LACONIA — City council voted to purchase of the back two thirds of the building currently occupied by the Laconia Antique Center at 601 Main St. at their regular meeting Monday night.Â
The city will purchase part of the building in order to facilitate growth of the Colonial Theatre located next door. The city’s share of the purchase price is $700,000, and the council budgeted another $50,000 to fund the construction of a partitioning fire wall, which will divide the front third and back two thirds of the parcel.Â
Building owner state Rep. Charlie St. Clair (D-Laconia) is asking $1.2 million for the purchase.Â
The front third of the building will be purchased by restaurateurs Melissa and Tyler Darling, who intend to renovate their third of the building for an Italian-American restaurant, sharing $500,000 of the purchase price. They appeared at the meeting to discuss their plans for the restaurant.
The motion indicated a source of funding will be selected at a later date. The original plan was to fund the purchase with an $800,000 InvestNH grant awarded to the city by the Executive Council, but councilors floated the idea of issuing a bond to fund the purchase at Monday’s meeting.
The purchase would allow for renovations and expansion of the Colonial Theatre, which lacks dressing room and storage space and is a source of traffic congestion downtown. The purchase could alleviate traffic problems on Canal Street, which impacts downtown businesses.Â
The council voted 4-2 in favor of the purchase, with Councilors Bruce Cheney (Ward 1) and Steven Bogert (Ward 5), voting against the motion. Bogert also represents the city as a Republican in the Statehouse.
Fourteen community members provided their opinions on the purchase, with three dissenting. Two of the dissenters said the purchase is going through the city government too quickly and worried about long-term costs that could be shouldered by taxpayers. One dissenter said the purchase was tantamount to socialism because of the involvement of the government.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the amounts each party will share of the total purchase price.
(1) comment
nice way to blow covid money to line the pockets of the Mayor, who has a vested personal interest in the Colonial building
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