Urban renewal2

7: Main Street and Urban Renewal

Urban renewal has a bad reputation in some circles in Laconia, but in the mid to late 1960s it was seen as a way to reinvigorate downtowns across the United States.

The federal Downtown Development and Urban Renewal Program, along with the local Winnipesaukee River Urban Renewal Project, began planning in 1962. Laconia’s City Council voted to move forward in 1965, and the first demolition of the old downtown structures took place in March 1967, with the razing of the Cormier Hosiery Mill on Union Avenue. The Baldi Block, the Avery Block, and the Salvation Army building on Hanover Street were also demolished in 1967.

Completed in 1975 at a cost of $7 million, Laconia’s Urban Renewal Project left half of downtown as an uncovered pedestrian mall. In 1994, the pedestrian mall was abandoned, and Main Street reopened to one-way vehicular traffic. A quarter-century later, several of the former retail anchor stores, shoes, clothing, and hardware, have been supplanted by free-standing malls and, more recently, by electronic shopping. Downtown Laconia has now re-emerged as a cultural hot spot, offering theatre, music, various eateries, and specialty shops.

Laconia City Walk
  1. 1: Belknap Mill
  2. 2: Busiel Mill
  3. 3: Avery Dam
  4. 4: Guild-Northland Mills
  5. 5: Sunrise Towers
  6. 6: Stewart Park
  7. 7: Main Street and Urban Renewal
  8. 8: Allen-Rogers Buildings
  9. 9: Laconia Car Company
  10. 10: Pitman's Freight Room
  11. 11: Laconia Passenger Station
  12. 12: Bank Square
  13. 13: Rotary Park
  14. 14: McIntyre Building
  15. 15: Moulton Opera House
  16. 16: Pleasant Street Homes
  17. 17: Federal Building
  18. 18: Gale Memorial Library
  19. 19: Veterans Square
  20. 20: Evangelical Baptist Church
  21. 21: Congregational Church
  22. 22: Bank of New Hampshire
  23. 23: Woolworth Building
  24. 24: Cook Building
  25. 25: Pemaco Block
  26. 26: Colonial Theatre
  27. 27: Piscopo Block
  28. 28: Masonic Temple
  29. 29: Stafford House/Tavern
  30. 30: U.S. Post Office
  31. 31: John W Busiel House
  32. 32: St. Joseph Church
  33. 33: Perley Canal