'Laser focused': City, developers begin creating detailed McIntyre plan to present to NPS

PORTSMOUTH – The project team assembled to redevelop the 2.1 acre Thomas J. McIntyre federal building site has begun meeting to try to finish a plan that federal officials will approve.

The General Services Administration (GSA) – which owns the property – recently granted the city a six-month extension to work with Redgate/Kane to develop the redevelopment plan for the site.

City Manager Karen Conard told the City Council this week that the project team began meeting last week and will continue to meet weekly as they work toward developing what’s been called the Community Plan for the site.

The project team also met this week and “reviewed many things … including the responsibility matrix and the timeline and everything from a review of floor plans and programming,” Conard said during Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

“The conversation circled around how to properly knit the property back into the downtown framework and to recognize the balance of providing space that generates revenue with the civic gesture that was (key) to the community plan with the market shed,” Conard said.

The community plan, featuring a market shed design or pavilion, was developed by city consultants, Principle Group, following a series of public input meetings.

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The project is slated to include commercial, retail, residential and public space.

City Attorney Robert Sullivan recently said the redevelopment plan for the project could become “one of the great attractions in northern New England.”

“It’s going to be the kind of place that people far and wide will drive just to see it and shop in it and hang around it,” Sullivan said. “The significance to the city of this project is very hard to overstate.”

The property is located in the heart of downtown Portsmouth within a stone’s throw of the city’s popular waterfront.

Conard told the council that the city’s first required “45-day check-in” with the GSA is scheduled for July 18.

The GSA required the city to update them every 45 days to make sure they are making progress on the redevelopment project.

“What we’re all focused on – laser focused on – is making sure we hit the August 8th submittal of a draft to be considered by the National Park Service,” Conard said.

The Historic Monument Program is administered by the National Park Service (NPS) which must approve the redevelopment plan for the site, including how much profit Redgate/Kane – the city’s private development partners – make on the deal.

The federal building itself cannot be demolished.

The city has been trying to acquire the property through the program for several years.

If the city does not provide “sufficient evidence of progress,” the NPS can “cease to support” the city’s application, according to the GSA’s extension agreement.

Reached Thursday, Mayor Deaglan McEachern acknowledged the city and Redgate/Kane have a “short window to get a lot of work done.”

“It’s a high stakes job,” McEachern said.

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The city is now able to move the redevelopment forward because the City Council in April approved a settlement agreement with Redgate/Kane.

As part of the agreement Portsmouth will pay Redgate/Kane $2 million for expenses it used in preparing its now abandoned redevelopment project for the McIntyre property.

The developers have agreed for their part to drop a potentially costly lawsuit against the city and work together to pursue the community redevelopment plan.

“I feel confident that the city is in the best possible position to create something that benefits the city now that we’ve got rid of the lawsuit,” McEachern said.

He is hopeful that the urgency of the tight deadline “will bring cooperation between the two sides and get this project done.”

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The Principle Group has developed renderings for the Community Plan, but the project team must now move forward and create architectural drawings and engineering plans for the project, he acknowledged.

The two sides must also agree on how much the project will cost to build and how much the city must contribute to the cost, McEachern said.

“Having an attitude of how do we get to yes is something we have much more now than we did before,” he said.

A previous City Council voted to approve Redgate/Kane’s redevelopment plan in 2019, which called for renovating the existing McIntyre building for office space and adding two new mixed-use residential buildings at the site.

The immediate past City Council rejected a draft ground lease with Redgate/Kane, leading the developers to file the lawsuit against the city that is now being terminated.

Project team members include representatives from Redgate/Kane, the Principle Group and city staff, the mayor said.

The city has also hired former Deputy City Manager David Allen to be the project manager for the redevelopment, McEachern said.

Conard could not immediately be reached Thursday afternoon to provide a list of all project team members.

The project team's meetings will not be public, McEachern said.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth, NH, developer begin creating detailed McIntyre plan for NPS