the timing couldn’t be better.
“The park is getting more use with the Northern rail trail and the river use has just exploded,” Niebling said. “The facilities and the infrastructure just haven’t kept up.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Boscawen’s population has grown from 4,005 in 2020 to 4,153 in 2024, a 3.7% increase.
Funding for all the proposed improvements to the town park will come from donations and grants. There will not be any cost to taxpayers.
“A lot of families in town, they’re going to see that as access to their kids and their families,” Odell said. “This is a real asset to any community.”
Safety upgrades
The town is also working with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation to improve safety along King Street with upgrades to existing pedestrian facilities.
A recent town survey showed residents want better traffic management, such as turn lanes, stoplights and roundabouts to make the roads safer.
State data also reveals that there were 105 crashes along King Street between 2011 and 2020, with roughly 20% of incidents from 2017 to 2020 occurring at the busy Route 3/Route 4 split.
Boscawen’s volunteer fire department will also be asking residents at the next town meeting to approve plans for expanding their station.
Fire Chief Tim Kenney said the additions would improve response times by allowing vehicles to be positioned more efficiently.
At present, the fire station has three doors at the front. The proposal would add a fourth front-facing door.
He said that responding to calls on the river is challenging because getting the boat out of the door requires a lot of maneuvering in a tight space at the fire station.
“The response time is really slow to get to it to the river when we’ve had many problems over the years,” Kenney said. “They’re in kind of a difficult angle to get the vehicles out.”
The new space would also allow the department to store firefighting gear separately from the apparatus, keeping harmful carcinogens from smoke exposure away from equipment and personnel.