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ORDINANCE:
PURPOSE:

ENDORSERS:

COMMITTEE

ASSIGNMENT:

FISCAL NOTE:

LEGISLATIVE YEAR 2020
QO-20-005
Relative to titles of members of the board

Alderman-at-Large Ben Clemons

Personnel /Administrative Affairs Committee

Small administrative costs.

ANALYSIS

This legislation permits members of the Board of Aldermen to choose to use the title Alderman,
Alderwoman, or Alderperson. It also provides that, whenever possible, members of the Board of
Aldermen be referred to collectively as Alderpersons.

Approved as to form:

Office of Corporation Counsel

By: Vip pte
Date: Oa Nanrrereng. OD FO

O-20-006

ORDINANCE

ALLOWING PERMITTED OVERNIGHT ON-STREET PARKING ON A PORTION OF
PRESCOTT STREET

CITY OF NASHUA

In the Year Two Thousand and Twenty

The City of Nashua ordains that Part II “General Legislation”, Chapter 320 “Vehicles
and Traffic”, Article XIII “Night Parking” Section 320-78.1 “Overnight on-street parking
program in designated downtown areas”, subsection E of the Nashua Revised Ordinances, as
amended, be and hereby is further amended by adding the following new underlined language in
the appropriate alphabetical order:

“320-78.1. Overnight on-street parking program in designated downtown areas.

There shall be a program for on-street overnight parking as described below.

E. The streets where overnight parking is permitted are as follows:
Name of Street Location
Prescott Street North side, from Bruce Street westerly to Putnam
Street”

All ordinances or parts of ordinances inconsistent herewith are hereby superseded only to the
extent necessary to effectuate this legislation.

This ordinance shall become effective when the necessary signage and pavement markings are in
place.

ORDINANCE:

PURPOSE:

ENDORSERS:

COMMITTEE

ASSIGNMENT:

FISCAL NOTE:

LEGISLATIVE YEAR 2020

O-20-006

Allowing permitted overnight on-street parking on a portion of
Prescott Street

Alderman Thomas Lopez

Committee on Infrastructure

Revenue: permit fees of $10 each. Possible loss of revenue
from overnight parking tickets. Estimated cost of materials,
labor, and vehicle overhead for signage only: $257.

ANALYSIS

This legislation adds a portion of Prescott Street to the overnight on-street parking program.
Pursuant to subsection A(1) of the ordinance, residents of the streets where overnight parking is
permitted are allowed to purchase an annual permit, with a maximum number of 550 permits to
be issued. The Police and Fire Departments did not have any objections to this request.

Approved as to form:

Office of Corporation Counsel

By: Vreurhn CO Mee

Date: 4 dpoor IOPOC

O-20-007

ORDINANCE

REMOVING THE HANDICAPPED PARKING SPACE
IN FRONT OF 7-9 LEMON STREET

CITY OF NASHUA

In the Year Two Thousand and Twenty

The City of Nashua ordains that Part II “General Legislation”, Chapter 320 “Vehicles
and Traffic”, Article XII “Parking, Stopping and Standing”, Section 320-72 “Handicapped
parking”, subsection A of the Nashua Revised Ordinances, as amended, is hereby further
amended by deleting the struck-through language:

Ҥ 320-72. Handicapped parking.

A. The following parking spaces are designated as spaces for the handicapped:

Number of
Name of Street Spaces/Type Location
Lemon Street Hparaliel in-front-of 9-Lemon Street on the east-side

ofthe street”

All ordinances or parts of ordinances inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed.

This ordinance shall become effective at the time of removal or installation of the necessary
sign{s).

Exhibit A

NASHUA 16314 — East Hollis & Bridge Street Intersection Improvement Project

Scope of Work and Task Descriptions
Amendment 1
September 30, 2021

For the purposes of this scope, it is assumed that the project will result in a
determination of No Adverse Effect to historic resources. MJ will prepare the draft
Section 106 Effect Memo for NHDOT’s use in acquiring signatures.

