MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Pearl 2.0 will have to wait a little bit longer before it gets a yes or a no from the Manchester Planning Board.
Perhaps one of the key components of the city’s push for additional housing, the proposed apartment complex to be placed at the Pearl Street parking lot known as The Pearl went to the Planning Board on Thursday to seek an amendment for its site plan approval received in April 2023.
While the proposal on Thursday had roughly the same design features as the proposal that gained approval in 2023, it was downsized from a 366-unit complex due to economic feasibility concerns. This new edition of the Pearl proposes a 162-unit complex with three components. The first is a 150-unit five-story apartment building, replacing what would have been a six-story 314-unit building. Another six-story building along Orange Street with 52 apartments will be replaced by a pair of three-story six-unit townhouse buildings. Public parking at the facility will also be reduced, with a garage holding 654 parking spaces to be replaced with a two-story garage near Chestnut Street holding 296 parking spaces. Like the previous proposal, those 296 garage parking spaces for the public and an additional 10 parking spaces outside for residents.
Affordable housing is also a component of the new proposal. Unlike the overall scope compared to the first version of the Pearl however, the new Pearl has many more units meeting the United State Department of Housing and Urban Development’s criteria for affordable housing. All of the 150 units in the five-story building will be classified as affordable housing, most expected to rent around $1,000 to $1,200 per month and some units even less expensive than that. The previous Pearl had only 52 affordable units.
While members of the Planning Board indicated that a larger footprint would have still fit within the character of comparable nearby buildings in the city’s Central Business District, the new site plan brought forth was still met positively.
“I don’t see this as anything other than a home run of more affordable units and more green space,” said Planning Board Vice Chair John Goeman.
Members of the public, such as Manchester Housing Alliance spokesperson Jane Haigh, also spoke in favor of the proposal, asking that it serve as a starting point for more development in the area.
“There is definitely a housing shortage in the city of Manchester and there isn’t a lot of places housing can go, and there is definitely a shortage of affordable housing, so I am glad to see this,” she said. “If we’re going to talk about parking and traffic concerns, maybe we should also talk more about public transportation as well.”
However, the application was not universally supported. Orange Street resident Deborah Boucher had hoped the Pearl would not come to pass and she felt that it would be harmful to current area residents even in its smaller size.
“There’s no more room for people in the area, there’s no parking as it is now. I keep watching and asking why are you doing this?” she said. “It’s a residential area and as it becomes more and more densely populated, it’s going to get even harder for residents to get parking as we already don’t have a lot of city support regarding enforcement.”
Several lingering concerns, primarily a crosswalk not near intersections and sewer lines going under the proposed buildings rather than its adjacent streets, require further analysis from the Manchester Department of Public Works, leading the public hearing on the application for the Pearl to remain open. The Pearl’s application is expected to be brought up again at the board’s next meeting in two weeks.