Downtown Portsmouth Real Estate Development Projects| What is really taking shape in 2024?

By Caitlin Burke | Senior Associate

The past few years we have tracked Portsmouth’s Downtown development, as it is always top of mind for many of the investors and tenants we talk with throughout the year. When driving through the Downtown corridor, it appears there is construction along every other block. Upon further research, the bulk of the change is occurring in Portsmouth’s North Mill Pond area. The following list is a summary of mixed-use developments that are currently approved by the City of Portsmouth but are in varying stages of development. The one thing they all have in common is the North Mill Pond Neighborhood.

Housing and hospitality are the two driving forces behind these mixed-use developments, except for some small commercial/retail space on the first floors.

Approved and Not Started:

These projects have been fully approved by the City, and in some cases also made it through an appeal process, but active construction has not begun as of January 1, 2024.

53 Green Street: A mixed-use project consisting of 48 market-rate residential units on the top four floors and some small commercial space on the first floor. The project will also include 22,095± SF of community space along North Mill Pond. The community space will connect to a new park behind the existing AC Hotel.

1 & 31 Raynes and 203 Maplewood Avenue: Adjacent to the Green Street project, the Raynes Avenue Project will consist of a five-story, 124 room hotel and a four-story mixed-use building consisting of 32 market rate apartments and commercial space on the ground floor.

Russell Street: Approved by the HDC in 2022, the Russel Street project is a mixed-use development planned for the parking lot on the corner of Deer and Russell Streets. It will consist of three mixed-use buildings – one building will be entirely commercial with office space on the upper floors and retail on the first floor. The other two will be commercial/ retail on the first floors and condos/market rate apartments above.

105 Bartlett Street: This development is named the Residence at Islington Creek and will include 152 apartments in three buildings along North Mill Pond. There will also be a half-acre public park incorporated and some of the land along North Mill Pond is donated by the developers back to the City to connect to the North Mill Pond Trail and Greenway.

Approved and Under Construction:

As of January 1, 2024, these are active construction sites and dirt is already being moved around.

Deer Street Associates, Lots 2-6

Foundry Place Community Space (Lot 2) – Public Community space

165 Deer Street (Lot 3) – Hyatt Place Hotel

163 Deer Street (Lot 4) – Mixed-Use Building (current home to Eastern Bank) – This is the only lot in the Deer Street Portfolio that is not an active construction  site as of January 1, 2024.

70 Maplewood Avenue (aka 157-161 Deer Street – Lot 5) – four-story mixed-use building with retail, office, hotel, and commercial space.

89 & 99 Foundry Place (Lot 6) – four-story multi-family building with some commercial space on the first floor.

In addition to the list above, I would be remiss not to touch on the McIntyre Building – The McIntyre building sold in 2023 to a local developer who does not have immediate plans for the development. My prediction is that we do not see a new proposal for redevelopment on this site for a few more years.

Looking Forward

As we jump into 2024, we anticipate the industrial market to sustain its strong fundamentals. Quality industrial space in small-to-medium sized blocks (30K± SF and under) will remain challenging to identify, and it will be interesting to track leasing activity with some of the larger speculative developments currently under construction.

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