Laconia city council approved the purchase of 601 Main St., current site of the Laconia Antique Center, in a 4-2 vote following hours of discussion at their regular meeting Monday night.

The city will purchase the back two thirds of the building for $700,000 in order to facilitate growth of the Colonial Theatre located next door. Restaurateurs Melissa Darling and Tyler Hooff will purchase the front third of the building for $500,000 and renovate it into an Italian-American establishment.

A partitioning fire wall, which will divide the front third and back two thirds of the parcel, will cost about $100,000 and both parties will split the expense.

State Rep. Charlie St. Clair (D-Laconia), who owns the building, is asking $1.2 million.

More than 50 city residents attended the public hearing during the meeting where councilors agreed to move forward with the purchase plans of the large commercial building.

“We both want what’s best and have great intent for the city as a whole to be able to benefit from this, so it seemed like a win-win,” Darling said. “We are proposing the restaurant to, of course, call it the darling which will serve Italian and American-style cuisine. The menu is being crafted to be approachable for a wide-range of budgets and one of our objectives would be to offer something for the theater crowd as well.”

Darling and Hooff said they intend to hire at least 20 employees at competitive wages.

“Right now we’re projecting hourly wages for our kitchen between $20 and $27 per hour. The front of the house, because they’re tipped employees, they will be paid a tipped wage,” Hooff said. “Probably $900 to $1,300 a week, waiting tables.”

Hoof said they are looking at roughly $125 to $150 per square foot in renovation cost, which at about 8,000 square feet comes to the neighborhood of $500,000 in costs. 

After long discussions and plenty of input from community members, Councilors Bruce Cheney (Ward 1) and Steven Bogert (Ward 5) voted against the motion with Robert Soucy (Ward 2), Eric Hoffman (Ward 3), Mark Haynes (Ward 4) and Tony Felch (Ward 6) in favor.

Mayor Andrew Hosmer said when he was a councilor in 2018, Haynes convinced him of the importance of the project to restore the Colonial Theatre.

“If we don’t believe in ourselves and invest in ourselves, who will?” Haynes asked at the time.

The city owns the Colonial Theatre, which was restored and reopened in 2021. Events at the venue are managed by Spectacle Live.

Cheney and Bogert, who also represents Laconia as a Republican in the Statehouse, both indicated support for the development, but expressed apprehension regarding the lack of long-term plans available for the renovations. They also said they worry about the message the purchase might send to city employees, who department heads have difficulty retaining.

“I don’t want to rush,” Cheney said. “I want more answers.”

Soucy, who voted in favor of the plan, also worried about renovations costs.

“Are we pushing too fast too soon?” he wondered.

Hoffman said the purchase represents an opportunity to fix the problems associated with the Colonial Theatre and Canal Street businesses that may never present itself again. Felch agreed the opportunity is too good to pass up.

An amendment to the resolution, which originally pinned an $800,000 Invest NH disbursement awarded to the city by the governor’s Executive Council to fund the project, delayed a decision on the source of funds. Councilors floated the idea of issuing bonds to cover their $700,000 share of the transaction.

The purchase won’t be finalized until the city finishes a period of due diligence, including having an inspection of the parcel completed and guaranteeing the heating system is in working order.

“This theater, in 2024, 2025, went from very good to great,” Hosmer said, and that residents would be able to see years into the future. “We can host shows, we can encourage our youth to not only see shows but participate in shows. And I’m quite confident that as the value and the impact this theater has in Laconia, those ripples, economic ripples, will be bigger and go a little further.”

Hosmer said the development of downtown has increased significantly in recent years and this purchase could encourage even more growth, both of the tax base and economy.

“Over the past five years — and the fifth year is still just an estimate — our valuation for downtown, just the downtown properties, in 2021 it was $108 million,” Hosmer said. “In 2023-2024, the fiscal year we’re in now, we’ve gone up to $136 million — a significant increase in the property values downtown. We anticipate next year, that value will climb to $148 million. Can we afford it, can we afford the renovations? We can afford the purchase price.”

While renovations for the back two thirds of the parcel will likely prove expensive, Hosmer said the downtown Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, district could help alleviate those costs.

“One of the great tools that we have in this city is that we have TIF districts. The downtown has a TIF district where a portion of property taxes paid in the downtown catchment area roll into a TIF fund which can be continually reinvested in the downtown area,” Hosmer noted. “Maximum TIF for next year will be almost $500,000 that could roll into the TIF for downtown.”

The purchase of the building represents an important opportunity to enhance the city for generations to come, Hosmer said.

“I think controlling our destiny, our figurative destiny, by buying this next to the theater, connecting it if possible, letting another exciting business pop up on Main Street, I think it affords us an opportunity here to continue to be really proud of this city,” he said. “That we’re willing to invest in ourselves, we’re willing to do it in a prudent way, and we believe that the future is darn important. Not just to us, our kids, our grandkids, our friends. But we have a chance to continue to make a mark on this city like so many people did for centuries here.”

St. Clair said his building is a great one and he wouldn’t have considered selling it at all if he was 20 years younger.

“The parties will all have to get together and see where we go from here,” he said Tuesday.

Reuben Bassett, of Keller Williams Coastal and Lakes & Mountains Realty, said he supports the restaurateurs but has reservations regarding the fiscal impact to the city. 

“I love the idea of another restaurant, I’m all for it, we need lots of them — I do have some concerns about, kind of the way that this has been pitched,” he said during the public hearing. “I think it was said earlier that the idea of a public-private partnership has yet to be proven that it works in this town. The parking garage is a big one that comes to my mind so I have some concerns about that.”

Bassett said adequate details weren't presented to the public before the vote.

“I have yet to hear any numbers on the impact to the Colonial, you know that everyone is saying, ‘We need this, we need this, we need this.’ Are there acts that aren’t coming here, and how many are those that aren’t coming because of the lack?” he asked. “I’m not against the concept of it, I’m all for a restaurant downtown, I’m all for the Colonial getting what it needs. I know firsthand the economic impact that the Colonial’s had, but I do have reservations about a single building being owned by both the public and private. I’m all for investment in downtown, but we’ve seen it before where heavy investment and it doesn’t work out.”