Renaissance Downtowns and the Bridge Street Site

Renaissance Downtowns is a real estate development firm which specializes in the revitalization of downtowns thoughout the Northeast. They have joined forces with the City of Nashua in a public/private partnership to create a master plan for the development of a former brown fields site owned by the City of Nashua located adjacent to the Taylor Falls Bridge. This site affords the City of Nashua a tremendous opportunity for the development of a 26-acre parcel as infill to a traditionally patterned neighborhood which is in need of revitalization. The public/private partnership worked through a concept planning process with the City of Nashua, during which the Renaissance team lead the charge in the creation of a concept plan through recommmendations by professionals in the field of urban planning, market and economic analysis, engineering, environmental analysis, downtown revitalization and others.
Triple-Bottom-Line Community
Renaissance has created a plan for the Bridge Street Site based on a Triple-Bottom-Line Statement, benefitting Nashua economically, socially and environmentally. This follows a nationwide trend promoting the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion.
Bridge Street Site Project
The concept master plan illustrates the transformation of the Bridge Street Site from an underutilized parcel into a vibrant new neighborhood that will anchor the East Hollis Street area and serve as a catalyst for further revitalization. The site will be completed in phases. Key features include:
Fiscal Benefits
The development of this concept plan has the potential to provide, at full buildout, the City of Nashua with significant additional tax revenue on an ongoing, annual basis along with significant job creation opportunities. Considering the plan for this site and the program discussed furing submission of the concept plan, it is estimated the following would be generated by the Bridge Street redevelopment:
It must be noted that these benefits do not include indirect and induced tax revenues nor additional jobs created by the catalytic nature of the Bridge Street redevelopment effort.
Very nice summary.
Improved public access to the Merrimack River should be a more explicit ly stated goal of the project.
In this regard I have two comments regarding the marina feature:
1) Given that the steep levee seems to preclude a decent boat launch ramp at this site, the Project should explictily – vocally – support a suitable ramp elsewhere in Nashua; the most likely approach being the modernization of the old ramp in Greeley Park.
2) The marina design needs to give special attention to the challenges posed by occasional flooding and fast currents and ice , probably involving removable floating docks for which the lifting and storage facilities need to be identified and costed out.