Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 11
we did when we built the memorial is build a mock up to show people what they would contribute to
before we build it. It only makes sense for all those reasons and because | now have become a
supporter instead of a critic which | think ICON architecture has shown us what | have been maintaining
since last year and others have maintained. | fully support R-18-092 | would ask that one of the
Aldermen ask Attorney Bolton the following, there is a change to what people voted on. In the voting
resolution the word “shall” was used shall the Aldermen pass the resolution and it showed everything in
18-01. So one of you need to ask the attorney whether that resolution was permissive as opposed to
aclaratory; if Attorney Bolton wants to address it now.
Attorney Bolton
It was very clear that it was non-binding advisory referendum. So it did not itself have a force of law, so
the Board of Aldermen is still free to adopt anything it is otherwise permitted to adopt.
Mr. Teeboom Ok, thank you, | fully support it.
Jim Lespasio Good evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jim Lespasio, | am the owner of Stella
Blu Restaurant on East Pearl Street in downtown Nashua. | am going to step away from the germ-
infested microphone at this point. | think we have all heard the positive reasons why the Performing
Arts Center is going to be an economic boom for all of the City of Nashua, not just downtown. So |
thought | would spend just a couple of minutes talking about, as an entrepreneur the due diligence that
we performed in 2008 before deciding to locate our restaurant in Nashua.
So through our priority list of course you want to open up a restaurant right next to where there are a lot
of people whether it is an airport or BAE or Fidelity — and we really didn’t have a lot of those
opportunities in downtown Nashua. So our next level of thinking was let us look at the retail businesses
that are downtown and let us see who is very well. Are there a number of people that have been here
for a long time, are there people here that are in our area of business and so we started looking at
places like Scontsas that has been there since over 100 years and with the Persian Rug. Michael
opened up in 1995 which was 13 years before we showed up, but all of those businesses, the fact that
they were there, created a fabric for a community and an economic environment that we found very,
very appealing.
In the restaurant business, we like the 30/70 rule where 30% of your business is coming from regular
customers but you are always looking for that other 70% and trying to woo them in. So we saw that
same kind of mix right here in downtown Nashua. | mean when Michael opened in 1995 I’m sure he
wasn't breathlessly waiting for Stella Blu to come to East Pearl Street but if he wasn’t there in 1995, we
would not have been there in 2008. His decision to open up and taking a risk and invest in downtown
Nashua, made us feel very comfortable and we said this area will support more similar restaurants and
he couldn’t have been more gracious when we opened in helping us out with questions and answers
and suggestions. So it really is a tight knit fabric of community downtown.
Now we are just a little guy, we have 15 employees most of them part-time and most of them are from
Nashua but | can imagine a much larger corporation or an entity that is looking to do their due diligence
priority and if they see a Performing Arts Center with 700 people there, that’s going to be the end of
their list, it is like ok we are done. We have already got all the economic vibrancy in a downtown area in
a concentrated area that we need. So! am sure we all understand that this will definitely bring in a lot
more business for everybody downtown.
Hopefully, in closing, we are all intelligent people here, there was maybe some miscommunication or
some verbiage or some sentence interpretation in the original amendment and | am sure we can all
come to an agreement together to make sure everything works and that way we don’t turn a 30 year
project into a 32 or 35 or even worse. Thank you very much for your time and | hope vote yes
