Editor: The Andover Beacon was granted permission to reprint this article, written by Liisa Rajala, which was originally printed in the NH Business Review’s supplemental magazine, Resilient NH. The Beacon has been following the progress of the assorted projects happening in Franklin, which are a major part of the efforts to revitalize this city.
Marty Parichand’s plans to build a whitewater park are extensive and expected to bring in a significant number of visitors from around the state, and beyond. The whitewater park groundbreaking is scheduled to take place on Monday, July 12. For more information visit MillCityPark.com.
COLLECTIVE ENERGY and unrelenting determination can transform an idea into reality, as demonstrated by the seven-year, ongoing effort to develop Mill City Park in the city of Franklin.
In 2014, Marty Parichand was scouting a nine-acre site along the Winnipesaukee River in the city that would be home to Mill River Park, New England’s first whitewater park. He teamed up with Todd Workman, a local investor who shared the same vision, and they hit the ground running “from day one,” Parichand said.
They agreed that Franklin is a natural location for whitewater rafting, whitewater kayaking and other river sports. The city sits at the junction of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers where they form the Merrimack River.
The city also was the former home to mills that dotted the shores of those very rivers, but it has seen economic hardship over the recent decades. So developing a whitewater park was seen as having a lasting economic ripple effect for the city of 8,600, with its potential to attract 161,000 visitors and $6.8 million of direct spending to the region, according to a 2015 report.
PERSONAL INVESTMENT
Parichand and Workman first attempted to build Mill City Park by themselves.
Parichand, who had left a lucrative job working as an avionics engineer and program manager for a Department of Defense contractor, tried to obtain a conventional loan to start the park’s development, but quickly learned he could not pull it off alone.
Building the park would require raising private and corporate funds, exploring economic development and federal grants, and a lengthy process to design the construction of Mill City Park’s land and riverbed structures and receive the necessary permits.
“We were lucky to find Marty,” says Workman. “When you have a creative concept that seems like a pie-in-the-sky project, most places would form a committee and peck away for a couple of years. Our nonprofit had the foresight – we had to fast track it.”
Parichand did file Mill City Park as a nonprofit, but it was Workman’s economic development nonprofit, PermaCityLife, that financed his paycheck for two years.
Workman refinanced several condemned downtown buildings he had purchased in 2012 and 2013, and has subsequently gutted and renovated to provide updated commercial space and condominiums.
He used the funds as a match to receive grant and loan funding from the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority. The money supported three full-time jobs focused on economic development projects. One of them was Parichand’s role to develop Mill City Park.
“We didn’t want to peck away at it for a few years on a part-time basis,” Workman clarifies. “If Marty wasn’t there as an individual pushing the project down the pipeline for several years, it wouldn’t happen. You need a driving force.”
RALLYING AROUND AN IDEA
The impetus behind Mill City Park may have been Parichand, but he quickly learned he needed the community to endorse and support this enormous endeavor. Construction was going to be costly, so the best route to move the project forward was to explore economic development grants and raise private and corporate donations.
So Parichand did something he’s done numerous times since – he held meetings with town leadership and the public. Not everyone was on board at first.
“One of the pieces was the mindset of the city,” says Parichand. “Community members, city councilors, people in the crowd – they didn’t know or understand, or couldn’t fathom, why this should be important.”
“The concept is new for New England, but there are 30 of them in Colorado, 280 across the country,” says Parichand. Parichand explained how a whitewater park was a community centerpiece that could attract people to the area. Onlookers watch whitewater kayaks and river surfers navigate the river and paddle the built-in waves in the waterbed.
To help promote the vision, Parichand went out on a limb in 2015 and opened Outdoor New England (ONE), a canoe, kayak and rafting store, on Central Street, located in one of the refurbished buildings owned by PermaCityLife.
Like many of the buildings, it had been condemned. Parichand says he removed 12,000 pounds of trash and demolition debris, and paid out of pocket for the mechanical and electrical systems.
But the result was a shop with a charming look from the reclaimed wood and old cabinetry, with active social media accounts and reviews from visitors who stopped by.
“I didn’t know much about retail when it started,” says Parichand. “I thought if there was an all-encompassing business that could work toward a whitewater park but also connect people to the outdoors, that’s a business (where) you are meeting your customers and getting a chance of talking to them about the benefits of a whitewater park.”
Parichand started working closely with Judie Milner, Franklin’s current city manager and former city finance director, to apply for grants only available to municipalities.
