Troy Mills has sat in disrepair in the town of Troy for years. The mill has been empty since it closed in 2001. (Photo by Ethan Weston, Keene Sentinel)
In a town like Troy, where most of the housing stock is old and already divided into apartments, new housing is rare.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, housing in the town of 1,100 decreased by about 25 units between 2010 and 2020 and now hovers around 500.
As is the case in many old New England towns, most of Troy’s landmarks are relics of another era. An 1814 town hall watches over Central Square. A popular walking trail that runs through town lies on an old bed of the Boston and Maine rail line. From the town green, a brick smokestack is just visible over the trees with its fading tan lettering: Troy Mills Inc.
Troy has spent the past two decades trying to figure out what to do with the dilapidated red-brick former mill complex. Plans have come and gone with little to show for it.
So when a developer came to town with talk of more than 100 units of new, affordable housing on the property dubbed The Mountain View Mill at Troy, it seemed like a boon.
But after three and a half years and more than $1.5 million awarded in state grants, the mill is still an eyesore. Despite eager support from the town’s selectboard, initial optimism from residents, and at least $948,000 in state money expended, the project has floundered, with the developer, Christopher Eric Farris, claiming the town’s water and sewer commission is standing in his way. He filed a lawsuit against the town in 2023.
The water and sewer commission argues it’s never been an obstacle to Farris completing the first grant-funded phase of the development, which was slated to include 29 apartments.
Those 29 apartments were supposed to be done by no later than May 2024, with occupancy to begin possibly as early as November 2023.
But the mill, with its piles of debris and fading facades, has remained empty. With a grant deadline looming and the legal battle stalled for now, the apartments aren’t likely to be leasing any time soon.
Stalled project
A disagreement over water and sewer hookups has been a major factor in stalling the project. Farris says he couldn’t proceed, while the water and sewer commission argues he could have. For now, they’re stuck in a deadlock and the development that held so much promise for Troy is caught in the middle.
At the heart of the controversy is a lawsuit Farris filed against the town. The suit stems from the conflict with the commission, which later joined the case as a defendant.
When Farris first toured the mill in 2021, a water and sewer department staff member reassured him that services on the site were mostly in good order, although some repairs were needed, according to selectboard meeting minutes from shortly before Farris bought the property. Those minutes record Farris telling the selectboard he had been told the water service volume and sewer service would be sufficient for the project. At the time, he also wasn’t concerned about the cost of those hookups, the minutes state.
And on March 18, 2022, Farris was sent a letter from Troy’s water and sewer operator assuring him that there was water and sewer capacity for the project, according to a copy of the letter he provided to The Sentinel.
Then, two separate problems changed the course of the water and sewer department’s relationship with Farris.
The commission — a five-member elected board that oversees the department — began a new policy of charging per unit for water and sewer hookups. That change meant that for the first phase of the project, Farris was looking at a fee of $86,000, according to previous Sentinel reporting.
Farris feels the changes were “targeted specifically” at his project, according to documents in a lawsuit he brought against the town in Cheshire County Superior Court.
Separately, in September 2022, the commission received notice from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that discharges from the town’s treatment plant were out of compliance with environmental standards, according to an EPA order provided to The Sentinel by Ben Drugg, the secretary of the water and sewer commission.
That notice initially meant a full stop on new water and sewer hookups in the town, Drugg said earlier this month. Working with an engineer and the N.H. Department of Environmental Services, the commission was able to come up with a plan to allow for about 60 more bedrooms’ worth of hookups while the commission worked on a long-term solution for the discharge issue.
Most of the available capacity was recently claimed by projects unrelated to Farris or himself, Drugg added. But, according to Drugg and selectboard member Dick Thackston, sewer capacity will likely be a non-issue in the near future thanks to upgrades to the town’s system.
Drugg says that between February 2023 and January 2025, there was never a time when capacity was insufficient for building 29 units, the first grant-funded phase of the mill redevelopment.
In the court documents, Farris claims the commission’s changes to its fee structure and imposition of capacity limits voluntarily threw a wrench in the development’s timeline, costing him about $2.5 million in grant money and his own investment.
According to Thackston, the capacity issue was just a matter of bad timing, not sabotage, with the sewer problem emerging just as the mill development looked to get underway. “Whether the development project was happening at Troy Mills or not, the sewer situation has to be fixed,” he said earlier this month.
Farris, the town and the water sewer commission all agreed in March 2024 to let the case go before a jury, according to past Sentinel reporting. That trial was set for this year, but is not yet scheduled.
The selectboard has indicated it would have settled the case by conceding to Farris if the water and sewer commission hadn’t joined the suit as a defendant. Members of the selectboard said at last year’s town meeting that they wanted to make concessions to Farris to avoid having the court case continue.
But for now, the mill continues to be empty.
