A new parking garage with theaters on top, to replace a parking lot one block off Main Street, is the latest proposal for bringing a performing-arts venue to downtown Nashua.

The proposal would use a half-acre parking lot on Spring Street, bordered on the south by Crosby Bakery and the north by the county building on Temple Street. The parking lot is owned by the city.

Initial plans drawn up by Renee Reder, research and design assistant in the Community Development Division, show the building being five to six stories tall. The multi-level garage would include about 100 parking spaces, compared to 88 in the surface lot.

Following recommendations from a 2002 arts feasibility study, it would include a 1,000-seat theater, a 300-seat theater and a 100-seat multi-purpose room.

The design also includes restaurant space accessible from the street, so it could be open even if the theaters are not in use.

The idea will be formally presented at 7 p.m. Tuesday at a meeting of the city’s Planning and Economic Development Committee, in City Hall, by Alderman-at-Large Brian McCarthy.

Many details, including the question of how much it will cost and who will pay for it, are still up in the air.

“We’ve always talked about putting a garage there,” McCarthy said of the parking lot. “But we never had enough demand to need it.”

The idea of using the parking for a theater is made more feasible because of plans by Main Street United Methodist Church, which backs up to the lot, McCarthy said. The church plans to tear down a one-story business building next to the church, and that will make the site more visible from Main Street – and more accessible by pedestrians.

“I think when people think about an arts center, they want it to be as close to Main Street as possible,” said Liz Racioppi, head of the Nashua Arts Commission. “It would be desirable to have something right there on Main Street – but I don’t know that’s feasible. I can’t imagine where that would be.”

Racioppi noted that she was speaking only for herself, not for the commission.

McCarthy compared the idea to the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, which has a large sign on Main Street but is actually a block off the road, reached by a pedestrian walkway.

Many people in Nashua have been talking about ways to have a downtown performing arts center for years, even decades. The failure of the Court Street theater as an arts and science center has left a gap only partly filled by use of the Keefe Auditorium in Elm Street Middle School.

“What I like about it is that he’s thinking about it, getting others to think about an arts center in Nashua. … The issues we’ve been facing for years is where to put it, what would it do to traffic patterns, not to mention the cost,” Racioppi said. “It think that where to put it is being addressed in a really creative way – by putting it up.”

James Vayo, who as community liaison for Visualize Nashua has long argued that a performing arts space would help downtown grow, praised the idea of doing something new with the parking lot.

“Using a portion of the urban core just as surface parking is not utilizing space to its highest potential. … A parking lot might not have been producing very much in revenue or taxes, and putting it to work in a useful way is a good idea,” he said.

McCarthy has been talking for some time about using the top level of existing parking garages for some sort of performance venue.

Sarah Marchant, director of the Community Development Division, attributed the design to Reder, who has been with the division for 11 years and has a master’s degree in architecture.

“She helps us think outside of the box,” Marchant said. “She is definitely the genius behind it.”

Other locations that have been eyed as a possible location for a performing arts center include Indian Head Plaza near the Nashua Public Library and the historic Greeley House, a white-pillared building that can be seen across the Nashua River from the Water Street ramp.

Arts advocate Meri Goyette has mentioned the potential for creating a performing space at the Greeley House, with a children’s museum and possibly a technology facet to it.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
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