Lindseigh Picard (center), board chair of the Winchester Economic Development Corp., slices through a blue ribbon with large gold scissors along Opportunity Drive in Winchester on Friday. A group of local officials involved with the project gathered that afternoon to celebrate the completion of the road. Among them were Executive Director Jessica Wright-Moore (left of center) and Penny Seaver (right of center), the development corporation's real estate agent. (Noah Diedrich / Sentinel Staff)
WINCHESTER — The path to success may have just gotten easier for businesses looking to operate in New Hampshire.
The Winchester Economic Development Corp. on Friday unveiled the aptly named Opportunity Drive, a 2,100-foot access road that leads to the town’s Stone Mountain Business Park.
Last November, the development corporation completed the final 500-foot stretch of the road, which allowed it to make three more multi-acre plots available for businesses to purchase, according to Executive Director Jessica Wright-Moore.
Three companies have already bought space in the park, and to fill the remaining five spots, the Winchester Economic Development Corp. has advertised the space in Boston business journals and reached out to people in Montreal, Wright-Moore said.
“We have these three premium lots now that are kind of the flattest, best pieces of property,” she said. “We’re so excited to finally actually be able to give them road frontage, which I think will be fantastic for future businesses.”
Once a 64-acre gravel pit, Stone Mountain Business Park is nearly a decade in the making, according to Wright-Moore. The Town of Winchester sold the pit to WEDC for a single dollar in a development agreement back in 2018.
Founded in 2010, the nonprofit aims to support businesses and revitalize the town, according to its website.
Acting as a liaison between the town and federal government, the development corporation secured a federal grant to kickstart construction of Opportunity Drive and its underlying water and sewage infrastructure, Wright-Moore said. Altogether, the project has garnered roughly $1.7 million in grants.
But the first wave of federal money only brought Opportunity Drive so far. With construction costs skyrocketing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the money ran out, leaving a 32-acre swath of land in the business park without road frontage, Wright-Moore said.
In 2023, WEDC received $800,000 in federal funds secured by U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, which allowed the development corporation to complete the remaining 500 feet of Opportunity Drive, according to Wright-Moore. That gave the remaining three lots in the business park road access.
“This is a labor of love drawn on a million pieces of paper, and it’s finally complete, which is such a big deal,” she said.
Eight lots comprise the business park, three of which have been sold to businesses, Wright-Moore said. Even though construction is complete, WEDC is not opening Opportunity Drive yet out of caution for people coming down the road with ATVs.
Because the original grant aimed to bring in manufacturing and jobs, businesses have to meet specific requirements to move into Stone Mountain, like employing at least 3.5 full-time workers per acre, Wright-Moore said.
“One of the reasons why it’s taken so long is that we can’t just sell it to anyone,” she said. “We can’t just sell it to someone who is going to do storage units or whatever.”
One company — J & J Trailers and Truck Equipment from Winchester — has already moved into the park, Wright-Moore said. The next is Pekarski’s Sausage, a company based in Deerfield, Mass., which hopes to complete its build in the next year-and-a-half or so.
According to Wright-Moore, Pekarski’s will be followed by New England Lumber and Stone, a Tamworth-based company that will use the space to repackage and distribute its wood, she said. That company is is breaking ground on its facility next spring, she said.
Mike Pekarski, who owns the sausage company, said he’s looking to build a USDA-approved facility that would allow him to smoke and sell his products — which, in addition to sausage, include bacon, ham and poultry — to restaurants, over the Internet and in his retail shop in Deerfield.
Leaving behind what he feels is a tough business climate in Massachusetts, Pekarski considered locations in Keene, Swanzey and Hinsdale before settling on Stone Mountain in Winchester.
“I kept coming back to this business park, thinking, ‘Let’s build something brand new from the ground up, instead of trying to retrofit an older facility,’ “ he said.
In the future, Pekarski said he hopes to start another brick-and-mortar retail location in Keene or Winchester.
He estimated his Stone Mountain facility will be between 5,000 and 6,000 square feet. The building is going to be modular, so if he needs more space, he can add to it.
“It’s going to be small, relatively speaking, but state of the art,” he said. “It’s going to be done right.”
Noah Diedrich can be reached at 603-355-8569, or ndiedrich@keenesentinel.com.
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