“We strategized the idea of undeveloped city land, which is where the actual 13-acre Mill City Park is now planned. Fast-forward a few years, and we are now in the process of placing an adjacent 21 acres into conservation with Lakes Region Conservation Commission,” says Parichand. “The city has embraced and worked tirelessly on it with us. They are a true partner.”
A TURNING POINT
In late 2017, Mill City Park received its first substantial financial boost.
Parichand walked into Franklin Savings Bank with a gap in a grant application that required $25,000 in matching funds.
He sat down with the bank’s president, Ron Magoon, and told him his problem.
Parichand recalls that Magoon said, “I understand you need $25,000, but we’ve been working on this problem on our end too, and we’ve figured out how to free up a $250,000 donation.”
It was a key turning point in the project.
“Franklin Savings Bank enabled a lot of success because they were able to provide upfront dollars that enabled us to apply to grants with matching funds,” he says.
Since then, Mill City Park has received five federal grants totaling over $2.7 million and significant contributions from the CRDC, Franklin Business & Industrial Development Corp., the Tim Horne Foundation and manufacturer Gilbert Block Company.
The support has been not only a major financial shot in the arm, but a barometer of the project’s future success.
“That was our first realization that people who might have never been exposed to whitewater sports are starting to believe this and backing it with their time and effort and money,” says Parichand.
“As you show more success, you get more support,” concludes Workman.
COVID SETBACK
By June 2020, Franklin received a wetlands permit from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, the final regulatory piece needed before construction of Mill City Park could begin. The permit allows it to divert the Winnipesaukee River and build features that will let kayakers and surfers do tricks in front of riverbank crowds.
But by then the Covid-19 pandemic had hit and delayed construction and in-person fundraisers.
“We lost $70,000 in event revenue, and probably even more important, Covid negatively impacted many of our grants programs, pushing our construction timeline by a year,” says Parichand
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This year, construction will begin on a timber-frame pavilion, parking lots and two sets of standing waves in the riverbed. In 2022, construction will begin on refurbishment of Trestle Bridge – an old railroad bridge – into a footbridge to connect the Winnipesaukee River Trail to Mill City Park and the downtown area.
Eventually, the park will feature sites for camping, climbing walls, trails for walking and bicycling, an amphitheater and historic features around remnants of three mills that once stood there.
“It’s been a super-long process for me, and I definitely get a little impatient. It’s been a long haul,” says Parichand. “Personally, I feel my life for the last six years has been this project. For the first time, the project is at a point of no return and truly is becoming a reality. This is a testament to our whole team – nobody’s going to give up until it’s done.”
BRINGING FRANKLIN BACK TO LIFE
The groundwork for Mill City Park generated outside interest to develop other ventures.
• Concord-based CATCH Neighborhood Housing purchased and renovated the 1895 Franklin Light & Power Mill into 45 affordable apartment units in 2017, utilizing multiple funding sources.
• A couple who moved from Texas to New Hampshire to pursue a teaching opportunity opened Vulgar Brewing Company in 2018, after Workman received a grant to spruce up the old building’s façade.
• Vitex Extrusion announced it would be adding a 50,000-square-foot facility adjacent to its existing 115,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in a Franklin industrial park.
• The Peabody Home, a nursing home in Franklin, has received a $26 million package through the USDA Rural Development Direct Loan and Grant Program to construct a modern senior living facility with assisted and independent living.
• After securing financing through lenders, equity investors and the city’s tax incremental financing program, Chinburg Properties is moving forward with the renovation of the Stevens Mill into 140 market-rate apartments and commercial space, having owned the building since 2017. (The business center is reasonably well occupied and will stay through the project.)
“The whitewater park was a major factor in considering the Stevens Mill project,” says Eric Chinburg, president of Chinburg Properties. “Often it is hard to invest in underutilized mill buildings, without community support and a dedication to community improvement, both of which we found in Franklin.”
“We’re seeing business like that wanting to take advantage of what’s coming and certainly our economic development team that’s looking to relocate business here or get new business off the ground, they’re using the whitewater park as a sales tool,” says Todd Workman of PermaCityLife.
Workman himself has gotten financing through Franklin Savings Bank and its subsidiary, Independence Financial Advisors, to complete the lion’s share of renovation work, on what Workman describes as “a beautiful corner building.” It now is home to a lawyer’s office and is the headquarters of Independence Financial Advisors.
The renovations of buildings downtown are not just designed to attract businesses but residents, with upscale condos planned for the upper floors of those buildings.
The idea is to bring “the upper levels back to life as more people are looking to live in the heart of downtown,” says Workman. “We have worked hard to design housing options for all ages and income levels in downtown Franklin Falls.”