Claremont Wins $430,000 Federal Grant for Sugar River Riverwalk Revitalization

Claremont has secured $430,000 from the Northern Border Regional Commission to build a riverwalk along the Sugar River downtown, adding another federal funding layer to a multi-year cleanup effort that has already brought in more than $1.2 million in environmental grants from two separate federal agencies.

The NBRC award, part of the commission's competitive Fall 2024 funding round that distributed just over $24 million across 37 projects in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, is targeted at three specific deliverables: improved pedestrian access, construction of a river walkway, and site preparation for future community and commercial uses. Planning and Economic Development Director Nancy Merrill, who has coordinated the city's layered funding strategy for years, has described the rehabilitated land as capable of hosting anything from an outdoor amphitheater to a dog park.

Sen. Maggie Hassan welcomed the award, saying the grant "has helped with the planning and has helped with the development of a river walkway here in Claremont, which is a really big boost for recreation, for tourism, for the economy generally."

The $430,000 will not, however, close the funding gap on its own. The broader redevelopment targets approximately 6.5 acres within Claremont's Historic District, stretching from near the Broad Street Bridge to Spring Street, and centers on two long-dormant industrial parcels: the former Synergy (Monadnock Gas Works) site and the former Joy Manufacturing site. Both properties have sat idle for more than two decades, and environmental investigations on the sites date back more than 30 years.

That cleanup work is advancing under a separate $800,000 EPA Brownfields Multipurpose Grant Claremont received in October 2023, which funds assessment, remediation, and reuse planning over a five-year window. Weston and Sampson, the environmental engineering firm selected to lead that work, is conducting the phased remediation required before any new construction or programming can take hold on the northern riverbank.

The gap between what is secured and what the project actually needs remains the central financial pressure point. Former Rep. Annie Kuster had identified the riverfront project for Congressional Directed Spending that could have covered nearly half the estimated total cost, but that push stalled when Congress failed to pass a budget. Merrill's department is now working with Rep. Maggie Goodlander and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen's office to pursue inclusion in the 2026 federal budget, though whether directed spending survives ongoing congressional negotiations is not settled.

The history of this stretch of the Sugar River suggests the long-term payoff justifies the pursuit. A prior brownfields initiative at Monadnock Mills, running from 2002 to 2009, generated roughly $25 million in private investment and produced a $1.3 million pedestrian bridge across the Sugar River alongside a new city park adjacent to redeveloped mill buildings. That precedent is the clearest argument that federal cleanup dollars here tend to move private capital.

The EPA Multipurpose Grant Steering Committee, which oversees the brownfields work and is open to the public, meets the first Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. at a location posted on the city calendar.