COVER STORY, JANUARY 2009

MANCHESTER FOCUSES ON GROWTH
Manchester offers businesses and residents both sides of life.
By Stephanie Mayhew

Manchester, New Hampshire boasts not only a superior quality of life for its residents — think  from your doorstep to the ski slopes in one hour, or from your door to Fenway in Boston in that same amount of time — but it also offers a superb business environment.

As the largest city in New Hampshire and the largest city in Northern New England, Manchester has many things going for it. It is centrally located in the heart of New England in terms of the state. It offers great highway access with Interstate 93 and Route 3, another avenue to Boston, as well as viable east/west connections. New Hampshire also boasts an incredibly low tax structure. There is no personal income tax, no sales tax and the business taxes are comparatively low.

“Our number one advantage is our low tax structure along with the business climate that we have in New Hampshire, our highly skilled workforce and of course the quality of life,” explains  Jay Minkarah, director of economic development at the Manchester Economic Development Office. “We find that for many of the businesses and residents that have chosen to locate here from a different state, usually the first thing that does attract them is the low taxes, the ease of doing business and the other key is quality of life.”

The Manchester/Boston Regional Airport is another major driver for economic development in Manchester.

“The Manchester/Boston Regional Airport has been one of the fastest growing airports in the country over the past 10 years,” says Minkarah. “The number of passengers utilizing the airport has quadrupled from about a million a year to 4 million per year. The airport is drawing heavily from Massachusetts, as well as from Maine and Vermont.”

In addition, Manchester has become the business and financial center for its region with a wide variety of not only financial institutions, but law firms, architectural firms and other types of design firms located there.

“The airport really allows the people that are drawn here to conduct business because you can get to a number of other places relatively inexpensively, which really allows businesses to grow,” explains Minkarah.

The increase in activity around the airport has also led to the direct growth of businesses within the vicinity of the airport, in particular businesses involved in any kind of shipping or receiving.

“There has been such an increase of cargo coming into the airport, so warehousing and distribution facilities naturally spring up in that area as well as other businesses and industries,” says Minkarah.

Aside from increased growth around the city’s major driver, this New England city is also experiencing growth in some very key markets. The area has developed as a regional medical center and a center for higher education, two trends that are continuing.

“We are continuing to see significant growth in higher education and in medical facilities, Minkarah explains. “Last year, we completed a major expansion of Catholic Medical Center, which is our second largest hospital and one of our largest employers.”

Located on the west side of the town, the project, parts of which are still underway, included a significant expansion, rehabilitation to existing facilities, as well as development of a new medical office building and a new parking structure.

Manchester is also home to approximately 11 colleges and universities, and Minkarah notes that at least half of those institutions are undergoing some sort of fairly significant expansion. Southern New Hampshire University is in the midst of a significant building program. New Hampshire Institute of Art acquired a large site downtown, a historic high school building, and are currently rehabbing that building as well as constructing a six-story classroom and dormitory building behind it. The school has also recently worked with another private developer to develop some additional dorm space downtown at yet another building location. St. Anselm College is also about to begin a significant expansion.                        

The healthcare sector is also experiencing vigorous activity in Manchester. In October, ground was broken for The Elliot at River’s Edge, a roughly 230,000-square-foot ambulatory care facility that will compliment Elliot Hospital. The development will also feature a 100,000-square-foot medical office building, a three-story residential building, an additional retail commercial building as well as a 4-acre riverfront park.

The Elliot at River’s Edge in Manchester, New Hampshire.

The approximately 500,000-square-foot project, which Minkarah describes as probably the largest project the city has seen in about 30 years, is being constructed on the southern periphery of the downtown area on the site of the former Jac Pac Meatpacking Plant. The plant, which was formerly owned by Tyson Foods, was closed about 4 years ago, laying off approximately 500 workers.

“It was a jolt for the city, but it was also an opportunity because the site is in a very prominent location on the riverfront with great visibility from the highway and a major bridge is located there as well. So, the city decided to buy the site and turn it around for redevelopment,” Minkarah explains.

RFPs were sent out in spring 2007 and the site was awarded to a local developer, Dick Anagnost. A purchase and sale agreement followed in June and the property closed in October of this year with a groundbreaking just 2 weeks later. Construction is slated for completion in the next 18 months.

Minkarah believes that the project is going to be a great harbinger of growth for the city, bringing in an estimated 500 jobs right out of the gate and about 1,000 jobs upon full completion. This, coupled with the fact that thousands of people will be coming in and out of that facility on a regular basis for healthcare, is going to make the new development a tremendous generator of activity.

“This project is going to lead almost immediately to spin-off commercial development within the vicinity of the site itself, but it is also going to lead to the redevelopment of some of the more significant underdeveloped sites that are in immediate vicinity,” notes Minkarah. “The site is within a mile of the downtown core, so we should see development continue along Elm Street and activity will be pushed north as well. Without question, we are going to be seeing more growth coming out of that facility.”

Aside from education and healthcare, the city is looking to drive more growth in several other areas. According to Minkarah, the city is hoping to bank on the strength of the downtown core, which they believe is the business and financial capital of New Hampshire and Northern New England.

“The majority of the state’s largest law firms are headquartered in Manchester, as well as regional banks, insurance companies and other financial services firms. We most certainly want to continue to serve in that role and continue to build on that base,” says Minkarah.

Although Minkarah recognizes that financial services is a strained industry right now, he believes that over the long term it will continue to be an important target for the city, as well as insurance firms, professional design firms, engineering firms, architectural firms, interior design, environmental consulting firms and other professional or consulting firms.

“That range of business and professional services is a key cluster for us and we definitely want to continue to build on that. Within the high-tech realm, software and IT development is another key cluster and we are very much looking to attract firms,” Minkarah remarks.

The city’s downtown contains the largest concentration of Class A office space offered in the state, and the Mill Yard, which is directly adjacent to downtown, offers an eclectic mix of varied and distinctive space. What was once the largest textile complex in the world, the Mill Yard features about 4 million square feet of space set among beautiful historic buildings. 

In addition, due to the strength of the airport, Minkarah also notes that his office is looking to attract aviation related industry, and biotech and medical devices related businesses as well.

 The Northwest Business Park at Hackett Hill is an area within the city that is expected to provide great space for the incoming industries mentioned above, as well as existing businesses in Manchester.  As part of a public/private partnership, the city is currently pursuing the development of approximately 12 lots ranging in size from 3 to roughly 30 acres in size, which will be phase I of the project. The sites are being marketed primarily for light industrial, research and development and office type firms that are looking to grow into their own facility or establish a regional headquarters. Minkarah speculates that phase I of the green development will be on the market for prospective buyers by second quarter 2009.

Manchester has also placed a significant emphasis on sports and entertainment in the last several years and they plan to keep growing that as an industry. In 2001, the Verizon Wireless Arena, a roughly 10,000-seat stadium, opened and has been enormously successful. The arena allowed the city to bring in a minor league hockey team and an arena football team. Based on that success, the city developed a minor league baseball stadium along the Merrimack River, which is home to a AA affiliate of the Toronto Bluejays — the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. This project, coupled with a new hotel that was constructed adjacent to the stadium, has been incredibly successful. The most recent sports/entertainment venture was the creation of the city’s professional basketball team, the Manchester Millrats.

“This kind of entertainment and sports concept as a driver of economic development is something we take very seriously and we have been successful with,” says Minkarah. “It boosts the quality of life and makes it a more attractive place to live and to work. It also brings in a significant amount of business.”


©2009 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.




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