AHEAD Completes Purchase of Monadnock Village in Colebrook
The News and Sentinel
By Jake Mardin
AHEAD (Affordable Housing Education and Development) is the new owner of Monadnock Village in Colebrook, having closed on the purchase last Wednesday.
Monadnock Village is the 12th and newest senior community managed by AHEAD, which was founded in 1991 and currently manages a total of 475 units of affordable, multi-family housing in northern New Hampshire and Vermont.
AHEAD executive director Michael Claflin said the organization has been working to close on the purchase since December of 2018, but a number of factors led to the delay. First, the deal required the permission of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, but due to an organizational contraction, most of AHEAD's dealings with HUD moved from Manchester to Boston.
"We were getting some pretty good traction and then there was the government shutdown," Mr. Claflin said. He said HUD was one of the departments that shut down entirely, and it amassed a large backlog. "We got put on the back burner and then there was a last-minute title issue that contributed, so those three things led to a long closing date," he said.
The previous owner of the property was the estate Nancy Legere, Trustee of the Emile Legere Revocable Trust. Mr. Claflin said the Legere enterprise oversaw a number of real estate development projects across the state over the years, and built Monadnock Village and had managed it since 1979.
Monadnock Village consists of eight buildings, including a community room, and 50 one-bedroomapartments, five of which are ADA accessible. Property management director Luther Kinney said AHEAD always looks for different opportunities and said he first became aware of the property five years ago and thought it would make a good addition to the portfolio. He said that despite the property's age, it has been well-run and maintained by the Legere family, and is in great shape.
"The operation of the property will remain pretty much the same," Mr. Kinney said. There has historically been a full-time maintenance worker who lives in Colebrook and responds to emergencies 24/7, and Mr. Kinney noted that AHEAD has a big presence in Co_s County with teams in the Berlin and Littleton offices who can also respond.
The New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, which has worked with AHEAD on a number of different projects, financed the purchase. "The sellers and loan fund were very interested in maintaining New Hampshire-based ownership, so we all worked really hard to put this together so we could maintain local presence and ownership," Mr. Claflin said. "Quality home care for seniors who want to retain independent living is few and far between in the North Country, and being able to sustain a property like this is important to us and our mission."
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