Investor Group Buys 4 Buildings in Peterborough, Envisioning a Lively Future for Downtown

28 and 30 Main Street in Peterborough formerly housed the Divine on Main wine bar and Twist ice cream. (Credit: Jesseca Timmons/Ledger-Transcript)

Ed Kania bought his Peterborough home in 2003. It started out as a vacation spot, a refuge for summers and holidays spent with family.

He and his wife Ann loved the town so much that they moved here permanently in 2019.

They loved what they saw — an intersection of nature, art and a unique downtown — as much as what they didn’t: a tourist-laden and gentrified destination like Cape Cod or Woodstock, Vermont.

“I love the unique, authentic, real but slightly gritty New Hampshire feel of Depot Square, and the merchants, and the way I feel when I walk around there,” Kania said.

It’s that love that spurred Kania to invest in several buildings downtown. In looking to secure a bright future for Peterborough and shaping the next decades of downtown life, he wanted a “seat at the table.”

Together with two other entities — one being Todd Enright, who is linked to the Hancock Inn, along with a handful of other people, and the other a high-profile, Boston-based investor — Kania formed Blue Finch Partners, a real-estate investment group that now owns four buildings at the heart of Peterborough.

Over the past few years, the group has purchased the Bar Harbor Bank building at 2 Main St.; the former site of diVINE on Main and Twist Italian Ice and Soft Serve at 28-32 Main St.; the old Fernald, Taft, Falby and Little law practice building at 14 Grove St.; and the former Nonie’s Restaurant & Bakery at 28 Grove St.

The “Nonie’s Building” at 28 Grove St. in Peterborough. (Credit: Jesseca Timmons/Ledger-Transcript)

Blue Finch, which Kania said is an equal, three-way split among the investors, has collectively paid more than $3 million for the buildings, according to property transfer records. It has also bought the Twelve Pine business, but not the building.

Kania said they are not currently in the market for any other properties.

The group hopes to inject more life into downtown Peterborough by using their new properties to renovate and add 10 to 12 market-rate rental units and eight other lodging units to the housing stock. They’re also exploring ideas for retailers for the ground floors of those buildings — maybe a flower shop, Kania said, or new restaurants. Bar Harbor Bank will stay put.

The building at 2 Main St. in Peterborough. (Credit: Jesseca Timmons/Ledger-Trasncript)

Kania said he’s inspired by many of the entrepreneurs who own shops downtown and the community events that have sprung up in recent years, but he worried about their future after the pandemic.

“If the downtown in a small New England community starts struggling, then the whole community begins to get hollowed out and also suffers,” Kania said. “It was also clear that Covid had been very hard on all downtown businesses and that worried me.”

Apart from his ventures at Blue Finch, Kania said he and Ann hope to start a conversation about the future of downtown. He hailed the developments by Stan Fry and Cy Gregg years ago but also wants to consider the town’s well-being down the line.

Things have changed over the past decade, Kania said. With so much online shopping now, people can get almost anything they need with a few clicks. He believes that shops have a tougher time drawing people to Depot Square nowadays.

The “Fernald Building” at 14 Grove St. in Peterborough. (Credit: Jesseca Timmons/Ledger-Transcript)

“A challenge for all downtown businesses is that the space and the parking availability are tight enough that it’s harder to offer an experience,” Kania said, in the way that larger facilities can. “In my opinion, for downtown to succeed, the overall downtown has to become the experience for each individual business.”

Kania doesn’t purport to know all the answers, but he and others in Peterborough intend to form a community group to get people talking.

28-32 Main St. in Peterborough. (Credit: Jesseca Timmons/Ledger-Transcript)

“I don’t believe that we have any particular wisdom when it comes to what downtown Peterborough should be and look like over the next decade,” he said, “but I believe that we can participate with the community at large in beginning to ask and try to answer those questions more thoughtfully.”