City staff want to leverage Lakeport development to create Opechee Loop

LAKEPORT — The WOW Trail could soon have an extension around nearby Lake Opechee, after city councilors elected to hold a public hearing about a bond for the construction of such a path during their meeting on May 27

City staff, in partnership with local organizations, have been involved with the development of the WOW Trail for years. Now, a proposed extension of the existing trail — which runs from the Belmont town line to the Elm Street-Union Avenue intersection in Lakeport — would ring Lake Opechee, creating a pedestrian and bicycle route around the lake. 

Opechee Loop Section A would involve widening a pedestrian walkway on the west side of Elm, from Doris Ray Court to Franklin Street. Together with the Lakeport promenade, a privately-funded project, this project would extend the WOW Trail from its northern terminus to Franklin Street. 

“Part of it, we know, is going to have some private funding to it,” City Manager Kirk Beattie said during the meeting at City Hall downtown. “Part of it is going to be ours.”

Including deck repairs to the Elm Street bridge, the total cost of the Opechee Loop Section A project is $935,000. There’s a $225,000 grant awarded to the project through the Northern Borders Regional Commission, and another $100,000 in funding through Belknap County. The proposal on the table is to fund the remaining $610,000 through bonding, with principal and interest payments to be provided for through the Lakeport Tax Increment Financing District. 

The overall cost of the bond would depend on the interest rate at the time of issue. Given current rates, city leaders anticipate the cost over a 15-year term will be about $188,000.

“With the change in the Lakeport TIF over the last couple of years, where the increments are improving and increasing each year, we thought that, similar to what we just did with the Weirs dock project, would be ideal to be able to do here as well,” Beattie said. “It fits in exactly what TIF is designed around, and we know we can afford this through TIF and pay for it that way.”

A public hearing on potential bonding for the project is set for Monday, June 9, during the city council meeting at 7 p.m. 

Allan Beetle, president of the WOW Trail organization, told councilors at a meeting in December that a large bike path connecting the existing route at the corner of Elm and Union would one day circumnavigate the lake and its surrounding neighborhoods, providing a path sans-vehicle to navigate between Lakeport and the point in downtown where the trail extends towards Belmont. 

Opechee Loop would, eventually, run from Elm Street to Route 106, through the anticipated Laconia Village development at the old State School property on the north end of the city, through Ahern State Park and back downtown.

More generally, the WOW Trail is eventually meant to connect downtown Laconia to Meredith through Lakeport and the Weirs. The existing portion could be extended if it weren’t for a lone easement developers haven’t been able to secure. That easement, which is roughly 300 feet long, is located on the property of the old Weirs Drive-In Theater.

In other business, councilors declared Paugus and Prescott avenues to be emergency lanes during their meeting. 

Those avenues will be declared emergency lanes until July 1, 2026. 

John McGuire of Prescott Avenue said he supports the declaration. 

“We’re still waiting to become part of Laconia, though I’ve been there 60 years, paying taxes and assuming that we’re part of Laconia. I think this fire road thing, every year until we get it done, is fine, I just don’t know how the process fell apart last fall,” McGuire said. 

Paugus and Prescott are private roads located along Paugus Bay near the Weirs. Because ownership of those roads is known, the abutters' only option to become a public road is through the city’s betterment process, according to a staff report. According to that process, abutters pay the city for the cost of improving the road to its standards over a 10-year period. Council guidance requires 100% of abutters to agree to participate in the betterment process.

The city has been plowing and performing maintenance on those roads to allow for emergency vehicles to access them for an unknown period of time. On July 8, 2024, councilors declared Paugus and Prescott to be emergency lanes with an expiration date of July 1, 2025. 

Councilors voted unanimously to make the new declaration.