Hazardous Materials — SHA will conduct subsurface explorations to evaluate if asbestos
exists in soils that will be disturbed during construction. If these investigations identify
asbestos-containing soil, a project-specific Asbestos Disposal Site (ADS) Work Plan will
be prepared and submitted to DES for approval. The assumed ADS Work Plan will
include the information required by state asbestos regulations (Env-Sw 2100,) such as
contact information for the City, project description, schedule, summary of work, required
qualifications and training for project personnel, health and safety procedures for
handling of asbestos-contaminated soils during construction, and project notifications
and reporting. (see attached scope of work) The assumed ADS Work Plan, if needed,
will become part of the bid documents for the project. MJ will provide general oversight
of SHA’s schedule and work products and will review reports and findings prior to
submittal to the City and NHDOT.

Environmental Justice — An environmental justice analysis was completed in Phase 1.
MJ will incorporate the findings into the NEPA document.

Other: Other topics include the following:

o Impacts to land use, social and economic resources, and community facilities are
expected to be negligible and will not require analysis or mitigation.

o Invasive species populations and their dispersal will be addressed in general
terms.

o Construction impacts will be evaluated and described based upon the anticipated
temporary impacts to any natural resources or sensitive receptors.

NEPA Categorical Exclusion document — The NEPA Categorical Exclusion (CE) document will
include the following components:

Description of the proposed action

Purpose and Need Statement

Description of the project alternatives considered

Description of the coordination and public participation process

Description of the resources and environmental effects

Mitigation measures

Permit requirements

Summary of environmental commitments

Figures depicting resources and impacts within the study area

Supporting documents, technical studies when applicable and agency correspondence

It is assumed that the project will not require a Section 4(f) Evaluation. The Administrative Draft
NEPA CE will be submitted to the City for review. Once comments are received, the draft
document will be revised as needed and a Draft CE will be submitted to NHDOT for review. MJ

Page 6 of 13

LEGISLATIVE YEAR 2020

ORDINANCE: O-20-007
PURPOSE: Removing the handicapped parking space in front of 7-9
Lemon Street

ENDORSER(S): Alderman Patricia Klee

COMMITTEE

ASSIGNMENT: Committee on Infrastructure

FISCAL NOTE: Materials, labor, and vehicle overhead: $55.00
ANALYSIS

This legislation removes the one handicapped parking space in front of 7-9 Lemon Street.

Approved as to form: Office of Corporation Counsel

By: Vopnt Lar Mee

Date: 5 Fea TodO

A special meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Thursday, February 6, 2020, at 7:05 p.m. at Nashua
High School North, Room B166.

President Lori Wilshire presided; City Clerk Susan K. Lovering recorded.

Prayer was offered by City Clerk Susan K. Lovering; Alderman-at-Large Ben Clemons led in the Pledge to
the Flag.

President Wilshire

Before | ask the Clerk to call the roll, just | want to thank you all. You know that the Aldermanic Chamber is
undergoing some renovations and they were kind enough to allow us to use this space this evening. The
thing about these microphones that are different than ours is that you have to actually turn it on when you
speak. So | just wanted to make sure that was clear to everyone. Would the Clerk please call the roll?

The roll call was taken with 14 members of the Board of Aldermen present. Alderman Lopez was recorded
absent.

Mayor James W. Donchess was also in attendance.
President Wilshire

Alderman Lopez was unable to join us. | will turn the meeting over to the Mayor to give us a little briefing
on this Public Hearing.

Mayor Donchess

Thank you Madam President and thank you for everyone for coming tonight to talk about this Performing
Arts Center Project. | see a couple of my former colleagues here, I'd like to welcome them; it’s great to see
them. So Madam President, | thought what | would do is take a few moments to talk about what this project
is all about and how we’ve gotten here and then turn it over to Tim Cummings, the Director of Economic
Development to give a little more detail and then | think then Deb Novotne who has been involved with the
fund raising is going to address you as well.

So | think the basic question that sometimes people ask is, “why are we doing this project”. And the real
reason is that we are trying to build and we are building a stronger, healthier economy for the City of
Nashua. That is our fundamental goal and that benefits everyone. If we look at some of our neighboring
Cities in New Hampshire, all having Performing Arts Center; | will focus for the moment on Keene,
Manchester and Concord.

