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.
