Editor’s note: Neighborhoods by the Numbers is a
six-day, multipart series profiling Nashua neighborhoods by digging into economic data. Coming tomorrow: Kinsley Street.

In the last 37 years, Diane Belanger has seen many changes to the area near the Hollis border in which she lives.

She said decades ago, “We were, like, way out in the boonies.”

Since then, more houses have gone up, and traffic has become heavier.

Belanger, who lives on West Hollis Street, still likes the area, though. When she and her husband decided it was time to downsize recently, they moved right down the street to Jensen Communities’ River Pines mobile home park.

“I just like Nashua, I guess,” she said. “I’m just not one of those wandering people.”

The stretch of West Hollis Street to the west of Route 3, Census Tract 115, is a magnet for retirees and people looking to downsize, such as the Belangers. Thirty percent of people who own or rent homes in the area are 65 or older, which is the second-highest concentration of seniors among Nashua’s 18 neighborhoods.

Meri Reid, a real-estate agent with Prudential Verani Nashua, said the condominiums and mobile homes that characterize the area tend to attract an older set. Not only are the homes generally smaller than average, making them good for empty-nesters, but mobile homes usually have just one floor, so residents don’t have to worry about dealing with stairs. Park owners and condominium associations also often handle chores that some older people don’t feel up to.

“The majority of them do take care of lawn maintenance, snow removal and whatnot,” she said, “so that’s what makes it mostly desirable for an adult community.”

The homes along West Hollis are largely relatively new. Census numbers show that 78 percent of them were built since 1970.

New housing is especially attractive to older residents for a few reasons.

For one thing, any developer will say it’s often easier to get approval for housing marketed to seniors, since those units have a smaller impact on the school system.

For another, the aging of the baby boomers is changing the housing market, raising demand for all sorts of senior housing options.

Another example of those options is AHEPA 35 Manor, which sits in the middle of the Tract 105 neighborhood at 681 W. Hollis St. The elderly housing complex, built in 2008, is an apartment building with some extras aimed at the older adults who live there.

One resident, Diane Brewer, said she likes the bingo and card games the staff organizes, as well as the fact that her dog, Mia, is welcome there. She also appreciates the fact that the building is on a city bus route, allowing her to get to the shops she likes without driving.

Brewer’s friend Pauline Lebel said she moved to Nashua from Tewksbury, Mass., to live in one of the mobile home parks, but sold her trailer in favor of AHEPA 35 when having her own place got to be too much work. She said she appreciates the easy access to line dances put on by senior centers in Nashua, Merrimack and Lowell, Mass., and she likes walking in the wooded area across the street at Westgate Crossing.

“I think it’s a very nice area,” she said. “It’s better than in the city.”

This area is also the least ethnically diverse neighborhood in Nashua, with Caucasians making up more than 90 percent of the population. Other areas of the city, such as French Hill, the Tree Streets and the downtown, show that only about two-thirds of the population is white.

Still, it’s the total number of senior citizens that makes the West Hollis Street neighborhood stand out.

Despite the high percentage of seniors, there also are plenty of families living along West Hollis Street – nearly a quarter of households in the area include children – and that’s just how Henrietta Richard likes it.

Richard, a retiree who has lived in her house for more than a decade, lives on Cheryl Street in Rogers Mobile Home Park. She said she’s happy the area is quiet, with a number of other older couples nearby, but she also likes seeing children riding their bikes past her house.

“It’s a nice place,” she said. “It really is. I haven’t found anybody yet that I don’t like.”

To view an interactive map of the 18 neighborhoods
in Nashua, visit www.nashua
telegraph.com.