Rochester Shoppes to feature new stores this fall

Currently, Rochester residents do much of their shopping at the Lilac Mall on Route 125. But come this October, shoppers will have an array of new options in town. 

Bulldozers have already broken ground on some 50 acres of land off Route 16, where plans call for a 304,799-square-foot shopping center. Wilder Companies acquired the property in conjunction with O’Connor Capital Partners in a deal that included a total of 10 properties formerly owned by the Flatley Company. President Thomas Flatley, who has built a small empire of properties throughout the Northeast, is cashing in and selling his entire portfolio, said Flatley representative Richard Cane.

As the retail space changes hands, the stores in the plaza continue to evolve. Set to open this fall are Kohl’s, Famous Footwear, Maurice’s and Fashion Bug, offering a range of clothing choices. A Lowe’s home improvement store and up to 14 other retailers will arrive in spring 2008.

New restaurants are also on the way, but customers will have to wait “from six to nine months after the grand opening for the restaurants to arrive,” Cane said. A new Starbucks will be part of the mix, and other potential restaurants will wait to see if the plaza attracts enough traffic to justify a new location. 

The construction project will also include extensive roadwork. “They’ll be adding a new ramp to the turnpike, widening on Washington Street and adding some traffic signals,” Cane said. 

Karen Pollard of the Rochester Planning Commission said she is not concerned about increased traffic flow posing setbacks for commuters. She expects the development to provide a number of benefits for the city. New stores will provide significant tax revenue and create at least 400 new jobs in the area, Pollard said. “Lowe’s on its own will have well over 150 jobs, and Kohl’s, as a more labor-intensive store, is going to have at least that many, as well,” Pollard said.

Pollard is equally positive about the date for the opening. “Everything is set to open right on schedule,” she said, noting that with both Wilder Companies and the city of Rochester backing this timetable, the retail center should open on time this fall. 

Historic Bray House auctioned to musician Daryl Hall

Daryl Hall of the rock and soul music duo Hall & Oates recently purchased the historic John Bray House in Kittery, Maine, for nearly $2 million at an auction on March 24. The musical pair has produced a total of eight number-one songs, most recently “Do It for Love” in 2002. But Hall plans to create a legacy that extends beyond mere radio hits.

Built about 345 years ago, the Bray House is frequently touted as Maine’s oldest house. Richard Candee, a retired professor of American and New England Studies from Boston University, disputes this claim. During research for his doctoral dissertation on historic Maine houses, he found nothing to support claims of the building’s old age. 

“I couldn’t find a stick of 17th century material,” said Candee. “The exact date is impossible to tell.” 

In 1979, the Bray House joined the National Park Service’s honorary National Register of Historic Places, created in 1966. Owners have no obligation to open their properties to the public, to restore them or even to maintain them, if they choose not to do so. 

“It’s a recognition and an honor to be on the registry,” said Christi Mitchell of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. “But private property owners can do whatever they want with a house, even if it’s on the listing.”

Regardless of when the house was built, its purchase represents another saved historic relic for Hall. In addition to the Bray House, the singer is in the process of restoring two historic homes in New York that date back as far as 1771. Jonathan Wolfson, the band’s PR agent, says that Hall has also acquired and restored a historic house from 1740 on the Thames River in London.

roundabout to replace Foye’s Corner

Construction will begin in early June to convert Foye’s Corner in Rye into a smooth flowing roundabout that proponents hope will ease traffic problems.

At Foye’s Corner, Sagamore, Elwyn, and Pioneer roads converge along Route 1A. According to Adam Chestnut, contract administrator for the Bureau of Construction in the N.H. Department of Transportation, the oddly aligned intersection causes traffic congestion in the area.

“It’s been something that’s been in the works for years,” Chestnut said. “It’s just an awkward intersection. The design of a roundabout is to allow traffic to continue to flow and to alleviate congestion in the area.”

According to Rye Police Chief Kevin Walsh, safety at the intersection is the biggest concern. In his 12 years with the Rye Police Department he says he has seen numerous accidents at Foye’s Corner. “The ultimate goal is safety,” Walsh said.

“It’s also a major artery route for day-trippers and tourists—a lot of people who are not familiar with the geography of the area. It’s a tough intersection and we want to make it as easy and simple as possible.” 

