Business View Magazine | June 2019

315 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JUNE 2019 first is called Woodmont Commons,” he begins. “It’s a 603-acre, planned unit development that was formerly all apple orchards and was rezoned after a three-year master planning process, to mixed use. There’s commercial, retail, and residential in all different forms – apartments, town houses, single families. It has a 20-year build out, estimated between a billion and billion- and-a-half dollars, when all is said and done. It’s currently the largest development in the State of New Hampshire, if not New England. It’s really the first of its kind in this area. You generally see more of these planned unit developments in southern communities, so for New England, it’s really unique. I also think it speaks to the needs of both Millennials and retirees, who want to work and shop close to where they’re living.” Town Planner, Colleen Mailloux, agrees that the Woodmont Commons project is unique for the town. “Normally in the planning side of things, we look at a site plan and we’re talking about, maybe one building, maybe two buildings on a lot,” she explains. “At Woodmont Commons, we’ve LONDONDERRY , NEW HAMPSHI RE got an approved Phase One site plan by the Planning Board that has 38 buildings, 200,000 square feet of commercial and office space, and 250 residential dwelling units; it’s also approved for small hotels of about 130 rooms. So, it was an interesting challenge for us, reviewing and getting through the approval process. Some of the buildings in that project are currently under construction and are expecting certificates of occupancy later on this spring. And they’re moving on with the next buildings in that Phase One. So, they’re really creating a downtown, mixed-use, commercial corridor, and then building out from that, townhouse and single family residential, and trying to blend that development into the community, as a whole. And, as they have buildings under construction, there are also additional phases coming in and under review and constantly undergoing approval.” Another ongoing project in town is the redevelopment of the Apple Tree Mall, an 1980s strip mall that had been in disrepair for some time, after having gone into foreclosure and losing