Seventeen small apartments are planned for the second floor of this Emerald Street building, which houses Bender’s Bar & Grill and Revo Casino among other businesses, near downtown Keene. (Photo by Ethan Weston, Keene Sentinel)
Former Keene Mayor George Hansel and businessman Jared Goodell are planning to build 17 small apartments on the second floor of the Silk Mill building, which houses Bender’s Bar & Grill and Revo Casino among other businesses.
“This housing development is going into currently vacant office space upstairs,” Goodell said Tuesday, adding that current tenants will not be affected. “It will really be a live, work, play building.”
Silk Mill, built in 1919, is at 160 Emerald St., which is near downtown, a bike path and various stores and shops.
Goodell said he also has projects underway to add eight units of housing along Marlboro Street. He noted there is strong demand for affordable apartments.
He said that by keeping the square footage of his planned units small, rents will be reduced.
“The sort of old model for housing in bigger units is really not what the market wants,” Goodell said. “We’re trying to develop the next generation of apartment living, which is definitely smaller in scale but provides for what people are looking for.”
He also said many people live alone and don’t need a larger unit.
A report presented to Keene city councilors last April found the average household size in Keene in 2021 was two people, and notes that 40 percent of Keene’s population (22,953 per the U.S. Census Bureau) lives alone.
Hansel submitted a description of the Emerald Street project to the city on the letterhead of his consulting firm, Tailfeather Strategies, on Nov. 25.
“The planned apartments will be smaller than is typical, ranging in size from 300 to 575 square feet,” he said in the document. “They are all located on the second floor with an efficient kitchen and a single bathroom in each unit.”
Goodell and Hansel own Emerald Development LLC, which purchased the nearly 100,000-square-foot Silk Mill building from Toby Tousley on Oct. 16 for $3.2 million, according to city records.
The Keene Planning Department has given administrative approval for the project, Mari Brunner, a senior planner for the city, said Tuesday.
Goodell said the new apartment units on Emerald Street should be available for rent next year.
He also has won city approvals to turn existing office space at 53 Marlboro St. into four housing units and to create six housing units, or three duplexes, at a property that combines 57 Marlboro St. and 3 Aliber Place.
Hansel acted as consultant on those two projects and submitted the plans to the city.
“We have to attack this housing problem from all angles,” Hansel said Tuesday. “We’re just trying to come up with new ways, different ways to do infill development to see if we can create affordable units and experiment with new models.”
The duplexes will be particularly small.
“They are kind of like tiny homes, about 350 square feet,” Hansel said. “The goal there is to create affordable apartments and homes for people.”
Hansel said last week that he has sold his interest in Filtrine Manufacturing Co., his family’s business, and become a real estate investor and developer.
Other family members continue to own and control Keene-based Filtrine, which the Hansels have held since 1918.
Hansel, who lost a Republican primary in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District in 2022, said in an interview Friday that this is an exciting time to work on the housing issue, which is marked by a lack of supply and high costs.
According to the 2024 Annual Report of N.H. Housing, which finances residential construction, the median price for a single-family home topped $500,000 this year in the state, and only 13 percent of two-bedroom apartment units are affordable to the median-income renter.
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