8 developers from Seacoast to Boston make pitch for Portsmouth housing project

PORTSMOUTH — City staff have narrowed the number of firms interested in partnering with the city of Portsmouth to create permanent below market rate housing at the former Sherburne School site from eight to four.

Groups and developers responding to the Request For Qualifications (RFQ) included the Portsmouth Housing Authority — which pitched a project for the city-owned site last year — along with developers from Boston, Portland, Maine, and elsewhere in New Hampshire.

City Manager Karen Conard told the City Council that a number of city staff met Monday to review the submissions filed with the city.

“The review that they took identified four that are worthy of moving on for interviews,” Conard told the City Council during their meeting Monday night. “Those four have not yet been notified nor has a date for those interviews been set.”

Conard did not name the four finalists.

She added that they were trying to schedule the interviews as “quickly as possible.”

The respondents included Portsmouth Housing Authority, Pennrose LLC of Boston, Avesta Housing Development Corporation in Portland, Maine, Preservation of Affordable Housing Inc., or POAH, from Boston, Avanru Development Group of Walpole, N.H., Tamposi Brothers Holdings LLC., of Hollis, the Housing Partnership of Portsmouth and GSD Communities of Durham.

The Housing Committee made the recommendation to issue the RFQ, rather than just moving forward with the Housing Authority.

Portsmouth Housing Authority Executive Director Craig Welch stated “without a doubt, PHA’s qualifications for building high-quality affordable housing in Portsmouth stand alone among all other housing developers in the nation.”

In PHA’s letter of interests to the city, Welch asserted that the agency “is uniquely suited to create new housing on privately or publicly owned land in Portsmouth, including at the Sherburne School.”

He noted the city created PHA in 1953 and “since then we have been the most prolific developer and owner of affordable rental housing in the city.”

PHA currently provides housing for more than 1,000 Portsmouth residents in 682 rental apartments across the city, Welch said.

The former Sherburne School, which was built in 1930, has in recent years housed the Robert Lister Academy, the city’s alternative high school.

Lister Academy is moving to the city-owned Community Campus this fall, leaving the roughly 5-acre site at 35 Sherburne Road open for redevelopment.

PHA touts history of redevelopment

Welch noted in PHA’s letter of interest that the agency has already “completed the historic preservation and adaptive reuse of three city-owned properties” at Atlantic Heights School, Connors Cottage and the Lafayette School.

The PHA also developed and recently opened Ruth Griffin Place, a below-market-rate development off Court Street in the heart of downtown Portsmouth. It features 64 units.

The city dropped its efforts last year to redevelop the Sherburne property with PHA after receiving some pushback from residents of the nearby Pannaway Manor neighborhood. City leaders renewed the effort this year and opened it up to proposals from multiple developers.

Pennrose LLC

Karmen Cheung, a senior developer at Pennrose LLC of Boston, stated “Pennrose is a nationally recognized, award-winning developer of successful, high-quality affordable and mixed-income housing.”

“We have extensive experience with the preservation and redevelopment of historic assets into housing, and are excited by the city of Portsmouth’s desire to revitalize the former Sherburne School into housing,” Cheung said in the company’s response to Portsmouth’s RFQ. “Our vision is uniquely long-term: Pennrose typically builds, leases and operates its buildings, rather than selling them, making us heavily invested in a neighborhood’s sustainability quality of life and economic opportunity, not just now but for decades to come.”

Cheung said previously Pennrose LLC “transformed historic old schools, office buildings and even churches into affordable and attainable work-force housing.”

“We understand the significance of these historic structures to their surrounding communities and worked with stakeholders to incorporate their needs and desires into our proposed plans,” she added.

Pennrose’s response to the RFQ included a number of examples of previous similar projects they’ve worked on.

They include the Mary D. Stone project in Auburn, Massachusetts, a “mixed-income and historic rehabilitation” of the former elementary school into 62-plus senior housing, according to the RFQ response. The redevelopment features 55 units.

Pennrose also pointed to the redevelopment of the former Hyde Park High School – which was built in 1902 – into the Pryde 75-unit housing redevelopment.

Avesta Housing Development Corporation

Patrick Hess is the director of real estate development for the nonprofit Avesta Housing Development Corporation in Portland, Maine.

"We envision partnering with the city of Portsmouth to redevelop this important community asset into permanent below market housing,” he wrote. “We believe the close alignment of our goals and our extensive experience collaborating with municipalities on similar projects makes Avesta Housing the best match for this opportunity to transform the Sherburne School site into a diverse and affordable community."

