Condos proposed for Crescent St. along Little Lake
A rendering of a proposed new luxury condo building for Crescent St. has been released to The Examiner by the developer.
Paul Bennett, president of Ashburnham Realty, is proposing the waterfront property; he says he’ll be submitting his plans to City Hall for approval later this fall.
For 12 years he’s been buying properties along Crescent St. to assemble enough land.
He owns the small yellow brick
apartment building at Lake and Crescent St., diagonally across the street from the Art Gallery of Peterborough, as well as five more buildings (all south along Crescent St.)
All would be torn down for the high-end development.
It’s unclear when construction can begin, he said — it depends on a new city council’s agenda.
The building he’s proposing — with about 100 suites — was designed by local architect Michael Gallant of Lett Architects.
It features underground parking for residents, surface parking for visitors and a variety of types of units (townhouses, lofts and penthouses).
For years developers have been looking at the Little Lake waterfront along Crescent St. as a place for condos. Bennett says his idea is to “take the waterfront back”.
The rendering shows no more motorized traffic along Crescent St., in the area around the development at Crescent and Lake streets. It’s replaced by walking trails and landscaped areas.
The city has been considering a redesign of Crescent St. for awhile.
In 2015, council approved a plan to someday extend the walking trail from Del Crary Park to Little Lake Cemetery — and also to convert Crescent St. into a one-way, with traffic travelling east.
That hasn’t happened yet, and council has yet to debate Bennett’s plan.
Meanwhile Bennett says the city has done its own traffic study on Crescent St., and he has a separate study that considers how to deal with added traffic from the condo development, with Crescent St. closed.
All this would be for council to consider in fall, he said.
Bennett also said it’s too soon to estimate how much it will cost to put up the buildings — a lot depends on the ultimate number of suites.
He said that although these will be luxury condos and rentals, he’s also planning another building to help alleviate the “desperate need” for affordable apartments.
His new building would be made up of affordable apartments for adults at Rink St. and Olive Ave., just south of Market Plaza.
Over several years Bennett bought three houses on Olive Ave. and seven on Rink St. with a view to razing them and erecting a new affordable-apartment building, he said.
He’s working with a local housing provider, he said, and plans to release more details by Christmas.
Bennett is also planning four apartment buildings in East City, on land the city sold to Ashburnham Realty and to landlord and realtor Graham Hawkins.
The land is along the Rotary trail, a former rail line, just east of the building that houses Matsu Sushi on Hunter St. E.