By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
LACONIA – On Wednesday, the state’s Executive Council is expected to discuss five offers to purchase the former Laconia State School property, though one councilor noted the days of a $21.5 million offer are over.
Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, who is serving on an advisory committee along with Laconia’s City Manager and others, said the plan is to provide the council with an overview on what the committee’s “logic” is to “see if we are wrong” instead of recommending a single offer.
The discussion Wednesday will not be in public session.
Kenney said it would be a different approach from the past but in hopes of receiving a unanimous vote of all five councilors.
And while he said he could not identify the bidders yet or their offers, he conceded “it’s not going to be $21.5 million.”
That dollar amount is in reference to the previous potential buyer’s offer, but the deal fell through when the developer did not have the money after being given three extensions to close on the sale.
Robynne Alexander, a Manchester developer, had an ambitious plan last time to develop the more than 200-acre tract into housing and commercial property, but ultimately didn’t come up with the money.
Administrative Services Commissioner Charles Arlinghaus said there is expected to be some discussion in nonpublic session Wednesday.
“Tomorrow there will be a non-public meeting post-breakfast I think,” Arlinghaus said. “This is the same thing that happened two years ago.”
The council usually meets for breakfast before the meeting.
“Public discussion is limited at this point to merely saying that we received five offers.
“…Publicly if asked I will say similar to the last meeting that our goal is to have a purchase and sales agreement on the council agenda for the meeting of the 30th,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I cannot talk conceptually in public even. I cannot even comment on the part of Councilor Kenney’s comment that includes a number,” Arlinghaus said.
Also on the council’s agenda is an item to offer another two-year contract to the broker selling the property, CBRE of Boston.
Asked if this is because they didn’t get paid for the first two years of work, Arlinghaus said they are and have been continuing to work.
“It isn’t more money, it’s the same terms just extended, best thought of as housekeeping. They get five percent of the sale price but a minimum of $50,000 technically.”
Executive Councilor Ted Gatsas, R-Manchester, was highly critical of the process last time and the prospects that Alexander would ever close the deal.
Kenney said he was particularly interested in what Gatsas would have to say about the latest round of requests for offers.
And he said he expected discussion as soon as Wednesday when the council meets on the road in Derry.
For much of the past century, the Laconia land at the corner of Parade Road and Meredith Center Road has been used for the state’s developmentally disabled.
In the 1990s it became a medium security prison and now it only houses a communications center for E-911 and the Lakes Region Mutual Fire Dispatch.
On April 23, the state announced the 217 Acres “in the Beautiful Lakes Region of New Hampshire” were back on the market.
The state has been trying to move toward redevelopment of the property following years of work by the Lakeshore Redevelopment Commission.
