Dirt to airport

The redevelopment of the Lakes Region Plaza as Winnipesaukee Crossing on Lakeshore Road (Rte. 11) has provided a boon to the Laconia Airport — 117,000 cubic yards of dirt.

The project, undertaken by Massachusetts-based Gerald Realty, calls for leveling much of the hill behind the original strip mall and removing 500,000 cubic yards of material from the 35-acre site.

Diane Cooper, executive director of the Laconia Airport Authority, said that contractors contacted her in the course of the bidding process to ask if the airport needed fill. She explained that trucking the fill to the airport rather than to a more remote site would have a significant impact on pricing the bids.

As it happened, the construction of a new parking area for aircraft, which was originally intended to be built all at once, was halted in midstream when the cost of materials, especially asphalt, outran the budget. That left the second phase of the project in limbo. Cooper said that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) generally does not permit work to begin on a project before it has awarded the grant to finance it . However, presented with an opportunity to get the fill required for the parking area, she asked the FAA to relax its policy and the agency agreed.

"It's worked out very well for all concerned," Cooper said. "We are getting the fill we need compacted to the standards set by the FAA at no cost to the airport. Trucking it here is cost effective for the contractor and the developer," she continued. "It's a good example of the private and pubic sectors working together to the benefit of both."

Winnipesaukee Crossing will feature a Hannaford Brothers supermarket of 56,000 square feet on the north end of the property and a Lowe's home-improvement store of 170,000 square feet just to the south. A 15,000 square foot retail building and 5,200 square foot restaurant — both free-standing buildings — are planned to the south of the Lowe's site, though no tenants have been secured for either property. The Meredith Village Savings Bank branch near Lakeshore Road will remain while Papa Gino's restaurant will return in a new building attached to the south end of Hannaford Brothers, next to Lowe's. The plaza will hold 1,310 parking spaces.

The timing of actual construction of Winnipesaukee Crossing is up in the air because Lakes Region Cinema is still operating in the middle of what is destined to be the Lowe's parking lot. The theater's lease does not expire until 2008 and the building can't be torn down until then unless an early buyout of the lease can be negotiated.