A regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen was held Tuesday, September 12, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
President Brian S. McCarthy presided; City Clerk Patricia Piecuch recorded.
Prayer was offered by City Clerk Patricia Piecuch; Alderman David W. Deane led in the Pledge to the Flag.
The roll call was taken with 14 members of the Board of Aldermen present; Alderman-at-Large Daniel T. Moriarty
was recorded absent.
Mayor James W. Donchess and Corporation Counsel Steven A. Bolton were also in attendance.
REMARKS BY THE MAYOR
Mayor Donchess
First I’d like to welcome all of our guests to the Aldermanic Chamber. In a number of years in city government,
| can’t say that I’ve ever seen or certainly a bigger crowd that we have tonight. | wanted to mention that we
have a lot going on downtown. Just this past weekend, Positive Street Art put on their arts festival in French
Park and Renaissance Park. We had the dinner on Main Street put on by Great American Downtown. Both
were extremely well attended. Both had a lot of energy, and a lot of people, and a lot of enthusiasm.
We also have a lot of residential conversions going on. We have the Franklin Street conversion with Brady
Sullivan converting the former Nashua Corp. to 200 units of housing. Just today Brady Sullivan bought the
next building on that row — 44 Franklin Street which has been owned by a group of local people for and with
that acquired an additional 100 units of parking.
More recently, we’ve had a little bit further in time we had Clocktower, way 25 years ago and Cotton Mill
Square. With this acquisition today with the acquisition by Clocktower of the Picker Building, we’re seeing an
increasing pace of residential development in downtown. Alphagraphics is building 3 new units above their
store for the first time the re-establishment of residences above some of the retail. We have music festivals.
We have the Farmer’s Market. We have the dance party. Back in July, the Latino Festival. We've seen a lot
of new people and businesses come to downtown to join those who have been here for so long. Martha’s did
a big conversion in the Merchant’s Exchange building — a big renovation many years ago. Since then, we’ve
seen a number of changes — MTs and Surf. More recently, Riverwalk, Riverside Barbecue, the Flight Center,
JaJaBelle’s, and Camaraderie have joined all of the long-standing businesses that we’ve had. | believe that if
you spend time downtown, you can feel new enthusiasm, new energy, and you can feel that the pace of
change. A positive change is accelerating and gaining momentum.
Now we have before us the performing arts center to replace the former anchor Alec’s Shoes. | believe and |
think many of the people here agree that the conversion of Alec’s to a city community performing arts center
will dramatically reinforce the positive changes that we know are occurring. Now the purpose of the performing
arts center, underlying purpose, is of course to provide entertainment but more important than that to build a
stronger, healthier economy downtown and citywide. We want to add to our tax base, increase our ability to
raise taxes for the benefit of all services. We want to develop a downtown and a community that can compete
for entrepreneurs, for young talent, for new families, and new residents so that for everyone — for native
Nashuans and for new residents alike Nashua is city that people love to live in.
Now the performing arts center will bring 50 to 75,000 new people downtown. Two or three performances a
week with 400 or 500 people or more attending. It will be run as a business. It will be commercially viable.
Now as you’ve read in the newspaper in the last few days, we have a potential partner with the Currier
Museum from Manchester. Probably the State’s leading artistic institution. This will bring $1 million that
formally we were afraid would go back to Manchester back to Nashua and the Currier is joining us and is
enthusiastic about this partnership. The Currier believes that the performing arts center on Main Street is a
fantastic project. They want to be part of that. When has that happened in Nashua before?