Keene is, of course, a much smaller City, a quarter of our size, 50 miles to the west. They have the
advantage of the fact that they have a traditional theatre, The Colonial Theater which was removed some
years ago. But they are now investing a lot more money in expanding it and enhancing it. If you look at
what their objectives are for a theater, now they’ve been operating for some years, they put it on their web
site. They say, “The Colonial Theater is the Monadnock Region’s preeminent Performing Arts Center and a
key component in the economic engine of downtown Keene and the surrounding area”. They have again
operating this theater for a number of years. They go on to say, “when all of these renovations and
enhancements are completed, it will serve an additional 10,000 clients and will bring 60,000 patrons
annually to downtown Keene” and they say, “greatly enhancing the cultural appeal of the Monadnock
Region”.

If you look in Concord, the same thing is happening. There is the Colonial Theater, an older theater that
was renovated some years ago. They’ve had great success with that, in terms of building a stronger
economy, more healthy economy for Concord. They, in the last couple of years, The Colonial Theater

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 2

acquired a smaller theater and renovated that so now they have two performance spaces because they feel
that it has done so much for their downtown.

Same thing in Manchester; in Manchester there is the Palace Theater on Hanover Street. Years ago that
was struggling, it was revived, renovated and a lot of work has been done it. Within the last year or so, the
Palace Theater acquired yet another smaller theater in order to enhance the effect which the Palace has for
the City of Manchester. In Manchester the main Palace Theater brings 140,000 people to Hanover Street
every year, spending millions and millions of dollars in the downtown.

The reason that the theater like this helps to build a more healthy economy is that everything that we are
doing downtown works together to enhance business activity and build a thriving downtown community
which is important to the entire City. We have Paul Shea here from Great American Downtown, he’s done
a great job in bringing in new events, new excitement, new activities, but we are working on the riverfront,
we are going to be enhancing riverfront with walkways and lighting in order to use the riverfront and the
beauty of this natural asset for the benefit of everyone. Also, we have brought 500 units of downtown
housing in the last few years near to Main Street or at least in the downtown area.

Now why do | say that this stronger downtown economy benefits everyone? Because if you look at the
downtown, the small area, a quarter square mile, out of 30 some square miles, so less than 1% of the area
of the City. If you look at the downtown area, the quarter mile that is Main Street and kind of the mill yard,
that area generates $6 million dollars of tax revenue for the entire City, yet requires very few services. |
mean in that downtown area, we don’t even do garage pickup, it’s all commercial. Very few school
children, which is the most expensive of our services and of course we have the typical, the normal Police
and Fire protection. Overall there is no way we spend close to $6 million dollars in the downtown area.

Just in the last few years, these 3 projects that have come in; Riverfront Landing, Loft 34 and the Marshall
Street Apartments, once Marshall Street is fully in the tax base, those three projects will pay $1.3 million
dollars to the City, which is far more than the Performing Arts Center will ever cost in a year for all of the
debt service that is involved. So if we can use all of these projects together, the Performing Arts Center, all
of the activity it will generate to boost the downtown, the amount of downtown business activity raise the
property values and strengthen the economy downtown. It benefits everyone because if that $6 million
dollars becomes $9, becomes $12 million dollars collected from that quarter square mile, it helps us pay for
schools like this one, it helps us pay for Fire and Police services all across the City. And it provides a
cultural experience for our citizens and for those in the region that currently does not exist.

So we are not reinventing the wheel here, this has been a highly successful strategy in communities
smaller than ours. Again Concord is about half the size; Keene is a quarter of the size, very close by. The
project, | think you will learn, is very well thought out. We have a very good operator and some people
have been asking about sort of the progress and the changes that have occurred over time. So | thought |
would take a couple minutes in addition, if you don’t mind, Madam President, to kind of just trace some of
that.