Avesta Housing stated its “mission is to improve lives and strengthen communities by promoting and providing quality affordable homes for people in need.”

The organization “currently owns and manages 100 affordable housing developments with more than 3,000 apartments in Maine and New Hampshire,” according to its submission.

The nonprofit also touted the success of its Avesta Management Corporation.

The property management team, it stated, has “significant experience administering a number of affordable rental assistance programs.”

Previous projects they pointed to include Deering Place in downtown Portland, Maine.

The project is a “mixed-income community of 75 homes in three apartments buildings …in Portland’s historic Parkside neighborhood,” Avesta Housing said.

The also cited the redevelopment of the former Emery School in Biddeford, Maine into 24 affordable apartments.

Preservation of Affordable Housing Inc.

The Preservation of Affordable Housing Inc. or POAH of Boston responded to the RFQ.

Aaron Gornstein, the president and CEO of POAH, stated the nonprofit “brings the best practices and development know-how that we’ve acquired by building and preserving more than 13,000 apartments in 11 states and the District of Columbia.”

POAH pointed to its ability to move quickly on the Sherburne School redevelopment.

“POAH has a deep bench of 35 development professionals and the staff capacity to begin work on Sherburne Road immediately,” Gornstein said. “We fund our own predevelopment and we have no competing application with New Hampshire.”

As a nonprofit developer and owner, “this means corporate profits will never take precedence over our commitment to the city of Portsmouth’s housing goals,” he said.

POAH stated it completed the Brewster Woods project in Brewster, Massachusetts in 2023. The project features 30 below-market-rate apartment homes in two buildings on a 5.8-acre parcel, according to its submission.

Avanru Development Group

George Hansel of Avanru Development Group Limited of Walpole, New Hampshire, described his firm as “an experienced developer of affordable, work-force, senior and market-rate housing.”

“ADG has developed hundreds of units of housing throughout New Hampshire,” he wrote, adding its typical project is 42-84 units.

“ADG has $150 million in projects in the pipeline that are currently being permitted or under construction,” its submission to Portsmouth states.

“ADG is excited to work in partnership with Portsmouth’s city leadership, and community, to transform the 35 Sherburne Road property into a development that will (elicit) pride from both the future residents and broader community,” Hansel wrote

ADG included information in its submission about their Walpole project, the Residences at Abernaki Springs. It described the project as “the state’s first affordable modular housing development.”

Tamposi Brothers Holdings LLC

Joe Tamposi of Tamposi Brothers Holdings LLC of Hollis wrote, “Our company has become one of the leading developers of affordable and work-force housing in the state of New Hampshire. Since 2020 we have been directly responsible for the permitting, development and/or construction of approximately 600 affordable and mixed income housing units in New England,” he said.

The Housing Partnership

The Housing Partnership of Portsmouth explained it is a nonprofit that was “formed as an affiliate of the United Way in 1988 for the purpose of providing housing and housing services to meet the growing demand for decent, affordable housing.”

The Sherburne site “aligns in many ways with the vision and scale of many of THP’s affordable housing projects,” they said in the letter of interest.

GSD Communities of Durham

GSD Communities of Durham filed a response to show their interest in working with the city on the Sherburne School project.

In the letter of interest from John and Maggie Randolph, they said “we know the proposed location, we know the city and the residents, and the combined concern and enthusiasm to move a housing project ahead for the Sherburne school and property.”

The Randolphs are known locally in Seacoast New Hampshire for developing the Cottages at Back River Road in Dover, as well as developing housing for their employees at Harmony Homes assisted living of Durham.

“This local perspective makes us uniquely sensitive and responsive to community concerns and heightens our desire to make it a successful project,” they wrote. "Designs for the Sherburne School neighborhood can proceed with either retention or removal of the Sherburne school building.”

What's next

City Councilor Beth Moreau asked the city manager what the next steps in the process would be after the interviews with the four developers selected from the eight submissions.

“What we want to solicit from folks is what do you have in mind (for the site), so we can share it with you,” Conard said.

City Councilor Andrew Bagley, who went through the more than 200 pages of submissions the city received, asked “when will we know who the selected entities are.”

“That could be at the July 15 meeting,” Conard replied. “We can certainly give an update, and most likely explain how we’d like the process to unfold with your involvement along with the Housing Committee.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Here are 8 developers making pitch for Portsmouth housing project