Concord Police headquarters will move to the vacant Concord Group Insurance offices as early as next year, pending a favorable inspection, after the city council voted to approve a $4.1 million purchase and sale agreement. 

The move will allow the department to relocate to a larger site that maintains a central location in the city, according to Deputy City Manager Matt Walsh.

But for Tracy Nabstedt, a Ward 5 resident, the same feels like a hasty purchase he’s seen play out in the city before.  

It goes something like this: The city buys a piece of property for a hefty price tag. The council then votes to spend more money on an asbestos evaluation. After that comes asbestos mitigation, which is even more expensive. Then the site needs a new roof. And after all this money is funneled into the site, the council changes course and decides it’s best to tear down the building and start anew, he said. 

“What is the guarantee to the people in Concord that this is going to be a good deal?” he asked. “Concord taxpayers are just going to keep paying and paying and paying, and personally, I just don’t see the value in it.”

Constructed in 1957, the office building on Bouton Street was home to the Concord Group Insurance for more than half a century until they relocated to Bedford earlier this year. 

The city was interested in purchasing the site directly from the Concord Group, however, they were not willing to hold onto it long enough for the city to conduct a thorough inspection and evaluation, said Walsh. 

Instead, Steve Duprey agreed to purchase the building for $3.5 million and now will sell it to the city for $4.09 million. 

Duprey said he will make zero profit from the sale, and jokingly asked the council to amend the purchase price so he could make one dollar. 

The additional $500,000 in the sale price covers short-term financing costs of the empty building, closing costs, bank fees and interest. 

“I am not making a penny,” he said. “It takes a lot of time and effort and potential risk and incumbrance of my credit while we do this. I am doing this because I love this city.” 

Following a clean building inspection, the city anticipates closing on the property on or before June 12, said Walsh. 

However, it will just be the beginning of expenses. The city has earmarked another $27.5 million to design and create a new police station. The city did not present any cost estimate to convert the existing building into a police station, which would include holding cells, a booking area, security measures and a sally port. Those financial decisions will be made at a later date.

With the Bouton Street building that faces North State Street, the police department will be able to expand its headquarters, which has been an ongoing conversation in the city council over the last few years. 

In 2021, a study from the city recommended that the station be nearly 28,000 square feet, which is nearly 6,000 more than the current facility. This new building would provide roughly 38,000 square feet of space. 

With that, the city could also consider relocating the prosecutor’s office to the new site. The current police station headquarters at the Green Street campus could also be repurposed for other city departments. 

When thinking about how to redesign the police headquarters, though, the city should be having parallel conversations about community engagement with the department, especially for New Americans, said Fisto Ndayishimiye. 

“We should examine what other communities need or what they think about this idea and I haven’t heard or seen anything, any conversations around that, how minorities or other communities like New Americans think about this idea,” he said. 

For some New Americans who have relocated to Concord, the role of police officers can be intimidating. Ndayishimiye has tried to engage the department in conversations and form relationships to help bridge these gaps, but to no avail, he said. 

Fallon Andrews, who owns PILLAR Gallery on North State Street, agreed. More conversation and recognition about residents’ experience with police in the city is needed in conjunction with the discussion on a new headquarters. 

Since the pandemic, an uptick in policing has made some residents fearful, she said. The other week, she was pulling something out of her gallery when an officer stopped and questioned her. 

“If we have another impact on this community that makes the police state bigger here in New Hampshire, I guarantee, especially for me in my twenties, you are going to have less business owners, you are going to have less impact from the younger generation because you guys are scaring us,” she said.

The council approved the purchase and sale unanimously, with Ward 5 Councilor Stacey Brown recusing herself, as her husband is a police officer in the city.