So this particular Performing Arts Center project; this has been looked at for decades in Nashua. But this
particular project began with a feasibility study done by Duncan Webb from New York City. That occurred
over a period of a couple of years. The City guided that project, it started before | was Mayor and | think it
was completed right at the beginning of when | was in office. He guided in the sense that we really asked
him to develop a project that would be a Performing Arts Center or study the feasibility of a Performing Arts
Center that was on the second floor above retail somewhere in the downtown. He looked at the market
and determined that a Performing Arts Center was financially feasible, and suggested that we should have
a theater of about 500 seats. That feasibility study was completed sometime in 2017 or 16, and then the
City moved forward to consider whether we should do the project. There was a vote of the Board of
Aldermen that did not pass, it was very close, but it didn’t pass. Then it went on the ballot and it passed the
voters. Then it was authorized by the Board of Aldermen, | think 2 years ago in February of 2018.

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 3

We had bonding authorization for a project with a feasibility study but no design. In the course of that
feasibility study, the idea was arrived at to do this at Alec’s Shoes which was a very central, main corner in
downtown. So we went about this thoughtfully, methodically, very publicly, the City formed a Steering
Committee of a group of people; some members of the Board of the Aldermen, a lot of members of the
community. All of their meetings have always been public and | think they are on film, | think you can see
them on the City’s web site or YouTube with a link. So if you really want to see everything that has
happened, you can go through the entire history of the Steering Committee which has met many times over
the period of the last couple of years.

The Steering Committee formed a fundraising sub-committee to try to raise money for the project because
back in 2017 when this was voted on, there was a condition placed on it that the City raise outside money
of $4 million dollars. So there needed to be a fundraising committee. But the City had never raised money
in that manner before. So, the fundraising committee and the steering committee recommended that we
engage a professional fundraiser. So they went out with an RFP, a Request for Proposal to decide who to
hire as the fundraiser. After getting I’m not sure how many proposals, because | was not directly involved
in making that choice, but they engaged Betsy McNamara who had successfully conducted a number of
fundraising efforts around New Hampshire but also right here in Nashua for the Soup Kitchen where they
raised some millions of dollars as well as the “Y”. She has done work in Concord and elsewhere in New
Hampshire. She recommended, look — we need to look in more depth to see how much money we can
raise so we need to do a feasibility study as to how much really can be raised realistically in Nashua.

The time was taken to thoroughly look at the issue of how much money could be raised. That feasibility
study regarding the raising of the money was completed sometime in the early fall of 2018 somewhere in
there. She and the feasibility suggested that the City could privately raise $2.5 million dollars, which
became the goal of the fundraising effort. In addition, the City began to explore the possibility of New
Market Tax Credits, which is a Federal Program that has been used successfully around New Hampshire
many times. It’s highly technical but basically you get an allocation of these New Market Tax Credits and
when you do, you can sell those to realize funds to contribute to a publicly oriented project.

We also got a consultant who is an expert in New Market Tax Credits and began to apply to bring in, in
addition to the $2.5 million dollars, an additional $4 million in New Market Tax Credits. In a parallel way,
the Steering Committee began to look at, “well we need to have someone design the project, we’ve got this
concept but there’s no design, we don’t know at all what it would look like exactly”. So in 2018 the Steering
Committee, in addition to all the other things we’ve discussed, put out a request for proposal for architects
to design a Nashua Performing Arts Center. | think about six or maybe more applied, very nationally
recognized architects, New York City, Boston, people who have done this kind of work before, very skilled.
So all of those people were interviewed and they all had proposals, again these are all public meetings and
| think Mr. Teeboom quite a few of them, or all of them. He is very, very diligent. | think he will and
everyone will agree that these were highly qualified people.

At the end of the day, the Steering Committee chose a design team lead by ICON which an architectural
firm in Boston. But one thing that was very persuasive to the Steering Committee that ICON presented and
others on the Steering Committee had made the same point. This thing is not going to be successful if it is
on the second floor and it needs to be bigger than 500 seats. On the second floor it is not good for the
audience, it is not good for the performers, it needs to be on the first floor. So the Steering Committee
following the thoughts of ICON moved the performance space to the first floor. Again the architects and the
design team suggested it should be 750 seats but in addition to that and a lot of this is all happening at the
same time so | apologize for going back and forth in time. But at the same time these other things are
occurring, the City was looking for an operator who could professionally operate a theater in a commercial
way that would be successful for the City. So we wouldn’t have to constantly subsidize it.

