Housing approved for restaurants and entertainment in downtown Concord

Approved by the Concord Planning Commission, a multi-story building on South Avenue featuring a restaurant, two outdoor terraces and event space will now add 16 market-rate apartments to the downtown core.

The proposed project, which received conditional approval from the Planning Commission in December, plans to build a three-storey office building over five storeys. On Wednesday, the board approved Concord developer Stephen Duprey’s request to downsize the entertainment venue from five to four levels and replace three levels of office space with two levels of residences.

Construction was supposed to start in April but was pushed back to June while Duprey awaits a decision from the board.

Twelve of the apartments will be 1,000-square-foot studios, while the remaining four will have two or more bedrooms. Residents will have access to licensed parking spaces in a nearby garage, which Duprey leases from the city.

The building, which will be located between the Concord Food Co-op and the New Hampshire Stage River, is designed with a striking wood and steel exterior and a hand-painted mural on the back of the building. Duprey wants a Friendly Toast restaurant on the ground floor and two floors of residences between an events space on the top floor that will be operated by the Grappone Convention Center.

Despite scaling back the project, Duprey will keep all other site plans, including an outdoor patio space behind the building, which will feature a cargo crate kitchen and a country west, Nashville-style restaurant and bar located in a converted barn on the property. middle.

Duprey had no luck relocating an 1854 Victorian home on the now vacant property. The home was approved last summer and is expected to be demolished, but Duprey continues to do his best to find a buyer or someone to accept a donation for the 1800s home and offer up to $100,000 for moving expenses. Neither the city nor private buyers have expressed interest in the home.

When homes were first built on the property in the late 1800s, it was a bakery run by a U.S. Army contractor who made cookies for Union troops in the Civil War. Biscuits and bad biscuits were taken up Storrs Street and loaded onto trains for shipment. To honor the history of the site, Duprey plans to decorate the barn-style dining room with historic memorabilia and artifacts brought from the home to honor the home’s significance in Concord.