Aldermen approve five-year tax freeze on Stabile’s Cotton Mill Square

NASHUA – The Board of Aldermen gave Cotton Mill Square a blessing worth more than $250,000 on Tuesday, approving a five-year tax freeze on the vacant cotton warehouse that John Stabile will convert into 109 units of mixed income housing. Aldermen voted 14-0 to approve Stabile’s application for the city’s Community Revitalization Tax Relief Incentive Program after a short discussion about when tax relief will begin. The program, approved by aldermen in 2011, adopts a state law that encourages investment in downtowns and village centers. To qualify, projects must be within the city’s Community Revitalization Tax Relief Incentive District – including French Hill, the Tree Streets, part of Canal Street and the Millyard – and have rehabilitation costs at least 15 percent of the building’s pre-rehab assessed value or $75,000, whichever is less. The freeze begins when the rehabilitation is deemed “substantially complete,” or when the city issues a certificate of occupancy and the property is reassessed, board President Brian McCarthy said Tuesday. Cotton Mill Square will revamp a 160,000-square-foot historic cotton storage warehouse between Front Street and the Nashua River to build 109 apartments, more than half of which will be affordable for people making 50 to 70 percent of the median income for the area. The tax relief program was created to support the rehabilitation of blighted areas of downtown into useful projects that benefit the public. Stabile estimated Tuesday that the nearly $26 million upgrade will increase the property’s value enough to bring in roughly $110,000 in tax revenue a year once it is complete, versus the $55,400 he pays on the property now. “The city will pick up the difference in five years,” Stabile told The Telegraph last week, comparing his project to Clocktower Place, which is valued at approximately $875 per unit. According to the program, because Cotton Mill Square involves an affordable housing project that will build new residential units and rehabilitate a historic structure, aldermen also could choose to extend its tax relief another 10 years. But don’t expect to see groundbreaking on Cotton Mill Square just yet. Despite the board’s approval Tuesday, Stabile said he is still waiting on word from the U.S.