The operator who responded and who was located and ultimately engaged was Peter Lally of Spectacle
Management who operates other theaters in New England; Lowell, Lexington, the Cape. He knows the
business of commercial performances and performance centers very well. He made the point that you can
make this work and I, Peter Lally and my company can make this work requiring no subsidy from the City

Board of Aldermen 2-06-2020 Page 4

whatsoever if you make it 750 seats. So during the process of the design, that’s going on, the fundraising
efforts are sort of being organized. Peter Lally comes in and the Steering Committee elects to go forward
with ICON with a 750 seat theater on the first floor at the Alec’s location.

Now there was also a Fundraising Committee formed, not City people really of private sector actors,
business people and the like who would raise money. But they, in working together with the fundraising
consultant Betsy McNamara, and after doing this feasibility study said, “if you want to try to raise significant
amounts of money to help the Performing Arts Center, you need an actual design. You can’t just have a
concept, you need to show people; if you want someone to give $250,000.00 you've got to show people
what they are contributing to, or $250,000.00 or $500,000.00 or $1,000,000.00 or whatever the number is,
you’ve got show people what they are contributing to.

After ICON was engaged, then they needed to design the Center. So they moved forward to do an actual
design and there were many meetings of the Steering Committee, again Mr. Teeboom was there and |
think was very up on things. That was developed and the design that you see here was not arrived at,
because this whole thing as you can see is a very involved process, was not arrived at until the middle of
2019. It was only then that the fundraising actually began. That’s kind of where we are. | know people
have been, | get it that people are, and | think Mr. Cummings and Ms. Novotny can address this to some
agree, are somewhat frustrated and as am |, that we don’t know how much has been raised. But we know
itis quite a bit already. And we hear from the Fundraising Committee that they want to reach a fairly high
proportion of the total goal before they really announce that they have reached that and kind of go out to
the public for smaller donations.

But we already see that there is quite a bit of momentum behind this. There was $300 and some thousand
for Estate Tax Credit Program; there was $250,000.00 from Bank of America, a bank that really knows —
very engaged across the country who has confidence in this community and in this project. They wouldn’t
put this kind of money into this if it weren’t the case; $250,000.00 last week one of our more local banks
Enterprise bank announced this week $100,000.00 contribution. Every member of the Steering Committee
| believe has made a contribution and a commitment. And there are others that | am sure we will learn
about before too long passes when they reach whatever level they want to reach before they announce that
whatever percentage it is they are through to the goal.

The only other thing that has happened is that the New Market Tax Credit Application was not successful
because the, and | know this gets kind of involved, but since you are all hear, the CDE that we were
working with most carefully did not get an allocation from Treasury. So the way this things works, the way
the New Market Tax Credits work is, the CDE means Community Development Entity, that’s what they are
called under the regulations. Federal Treasury allocates these New Market Credits to CDE’s around the
country. In the last round, | think a couple hundred CDE’s applied to Treasury to get an allocation. We, the
City of Nashua, were working most carefully with Mascoma Bank which is a Bank in the upper valley that
has gotten allocations sometimes in the past. We believe that had they gotten an allocation, we would
have gotten the $4 million dollars already. But only one-third of the CDE’s who applied got New Market
Tax Credits and Mascoma was not one of them. So after that happened, Tim Cummings and our
consultant began working other CDE’s and we are kind of on their list but were not first. If other projects fell
through, we might still get an allocation from that last round. The next round will come in June or July of
this year, 2020; we are still working with Mascoma, we are trying to reach out to as many CDE’s as we
possibly can to get in line for as many CDE’s as we possibly can, because that $4 million dollars obviously
would be very important.

So | think that gives you an update on what has happened but | return to the beginning. This is a project
that is designed to build a healthier economy for downtown and for the entire City. | can tell you the fact that
we are even thinking about or looking like we are going to do this, is already creating interest from private
sector parties who are considering investing in Downtown Nashua because of this. We saw someone
suddenly get interested in the old Corriveau Routhier and the Henry Hanger sites. Those were permitted
for 200 and some units of housing; that will bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars.