Downtown Redevelopment Plan and a Heritage-Based Tourism Program
Berlin, New Hampshire
In 1992, Saucier + Flynn, teamed with OZ Architecture and the Atlantic Group, was commissioned by the City of Berlin’s Business Enterprise Development Corporation (BEDCO) to produce a downtown redevelopment plan and a heritage-based tourism program. Berlin’s economy was heavily dependent upon the local pulp and paper industry but several years of recession and a precipitous decline in the paper industry had significantly affected the community’s economic vitality.
The planning team, through a series of surveys, public meetings, open houses and conventional analysis, created a strategy aimed at reducing the community’s dependency on the paper industry and refocused their energies toward the development of a heritage-based economy that capitalized on the region’s unique historic, scenic and natural resources. The program rallied local businesspersons, property owners and entrepreneurs and leveraged the development of two new mixed-use buildings and the retention of a State agency slated to move its operations out of the downtown to a nearby strip mall. The plan spurred for the development of several parks and downtown open spaces and the laid the foundation for the development of the Northern Forest Heritage Park, a logging history museum and visitor’s center.
In 1993 the project was awarded the Northern New England Planners Association Merit Award in Planning.
