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Gatsas Wants Armory to Generate Revenue
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By Stephen Abbott
New Hampshire Herald
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Citing a need to generate greater tax revenue, Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas is
exploring new uses for the land on which the National Guard Armory current sits.
But he warns that the process of relocating the facility could take years.
For the last six months, Gatsas says he’s been discussing the 73-year-old facility’
s future with the National Guard and says the property isn’t working for them.
“The site that it’s on now doesn’t allow them to do work on larger vehicles inside
the building,” he said. “Half of them are in the building and half are out.”
What would work for the city, he says, is to commercially develop the property so
that it would generate tax revenue and lower the tax burden for homeowners.
“That is the most important issue,” he said.
But obtaining the property will take time. Building a new armory would cost up to
$50 million in federal funds, and land has not been found to accommodate a
new structure. And once the property is abandoned by the Guard, it would
immediately revert to Amoskeag Industries, its original owners.
The company, heir to the legacy of Manchester’s mill history, also owns the Elm
Street property on which Manchester’s city hall sits.
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“That’s a hurdle we must cross and we’ve been discussing this with the National
Guard and obviously we’ve got to find a location before we move forward,” he
said.
Some have speculated that a city-owned convention center would be a good fit
for the site, but Gatsas says he has no firm ideas for the land at this point, but
said it must generate revenue for the city, which the military facility currently
does not do.
“It really depends on what comes forward,” he said. “I certainly don’t think we’re
going to see a fast food restaurant or a gas station there.” Executive Councilor
and former Manchester Mayor Ray Wieczorek has been down this road before.
When he was mayor of Manchester in the 1990s, he said he and city planners
eyed the property, which faces the Merrimack River, as a possible site of what
later became the Verizon Wireless Arena. “That is a choice piece of property. It’s
right on the gateway to Manchester,” he said.
For this reason, negotiations with Amoskeag Industries would be “complicated,”
and a tough sell, says Wieczorek, who warned obtaining the property and
building a new Armory elsewhere would be a long process.
“If it ever got back into their hands, if the Guard didn’t want it anymore, then the
question is, how long would it take for them to find a new facility and build it?,” he
said. Gatsas discussed his proposal for the city to buy the land with Executive
Councilors at the Armory during their meeting there on July 28. He says
discussions with the National Guard will continue.
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