MANCHESTER, NH – Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) Committee on Lands and Buildings will hear a request on Oct. 15 from the Manchester Joint School Building Committee on behalf of the Manchester School District to essentially “trade” two properties on Beech Street between the school district and the city.
The request seeks to take Sheridan-Emmett Park, located between Union and Beech streets, as the site for a new Beech Street Elementary School. In return, the current site of Beech Street Elementary School, immediately across the street from Sheridan-Emmett Park, will be given to the Manchester Department of Public Works as the site for a new future park.
Tuesday’s step in this process requests that the committee accept and recommend to the full BMA the approval of the Amoskeag Corporation’s partial release of deed for Sheridan-Emmett Park and authorize the change of use from park to school for the land.
After construction of the new school, the old Beech Street Elementary School would be abated and demolished, and then restored transferred from school to park use at a later date, using portions of funding already allocated to the school district’s facilities plan.
The committee’s recommendation or non-recommendation is expected to be presented to the full BMA on Nov. 19.
Just before the Beech Street Elementary School request, the committee will hear a request to rename the soccer field at Sheridan-Emmett Park after Thamba Mbungu, a Central alumni and standout soccer player who was shot and killed in Oct. 2021 at Derryfield Park. His murder remains unsolved.
UPDATE: The request was tabled after concerns about whether there would be a one-to-one exchange of land. The item is expected to be revisited in November.