State School complex: A diamond in the rough?

LACONIA — For Mayor Andrew Hosmer and the City Council the Laconia State School complex is a golden opportunity for positive growth in the city.

On Monday evening they repeatedly underscored that point to the head of a special state-authorized panel charged with preparing the site for redevelopment, and a member of the Executive Council which must approve the sale of any state property.

On Tuesday morning a state official gave a commercial real estate broker a tour of the 200-plus acre site with more than two dozen brick buildings, many a century old.

During the tour, the broker took in the scenic vistas that look out over Lake Opechee. But he also got an up-close look at the buildings, almost all of which have been left unattended for 20 years or more and show signs of being in a serious state of disrepair.

Since 2018 the panel — the Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission — has been working to prepare the property for marketing to one or more private developers. The commission’s work has included preparing a master plan, doing environmental assessments to determine whether hazardous materials are present, and a survey of wetlands on the site.

“We’ve enhanced the value of the property,” commission Chairman George Bald told the council.

Bald and Executive Councilor Joe Kenney attended the Monday evening meeting at the behest of Hosmer and the council because they are concerned that a move by Gov. Chris Sununu to speed up the process to sell the property could result in a development that will not be in the city’s best economic interest.

Late last month the state started soliciting proposals from commercial real estate brokers to find a buyer for the property “as-is, with all its faults. … (potentially) before the end of the 2021 summer season with or without regard to the mission, findings, or recommendations of the Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission,” according to the request for proposals posted by the state Department of Administrative Services, the state’s landlord.

“It looks like you’ve had the rug pulled out from under you,” City Councilor Bob Hamel told Bald.

In the same vein, Hosmer told Bald, “I hate to see the work by the Lakeshore Redevelopment Commission be all for naught.”

Bald said the work of the commission has been beneficial.

“I don’t see the work has been wasted,” he said. “Anyone in development should look at the master plan which the city is behind.”

Kenney said he did not want to see the knowledge and expertise which the commission has brought to the effort lost.

He said he would keep a close eye on Administrative Services' handling of the process to ensure that a sale would not be pushed through to the detriment of the city.

He said if he felt a prospective sale was in the city’s best interest he would lobby other executive councilors to support it, but would also lobby against any deal which would not benefit the city.

He noted that although the rider to the state budget gives Sununu great latitude in selling the property, no deal can go through unless it has a support among a majority of the five-member Executive Councilor.

“As (the late) Executive Councilor Ray Burton told a newly elected governor, ‘The first thing you need to remember is that you need to be able to count to three,’” Kenney said.

When the time came for the property showing at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Douglas Martin, a vice president with Colliers, an international commercial real estate brokerage firm with offices in Manchester and Portsmouth, was the only one to show up.

Jared Nylund, a real property asset manager for the Department of Administrative Services, showed Martin around the property. They went inside just two buildings — Dwinell which is occupied by the state’s 9-1-1 center and the Lakes Region Mutual Fire Aid Association’s dispatch center, and Dube, which is now vacant but was most recently used to house COVID patients who were homeless.

Martin looked at the other buildings from the outside. Some of the buildings have been unoccupied since the 1990s when the Laconia State School closed. Other buildings have been unused since the state prison moved out about 20 years ago. Each of those buildings is posted with signs reading “Environmental Hazards -- No Entry Allowed.”

Beyond the dilapidated buildings, Martin was also told that the existing water and sewer systems on the property are inadequate and need to be rebuilt.

Nylund advised Martin to read the master plan and other reports which are posted on the Lakeshore Commission’s website. He also said that unlike previous attempts by the state to sell the property, this time his agency has budgeted money to cover “pre-sale funding or a brokerage fee.”

Although the RFP states that Aug. 27 is the deadline for brokers to submit their proposals, Nylund said that deadline could be extended. He also said that in addition to posting the RFP on the Administrative Services’s website, the agency also sent the posting directly to brokerage firms “that have the capacity to do this” marketing project.