A division of the Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Construction has contracted the project to Gove Construction Services Inc., of Portsmouth. The $871,454 project should be completed by June 2008, Chestnut said. Construction crews will also begin work in early June to widen the shoulders from Foye’s Corner to Odiorne Point State Park.

new commercial flight service to be offered at Pease

The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the runway for Skybus Airlines to begin offering commercial flights at Pease International Airport. The first flight from Columbus, Ohio, will arrive at Pease in the early evening of May 22. Starting the next morning, Skybus will offer two flights a day, seven days a week. Columbus is the main hub for Skybus, and all flights leaving Pease will go there before passengers can pick up connecting flights to other locations. According to Dick Green, director of the Pease Development Authority, Portsmouth was chosen because of its close proximity to Boston, Mass., and Portland, Maine. Modeled after the European airline Ryanair, Skybus avoids the expense and congestion of flying into major cities by directing its services to secondary airports. The lower cost of flying into Portsmouth instead of Boston translates into lower fares for customers. Skybus also employs the cost-saving strategy of providing customer service only over the Internet, much like Amazon.com.

The first 10 people to book passage on a flight pay $10 for a one-way ticket. After the first 10 reservations, prices vary depending on the destination and time of the flight. “They always guarantee that their prices are 50 percent cheaper than any other airline,” Green said. “We had someone here who got online early and got two people to Burbank, Calif., for $150 roundtrip. Timing is everything.”

On its first day of booking, Skybus made 65,000 reservations nationwide. “They are out there, and people are looking at them,” Green said. “Not only are they looking at them, they are making reservations.”

The PDA has agreed to waive all fees for Skybus during its first two years of operation, which Green says will give the young company a chance to get up and running. During that time, the PDA will write a new contract with normal operating fees for the airline. According to Green, the new commercial service will benefit Pease through the collection of fees, added traffic coming through the tradeport and businesses catering to travelers. 

Skybus flies A319 jets with 150 leather seats. In order to run flights from Pease International Airport, Skybus first had to be approved by the PDA, and then by the FAA.

beachgoers leave unsightly litter at Hampton Beach

Before cloudy skies and heavy rains hit the Seacoast early last week, coastal residents flocked to the beaches to take advantage of late spring sunshine and warmth. Unfortunately, the beach rush on Thursday, May 10, left a trail of trash and litter in its wake. The woman who discovered the mess at Hampton Beach the next morning was not your typical sunbather, however. 

When Diana Schulte of the Blue Ocean Society in Portsmouth arrived at Hampton Beach for a scheduled cleanup on Friday, May 11, she found it in much worse shape than she expected. Schulte originally planned to undertake the cleanup with help from Stratham High School students as part of the Timberland Company’s annual Earth Day event. A forecast of thunderstorms deterred the student volunteers, but the foul weather did not stop Schulte. She managed to pick up an overwhelming amount of trash along 300 feet of coastline before the rain began. The litter included a gym bag, a plastic six-pack ring, two juice boxes, nine glass bottles, 17 plastic Dunkin’ Donuts cups, 81 aluminum cans, and 157 plastic beverage bottles. After returning from the beach, she recounted the scene to her co-workers. “It looked like a dumpster had exploded,” she said.

Blue Ocean director Jen Kennedy was equally dismayed by the amount of waste on the shore. “It’s an unusual amount of trash for this time of year,” Kennedy said. “Every spring there’s a day when it’s really nice and there’s a ton of trash afterwards, but this was the worst I’d ever seen any beach, anywhere.” 

The Blue Ocean Society, a nonprofit organization for marine research and conservation, regularly conducts programs for maintenance and upkeep of beaches along the New England coast. Adopt-a-Beach, a program taken up by Blue Ocean in 2004, provides resources for groups of volunteers to take responsibility for cleaning a portion of coastline at least once a month. Over the last three years, Adopt-a-Beach has expanded to encompass 23 sections of coastline, and groups continue to apply. 

The state will clean the beach on a daily basis from June 5 to the beginning of September, said Amy Bassett of the N.H. Division of Parks and Recreation. Until then, it’s to motivated individuals to keep the shoreline clean. Compounding matters, litter is increasingly taking the form of harmful and highly durable materials.

“We’re getting really good at making stuff that lasts,” Kennedy said. “Plastics today can last for 400 years, and ingestion is becoming a huge problem with birds that might mistake plastic for food, which basically poisons them.” 
Kennedy says the major problem at Hampton Beach is cigarette butts. “We found something like 39,000 butts on Sept. 15 last year,” she said. “What astounds me is that there are trash barrels and cigarette butt receptacles at the sidewalk. It’s inexcusable."