Realtor plans condos for Dunbar St.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
PETER J. CLEARY
Keene Sentinel Staff
With a development group poised to build on the city’s former railroad land, another developer has plans for condominiums in a nearby building.
Keene realtor and landlord Mitchell H. Greenwald said he’s going to put nine condominiums in a building at the end of Dunbar Street as soon as he’s sure the railroad development will be built. He said he doesn’t want to build unless his condominiums will be part of larger development in the area.
Those units will be added to four condominiums that are in the Monadnock Economic Development Corp.’s plans.
Greenwald said he’s renovating the former factory building to house “first-class” apartments.
Greenwald’s condominiums will all have two bedrooms and sell for around $250,000, he said.
The shell of the building — which has been home to a machine shop, the Salvation Army and a dog training center — will stay, Greenwald said, though he does plan to refurbish the brick.
Across Dunbar Street from Greenwald’s building, the economic-development group is working on new Trikeenan Tileworks headquarters in an old factory building.
Prior to redevelopment, that property had to undergo a pollution clean-up. Greenwald said he’s tested his property, and it’s clean.
And Greenwald said he hopes to see the redevelopment ripple up Dunbar Street, though he doesn’t own any other properties on the street. Silver-polish maker J.A. Wright and Co., which is located on Dunbar Street, was recently sold with plans to move out of Keene.
Greenwald said he already has interest in four of the units. He plans to keep one himself for people who have just moved to the area and are looking to buy a house through his realty agency.
If all goes according to plan, he said, the condominiums should be done by next summer.
The development doesn’t mark a new direction for his real estate company, he said, just an outgrowth. This summer he has also been remodeling a storefront in a building he owns at the corner of Main Street and Gilbo Avenue to serve as a new, more visible real estate office.