Concord’s historic gasholder is no longer in danger of collapsing. The question now is: What next?
A seven-month construction project to stabilize the circular brick building has been finished, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance announced this week. Work by Yankee Steeplejack Co. of Massachusetts included closing up a hole punched in the roof by a falling tree in 1994, repairing a rotting 275-foot tension ring that runs around the inside of the building, and upgrading interior scaffolding.
“The focus was making it safe and stable and weather-tight,” said Jennifer Goodman, executive director of the Preservation Alliance. People passing by will mostly notice that the roof has been repaired and windows boarded up.
Now the Preservation Alliance, city of Concord and property owner Liberty Utilities “are focused on finding a future use” for the 2-acre site on South Main Street, the alliance said in a press release.
Most of the other buildings on the property, once used to create “manufactured gas” from coal, are long gone and concern about underground pollution left over from those days limits the amount of new construction that can be built. A 2021 report from consultants discussed various options for the building and property, including its use as an educational and recreational site to anchor the neighborhood. Estimated costs ranged from $1.5 million up to many more millions, depending on what was done.
Goodman said the stabilization work ended up costing about $600,000, a cost that was split between Liberty Utilities and the Preservation Alliance using a large donation targeted to preserve the gasholder.
The round building, 88 feet in diameter and almost 30 feet high, was built in 1888 to hold “manufactured gas” made from coal brought to the site in rail cars that was used for lights and heating downtown. That role ended after natural gas came to Concord via pipeline in 1952 and the building has been mostly empty since.
Although many former gasholder buildings exist around the world, Concord’s appears to be unique because it still has the complete mechanism used to hold gas, including a multi-ton floating cap that triggered a moving arrow on the building’s exterior that showed passers-by how full it was.
The Preservation Alliance said it would start a series of discussions “with stakeholders and potential redevelopment partners with a focus on finding a future use for the property as a catalyst for neighborhood revitalization.”
