Voters worry about shrinking tax base if Newfound buys Bristol TD Bank

BRISTOL — What was scheduled as a bond and warrant article hearing turned into a discussion where residents pushed back against purchasing a TD Bank building for the Newfound Area School District office.

The Oct. 9 agenda was essentially scrapped, as TD Bank staff had agreed to extend the deadline for a decision by school district voters, following concerns about the cost of a special meeting, and questions about tax implications. Grafton County Superior Court had already approved the special district meeting, with a deliberative session scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 25, and ballot vote on Tuesday, Nov. 25. The change to the purchase-and-sales agreement allows district leaders to go through the regular budget process with a February deliberative session and a March ballot vote.

During a budget hearing the previous week, residents expressed concerns about the loss of tax revenue from the bank property if it became district-owned. The town currently collects nearly $16,000 in taxes on the property, assessed at $665,400.

Citing the town’s loss of tax revenue due to purchases of the former Mill Stream Restaurant property, the Newfound Professional Building, and the Bristol Baptist Church parsonage, residents also noted their taxes had increased from construction of a new public safety building.

TD Bank staff offered to sell the property, which includes the adjacent building the district currently rents, for last year’s assessed value of $665,400. If the sale to Newfound schools does not go through, the bank would sell it at its current market value, and the district office might move or face a rent increase. After a revaluation this year, the new assessed value of the property is $1.1 million.

The Newfound Area School Board sees it as a worthwhile purchase, given the district would immediately have about $400,000 in equity. The bank recently invested $1.8 million in improvements to the building, which already meets the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. A building inspection found no problems which would require additional maintenance.

Superintendent Paul Hoiriis and Facilities Director Armand Girouard told the school board the district staff could be accommodated on the second and third floors of the bank with little renovation necessary, allowing the district to offset some of the purchase cost by renting or selling the current district office building, and renting or changing the first floor of the bank building into condominiums.

Those attending the Oct. 9 hearing did not share that rosy outlook. Richard Carlton of Bristol complained, “There’s a lot of hypotheticals. There’s a lot of dreaming. I think it would be very helpful if we had some really hard financials of a worst-case scenario, which is, what’s it going to cost? I’ve looked at the PowerPoint presentation, and didn’t see anything about the expenses to maintain that building, and regardless of the renovations, there’s heat, insurance, air conditioning, snow plowing — there’s a lot of expenses. And I think, for all the hypotheticals — we might sell, or we might do this, we might rent — it’d be really good to know what’s the bottom line, what’s it going to cost just if none of the hypotheticals work out.”

Paul Berton, who graduated from Newfound in 1972, and has been involved in real estate for more than 30 years, said, “It really scares me.

"To pretend you have that crystal ball to speculate on what the future holds, and in particular, on the commercial side of things. Boy, I wish you would share that crystal ball. Just be careful speculating on what can happen commercially. We all feel the need for residential components, but the commercial side of things is very speculative, very scary.”

Berton is interested in converting the bank building into affordable housing, telling the school board, “I’m a very good customer of TD Bank in Portsmouth, and when I heard about this, they gave me a set of keys, and I crawled all over your building. And even at that price ... I don’t have a clear vision for that property.

"Even at $600,000, it’s not going to be easy.”

School Board Vice Chair Joe Maloney, who was leading the meeting, said, “Looking at market rents and what we pay for a mortgage, for that amount of a mortgage, I think that those two numbers would be very close for what we’ve been able to find. And so, even if we had to pay that mortgage until the end, until we own it outright, I feel like we’d be paying that much kind of anyway, or just about, and I think any path we take is going to have inherent risk.”

Current rent on the superintendent’s office has been $650 a month since June 1993, but any maintenance must be borne by the district. When residents suggested it would be better to let someone else purchase the building and rent from them, saying ownership would carry maintenance expenses, board members pointed out it depends on how the rental agreement is worded. Additionally, there would be no guarantee a new owner would rent space to the district.

“We have a Realtor looking at alternatives,” Hoiriis said, “and there is no alternative in-district rental office space that suits right now. We can keep hoping, but currently, there isn’t anything.”

Those attending the meeting, however, suggested looking into town-owned space, such as the area on the second floor of the Bristol Town Offices the police department used during construction of the public safety building.

Deb Glidden of Alexandria raised an objection to the non-disclosure clause part of the purchase-and-sales agreement, and others joined her in questioning why the taxpayers, as buyers, were being kept in the dark about the terms of that document. They suggested going back to TD Bank for another amendment to the contract.

The other issue lurking in the background is how long the district would need the bank building. The school board has contracted with Banwell Architects to come up with plans to renovate the middle and high school buildings as an option to close outlying schools in Danbury and New Hampton, as well as the aging Bristol Elementary School. Part of what Banwell will address is whether the renovations could include space for the superintendent’s office.

If such a project were brought to the voters, it still would be several years before the building would be ready for use, and the school board has said that, at that time, they could sell the bank property, with the money going toward the cost of the school renovations.

Lisa Ford of Bristol commented, “I’d love to see you guys have the second and third floor, but I want somebody else to buy the building.

"I hope everything goes well for everybody, because I know you guys deserve all good things, but it doesn’t mean that we necessarily have to pay a premium price for it, either. I think there’s a way that we might want to wait out certain things before we jump in with both feet. It just seems like a big, big bite to me, at a time when we’re looking to have a little less.”