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Business View Magazine
erated ten million dollars of investment. We are part-
nering with a particular developer who is committed to
the job creation component, as well as generating the
tax revenue to pay the $10 million bond. Phase One
of a half-million square foot shopping center is open;
Phase Two is under construction; and then, there’s a
Phase Three that will probably be housing. That hasn’t
occurred, yet, but is in the early planning stages.”
Regarding housing, Pollard relates that Rochester has
available space for new housing units for its expand-
ing population. “We are anticipating population growth
and we’re trending at about six percent right now,” she
says. “When Safran chose Rochester, our vacancy rate
dropped dramatically as they started hiring. And they
still have about 250 people to hire. So, we anticipate
continued population growth and continued housing
development for the near future. We’ve got 2,000 units
approved; a lot of that is rental or condo-style housing,
townhouses, and multi-tenant apartment buildings.”
Another growing sector of Rochester’s economy is
healthcare. “Healthcare is a very important compo-
nent in our community,” says Pollard. “Because New
Hampshire is older than a lot of the rest of the north-
east, we have a very strong hospital – Frisbie Memo-
rial. They have an entire campus of additional servic-
es: the Joslin Diabetes Center, a cancer center, and
an ambulatory surgical center which just finished con-
struction. There are probably nine medical buildings in
all that make up the hospital campus. It is right next to
the airport and the major industrial park, as well. So,
there’s a tremendous amount of activity in that quad-
rant of the city.”
Rochester also has a vibrant downtown core with his-
toric buildings, such as City Hall and the Rochester Op-
era House, and Pollard says that the city works closely
with developers interested in renovating some of the
older downtown buildings. “We have passed the exist-
ing building code, which means that developers of an
