Developer Steve Duprey wants to donate 28 acres at the intersection of Rumford Street and Penacook Street for future housing. (Courtesy of Jonathan Van Fleet)
Developer Steve Duprey wants the city to take ownership of a piece of land at the former Lincoln Financial campus and help turn it into badly needed new housing in Concord.
A technicality over taxes is tying that up.
To be clear, Duprey has control over the land. He owns the majority of the 182-acre campus of the former financial group – selling one of the commercial buildings to the state earlier this year to house the Department of Justice.
He’s also done single-family real estate development before and doesn’t want to venture down that path again. But he’d like to keep his promise that portions of the former Lincoln Financial complex will be developed for taxable purposes after the state sale meant another piece of land was deemed tax exempt.
“My overall goal is to make sure that somehow, someway, I replaced the revenue the city lost,” he said. “As a taxpayer, I lost it too.”
The city would eventually have to convey the land to a future developer and “will need to employ a public process to solicit input from the surrounding neighborhood and community to receive public input about potential uses of the property,” according to a memo from Deputy City Manager Matt Walsh.
But the deal to turn over this 28-acre parcel to the city hit a snag. In selling the building to the state – which was finalized at the end of April for $21 million – Duprey is responsible for a hefty tax bill, which is nearly $200,000. By state law, whoever owns a property on April 1 receives a tax bill from that year. In a typical real estate sale, the two parties can, and do, negotiate a prorated tax.
“It’s hard for me to accept that in order for me to donate a very valuable piece of property to the city of Concord, that I have to pay essentially what is the state’s tax bill,” he said. “If someone were going to give me a property worth $4 or $5 million and asked me to give them a couple hundred thousand on that property, I’d probably do it.”
Duprey envisions a deal with the city where they’d accept his donation on a few conditions – the land would be used for a taxable purpose, ideally new housing. If the city were to sell the land for cash, that money would not go into the general fund, but instead be set aside for community development, enhancing Main Street, assisting with homelessness or something of the sort.
To make the donation though, he first has to pay taxes on the property through March 30.
On Monday, the city council voted to accept a resolution for the donated land. The details of that transfer of property are yet to be ironed out.
When Duprey bought the land from Brady Sullivan, one of the largest developers in the state in 2022, a proposal to build 200 housing at the site was in the works.
He’d like to see something along those lines come to fruition and even spoke with a developer about making that happen, but in conversations with the city, they indicated Concord taking ownership of the land would be preferable.
For now, those conversations are stalled. Duprey is appreciative of city staff ironing out the fine print but he needs to rethink his options with the deal.
“It makes perfect sense to donate it to the city so they can have time to play and figure out the best use,” he said. “But I wasn’t anticipating having to pay for the privilege of making a donation.”
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