Developer plans new apartment complex for Enfield brownfield site

An artist's rendering of a proposed 48-unit apartment complex on Shedd Street in Enfield, N.H. (Courtesy Christopher Thomas Ross)

An artist's rendering of a proposed 48-unit apartment complex on Shedd Street in Enfield, N.H. (Courtesy Christopher Thomas Ross)

By LIZ SAUCHELLI

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 10-26-2024 4:01 PM

ENFIELD — The long-vacant site of the town’s former public works headquarters is set to be redeveloped into housing.

The Selectboard has approved the sale of about 3 acres of town-owned land to Lebanon-based Oakes & Son Construction, which has agreed to buy the property on Shedd Street for $80,000 and build 48 units.

At a meeting on Monday, the board has authorized Town Manager Ed Morris to sign a letter of intent. The sale will become finalized once the housing complex — dubbed Shedd Street Mills — wins approval from the town’s zoning and planning boards, Morris said in a Tuesday phone interview.

“I think it’s a good project for the town of Enfield and a good use of that property,” Morris said.

The land — close to the center of town and vacant for roughly two decades — previously was home to the town’s public works department and associated vehicles. Clean up work on the brownfield site — included removing fuel and concrete holding tanks and demolishing buildings that contained chemicals such as asbestos — was completed in the past year. The town issued a request for proposals to develop the site, which is tied into the town’s water and sewer system.

Town officials reached out to multiple developers in the area and while quite a few expressed interest in the property, Oakes & Son Construction was the only firm to submit a formal proposal, Morris said. Representatives of the company made a presentation to residents during a public hearing Monday night before the Selectboard vote.

“The building form itself is meant to be something new but also something that connects back to the fabric and early founding of the town itself, or the development of the town later,” Enfield-based residential home designer Christopher Ross, who is working with Oakes & Son on the proposal said during the public hearing. The design of the buildings was inspired, in part, by the nearby Baltic Mill complex, a former textile mill, Ross said during the public hearing.

Oakes & Son owner Bobby Oakes estimated that rents could range from $2,000 to $2,400 per month. The goal is to complete the entire project in three to five years once work begins.

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Elsewhere in the Upper Valley, the company was the general contractor for the conversion of the former American Legion building in downtown White River Junction into apartments and retail space, Oakes said. The firm is currently building a commercial storage facility in Lebanon.

Conceptual plans call for building 44 two-bedroom apartments and four one-bedroom apartments in two identical buildings, said Ross, who according to his website has worked with architects in the Twin States, as well as Massachusetts and is in the process of becoming a licensed architect.

Each L-shaped building would have an approximately 12,000-square-foot footprint.

The main part of the buildings would be about 39-feet tall and two towers at either end, intended for tenants to use as gathering spaces, would be about 50-feet tall. Parking would be located behind the buildings, where residents would also have access to the Northern Rail Trail, which runs along the Mascoma River.

“The Selectboard asked them to make it fit and to be respectful of our history, our culture and surroundings,” Selectboard member Kate Plumley Stewart said during the hearing.

She noted that the Selectboard’s request for pitched roofs, for example, meant that Oakes & Son would have to ask the town’s zoning board for a height variance because regulations limit building heights to 35 feet.

Residents attending Monday’s hearing asked questions about stormwater runoff and the use of renewable energy. Morris said that many of those details would be discussed in detail once the project is presented to the planning and zoning boards.

“It’s architecturally similar to what’s been in the village. It adds housing. It’s where we have water and sewer. It expands our tax base, it expands our water and sewer base,” Selectboard Chairman Erik Russell said during the hearing. “It’s a type of housing we don’t currently have in Enfield.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.