City Hall: Aldermen agree to developing Pearl St. lot before Hartnett apartments

Paul Feely, The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester
·4 min read

Nov. 27—CITY ALDERMEN have approved an amendment to a master development agreement between the city and Lansing Melbourne Group — the developer looking to place mixed-use, mixed-income apartments at the Pearl Street and Hartnett parking lots — swapping the order of sites to be developed.

Aldermen previously voted to sign an agreement with the Florida-based developer to build about 530 apartments on the two underused, city-owned downtown parking lots.

Lansing Melbourne Group will pay the city $554,000 for the two lots, according to the terms of the agreement. Under the plan, the city will own and manage a parking garage on Pearl Street.

The company developed the Tru by Hilton hotel project on Spring Street and the SNHU parking garage near Delta Dental Stadium.

Under the terms of the deal, Lansing Melbourne will pay $266,000 for the Hartnett parking lot and will construct a five-story apartment building with at least one level of parking, 5,700 square feet of commercial space and 196 housing units.

The "Hartnett Lofts" are expected to have 24 studios, 132 one-bedroom and 40 two-bedroom units. The project will fill the entire lot, which is near Victory Park.

The Pearl Street lot is being sold for $288,000. The development includes a four- to six-story multi-family building with affordable units based on federal standards, a parking garage and another multi-family with 275 units. "The Pearl" project is expected to include 39 studios, 180 one-bedroom units and 56 two-bedroom units.

Manchester will buy the parking garage "for a price equal to the hard and soft costs incurred by the developer to construct the garage," the agreement reads.

Lansing Melbourne is expected to lease parking spaces in the new garage and Victory Garage.

Of the 500-plus units between the projects, 40 to 60 will be designated low-income based on the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program and 80 will be for workforce housing.

The new amendment allows for the Pearl Street Lot to be developed before the Hartnett Lot, to which the city and developer want to devote more design consideration, while allowing the development of the Pearl Street Lot to proceed.

Aldermen approved the original master development agreement at their Aug. 2 meeting. The MDA requires that the construction of the foundation for the proposed apartments on the Hartnett Lot be substantially complete before the city's hands the Pearl Street Lot over to LMG.

This timeline was established to ensure that both lots would be fully developed before the city takes title to the parking garage being built on the Pearl Street Lot.

The amendment to the MDA separates the development of the two lots, allowing the Pearl Street Lot to be developed independently of the Hartnett Lot's progress.

"The parties have reconsidered the sequence of the projects in light of community outreach and additional financial analysis," city planner Jeffrey Belanger wrote in a memo to aldermen.

"Regarding outreach, city staff have met with neighbors to the Hartnett Lot to inform them about the details of the development and learn about their concerns and suggestions. These meetings produced important feedback that the city and LMG are incorporating into revised designs of the apartments and parking garage on the Hartnett Lot," Belanger wrote.

"Separating the two developments would allow adequate time for consideration of design alternatives, while allowing one of the two projects to progress."

Aside from the change in construction sequence, the amendment includes two other changes.

The first is an increase in the estimated total number of dwelling units in LMG's apartment building on Pearl Street to 290 from 275, the result of more detailed design of the building.

The second change pertains to the 80 apartments that would be rented at a maximum of 80% of area median income.

The original MDA does not specify how the 80 units would be distributed among the two apartment buildings managed by LMG on the Pearl Street and Hartnett Lots.

"As the amendment would allow the Pearl Street Lot to be constructed first, and since LMG's building on Pearl Street would be the bigger of the two, the parties agreed that 60 of the 80 units would be housed within LMG's Pearl Street apartments," Belanger wrote in his memo.

Paul Feely is the City Hall reporter for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. Reach him at pfeely@unionleader.com