CLAREMONT — Three floors of a historic mill building at 21 Water St., most recently the home of Red River Computer, will be converted into 27 one- and two-bedroom affordable housing apartments.
Last Monday, the Claremont Planning Board unanimously approved the project presented by Michael Biama of ReArch Construction, the project manager. The property is owned by Sugar River Mill Redevelopment of Burlington but will be sold to Twin Pines Housing of White River Junction before work begins.
The approved plans for 24,000 square feet of space include 17 one-bedroom apartments and 10 two-bedroom units. The fourth and fifth floors will have 10 units each and the other seven will be on the sixth floor. The third floor will continue to be office space. The first two floors are occupied by the Common Man Inn.
“This was an opportunity for us to do a project in Claremont,” Twin Pines Executive Director Andrew Winter told the board. “Over the years, we have looked at affordable housing and workforce housing. This was a great opportunity to do an adaptive reuse of an existing building.”
Winter said Twin Pines was started 36 years ago and today manages 665 units in New Hampshire and Vermont.
Winter said Tuesday that moving forward with the $12.5 million project will depend on obtaining financing from the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority. Twin Pines will submit its application by the end of September and expects to hear from the finance authority in December.
Assuming the application is approved, Winter said, construction would likely begin in the second quarter of 2027 and be finished and the apartments ready for occupancy in early 2028. If the application is denied, it would be another year before Twin Pines could apply again because the Housing Finance Authority’s application process is open only once a year.
“The financing is very competitive. We hope to be funded the first time, but it could take a few applications,” Winter said.
The board granted several waivers for the project that deal with site access, grading, drainage, landscaping and exterior lighting. There will be no exterior changes to the building. There will be 70 parking spaces — 48 in the nearby parking garage and 22 across the Sugar River on North Street.
Most of the discussion with the board focused on the tenant mix and rents.
Winter said rents will be based on income, with three apartments for “extremely low income” — which he defined as making 30% of the area median income or about $24,000 a year. Other units will be rented for between 50% and 80% of the area median income. Winter said he expects the annual income limits will be between $24,000 and $94,000. Rents could also vary, depending on the number of people in a household.
“We are trying to find a range of incomes to access this housing,” Winter said. “Because we are using the tax credit program, the rents we are charging are capped.
“New Hampshire Housing doesn’t let us exceed 90% of area market rents,” Winter said.
Winter said he believes the maximum monthly rent will be around $1,600. All floors will have laundry, bicycle storage and small storage areas for each tenant.
The building is between two others in the mill district with apartments and soon-to-be apartments.
Monadnock Mills at 29 Water St., with 83 market-rate apartments, began renting in 2022. Rents are $1,500 for a studio, between $1,800 and $2,350 for a one-bedroom, and up to $2,760 for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit.
The former state office building at 17 Water St. was bought by the city government, then sold to a private developer from Connecticut. In June, the planning board approved the site plan for 1852 MB2 Claremont of Darien, Conn., to convert the four-story building into 25 market-rate apartments. The units are projected to be ready in 2027.
In 2008 and 2009, 21 Water St. was one of three historic mill buildings redeveloped under a multi-million-dollar investment. The other two are the Common Man restaurant along the Sugar River and the Monadnock Mills building, which was supposed to be condominiums but sat vacant for years before Chinburg Properties bought it and converted it into apartments.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com