A hope stopped short
When Farris bought a portion of the old mill property for $368,000 in November 2021, it was a relief to town officials, who had been trying to get the property off the town’s hands for years, and a sign of hope to many locals who looked forward to seeing a new use for a historic mill that was once the heartbeat of the town.
The future of the mill lies close to the heart of Jeanne Bogdzewic, a 79-year-old who has lived in Troy for several years but whose parents met at a mill in Lowell, Mass., where she grew up. Bogdzewic is known for defending the mill project in Troy Facebook groups.
When she retired and moved to Troy, the town’s empty mill complex drew her in with nostalgia as she imagined the possibilities for its future — possibilities she had seen come to life in revitalization projects in Lowell.
Those possibilities drew the town in, too.
“Everyone who’s been involved in this is excited,” Thackston told The Sentinel shortly after Farris’ purchase. “… This is a step in the right direction.”
The Troy selectboard worked to streamline things for Farris, making sure he had all the documentation he needed to apply for grants and pushing a building permit through without going through the typical channels. When other town boards challenged the selectboard’s awarding of the building permit, the selectboard settled a court case with Farris rather than defend those other boards.
Farris planned to convert the mill complex into a housing block targeted at people making 80 percent or less of the area median income. The complex includes several buildings constructed between 1920 and 1995. The mill once employed some 500 people, producing fabrics for the U.S. Army and later for car companies like Toyota and Ford. It closed in 2001 and was later deeded to the town through back taxes.
With help from the selectboard, Farris acquired about $1.5 million in grants. Records from the N.H. Department of Business and Economic Affairs show the development won $948,000 from the InvestNH Capital Grant Program, funded by the American Rescue Plan Act; $317,000 from the Municipal Demolition Grant Program; and $290,000 from a per-unit BEA municipal grant program.
The Mountain View Mill at Troy was one of about 30 projects picked for funding by the InvestNH Capital Grant Program in 2022, out of more than 100 applications, according to information from the BEA. The agency’s records state Farris applied for the grant to build the first phase of the mill development — 29 units of affordable housing.
The grant worked as a reimbursement fund for Farris. When he purchased lumber and parts or paid subcontractors for labor, he submitted receipts for those costs to the grant program and got checks from the state in return.
Residents who have followed the project since its inception describe Farris as a jack-of-all-trades developer who likes to do everything himself. In a Community Revitalization Tax Relief Incentive Program application dated July 29, 2022, Farris listed himself as the contractor for the project and listed “n/a” for both engineer and architect.
Grant documents provided to The Sentinel by Drugg, who said he received them from the BEA in a Right to Know request, state Farris spent at least $187,000 of the grant money to pay a company he owns for labor.
Farris said in an April 9 email to The Sentinel all of the $948,000 from the InvestNH grant have been spent. But the 29 apartments aren’t inhabitable — in fact, nothing on the property is.
As of the date of court documents’ filing in April 2024, Farris had not completed an application or complied with requirements necessary to get approval to connect to the municipal system, according to the commission. Farris told The Sentinel he has applied for hookups, but for 107, not 29. He says the project isn’t financially viable with only 29 units, the number he used on the grant application.
The InvestNH grant came with a deadline: by May 4, 2024, there had to be occupied units in the mill, otherwise the grant would convert to a loan that Farris would be required to immediately pay back, according to previous Sentinel reporting. The BEA has extended that deadline through June of this year, but the project doesn’t appear to be on track to make it.
The BEA is processing another extension request, according to Farris, who said that extension would carry through the end of the year.
Drugg, the water and sewer commission secretary, said earlier this month the commission recently got a call from the BEA checking on the viability of the mill project.
As of noon Friday, the department had not responded to a request for comment on the likelihood of another deadline extension for the mill project.
Empty rooms
While Mountain View Mill at Troy remains in limbo, some of the other projects funded by the InvestNH grant program have since come to completion.
In Nashua, Jackson Square apartments opened in June 2024, adding 24 units of affordable housing to the neighborhood’s stock. The complex offers chic, modern apartments with granite countertops, in-unit laundry and a landscaped property, starting at $1,620 for one-bedrooms and $1,939 for two-bedrooms, according to the website.
Farris confirmed earlier this month there are no habitable apartments at Troy Mills, the site does not have an occupancy permit and Troy and Fitzwilliam fire departments have said the building isn’t safe for first responders to enter. A 2024 fire caused significant damage to parts of the mill building. The building was uninsurable, Farris told The Sentinel at the time, so there was no coverage for that damage.
While projects like Jackson Square are attracting tenants, Farris said last week he has to maintain about 24/7 security at the mill in Troy to “run off” people trying to enter the buildings.
For Thackston, the state of the project is unfortunate, but not exceptional. “What has evolved is sort of unnecessary and sad, but I don’t accept any responsibility for that, I don’t think the board of selectmen do … these things happen in development.”
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