Nashua city hall (Photo courtesy Nashua Ink Link)
Economic development director Liz Hannum presented a new approach to economic mobility and the city’s branding and placemaking initiatives during the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce’s 2025 State of the City Luncheon on March 19.
“We’re really trying to branch out a little bit and then expand what that traditional economic development does here in the city,” Hannum said.
While economic development traditionally focuses on areas like real estate and filling vacant properties, her economic mobility strategic plan strives to include individuals.
“The community has changed,” Hannum said. “We’re really looking at how we can support individual residents, as well as the small businesses, build up our entrepreneurship, and rely less on the federal government as we move forward.”
The strategic plan will focus on three areas: workforce development and business retention, local housing needs and child care.
The city is looking into creating an incubator program for people trained in child care who do not have their own location to offer services. A location would be provided as a shared facility for child carers to operate from before they eventually go on to start their own business.
Another project is the creation of a financial empowerment center where residents can go for free, one-on-one financial counseling.
The city would hire a nonprofit to help implement the program, and then hire three full-time staff counselors. The program would likely be housed in the Nashua Public Library and could include colocations.
“This is going to help with eviction reduction, this is going to help with creating small businesses, and it’s going to help with creating enough wealth that people then can invest in the community, invest in the stock market, basically getting people to a place where they can be a productive member of the workforce, so we’re really excited about this,” Hannum said.
“We have about 70% of our working residents that leave the community, mostly going to Cambridge or Boston for work,” Hannum said.
When thinking about how to market Nashua to bring businesses into the community, it became apparent that Nashua lacks a “cohesive brand.”
“We have a ton of assets – we have amazing art, we have the riverfront, we have an amazing downtown – but we have not figured out how to talk about it,” Hannum said.
To create that brand, Hannum is working on a marketing strategy that will attract businesses and keep people working in Nashua. This strategy involves investing in smaller spaces in the city.
“It’s really hard to recruit new businesses when you’re not investing in your own city,” she said.
One such investment is in the library walk alleyway from around 100 Main Street up to the library. Cafe style lights have been added and a new sign will be installed.
MakeIt Labs in Nashua will be making benches that the community will be able to help paint, and a resident will be painting a mural on the wall of the Court Street Theatre.
Construction for the riverfront project began last May and should be completed this September and open for use in October.
“We’ve basically privatized the riverfront in the past hundred years,” Hannum said. “That was all part of the mill industry and the public was not allowed to use the riverfront the way we’re hoping to use it in the future, so this is really how we’re reclaiming the river.”
The project will give residents access to the river, and existing green space will be preserved and new green spaces will be added within the river corridor for recreational use.
With paths and boardwalks, the downtown will be connected with surrounding neighborhoods, Broad Street Parkway, and Mine Falls Park, Bicentennial Park and Renaissance Park, where there are plans for a food truck pod, a pavilion and entertainment area.
An ADA ramp has been added to the pedestrian bridge that goes from Clock Tower to Cotton Mill.
“I’m pretty excited about it. I think it’s going to be amazing. It’s going to bring a lot of people to downtown,” Hannum said. “We have to work to make it marketable and make people understand that it’s available to them. Next summer we’re going to do lots of fun activities there.”
This article is being co-produced by Nashua Ink Link and Granite State News Collaborative and shared with partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
