MANCHESTER, NH – The building at 533 Elm St. is a fixture in Downtown Manchester, and not in a good way. The former location for Michael’s School of Hair Design and Esthetics and Coiffures offers premium event parking next to the SNHU arena.
That’s about it.
The building sits abandoned and in need of a trim. The lobby has been converted into a greenhouse by the invasive vines that are now growing inside the building. It’s bittersweet, literally; that is what the vines are called.
Michael Kapos owns the building and the hair school. In 2004 he moved his school to the Bedford Mall. He rents the additional building on the same lot to Meineke Car Care Center. The Elm Street location has remained a shell of its former self for nearly two decades.
Kapos was contacted for comment about this story multiple times.
Peering inside through the window you can see file boxes are scattered around a once-modern spiral staircase. Faded posters of glamorous women are displayed in the windows. A cartoonish graffiti devil on the outside of the building appears to keep them company.
Manchester is square in the moment of new development in the south end of downtown. Michael’s empty hair school sits unchanged amidst aggressive redevelopment in all directions.
Jodie Nazaka, head of economic development for the city of Manchester, remembers getting her hair done at the Elm Street school for her eighth-grade dance in the late ’90s. For senior prom she went somewhere else to get her hair done because the school moved to Bedford.
Nazaka said that Kapos met with her and the Manchester Development Corporation in March. She said that they had a great conversation. Kapos shared several potential plans for small, midsize, and larger housing units with retail on the first floor. The proposed plans were drawn up by a construction company that he hired. Nothing happened after that, she said.
“That area is a destination and a prime opportunity,” says Nazaka, 36. She mentions the new apartments on Elm Street across from the Market Basket and the units planned for Auburn and Depot Streets, where the Manchester Mills and the Varick Building were recently demolished. Nazaka is concerned about the hair school’s proximity to the SNHU arena. She says “the first thing people see when they come to Manchester is a blighted building.”
Nazaka says that other developers have reached out to her about the property. The problem, she says, is that it’s too small for big developers and too big for small developers. Nazaka also says that the building is outdated and needs a new sprinkler system, which would make renovating very costly.
Ceramic artist Christina Pitsch says she would love to see a funky restaurant open in the old school.
“I like weird old spaces. It’s a cool building of another decade,“ says Pitsch, 50.
Pitsch lives and works on Granite Street one block east of the hair school in a warehouse that she bought and renovated in 2013. Last year she and her partner bought the building next door and have plans to renovate the interior and restore the exterior facade.
“It’s a labor of love,” says Pitsch. She understands that restoration is not a possibility for all property owners but for Pitsch part of what makes a city a city is rehabbing old things instead of tearing them down.
The remains of the Manchester Mills and the Varick Building can be seen from the loading dock at the back of her warehouse. Pitsch says that she hated to see those buildings get torn down to make way for new apartments but changes are necessary.
“The Gaslight District was a no man’s land for so long. This neighborhood needs a big gesture to say that something is happening here.”
Real estate planner James Vayo says he can envision what’s possible there.
“There is a lot of incentive not to improve property because taxation is based on improvements rather than on the land itself,” says Vayo, 40, of Manchester.
Vayo used to work for the Southern New Hampshire planning commission. Now he is the senior vice president of planning and development for a real estate company in Long Island. Vayo created a mock-up of what the lot could look like with two 6-story buildings each with an 8,000-square-foot blueprint creating a total of 96,000 square feet. The buildings include 8,000 square feet of retail, 10,000 square feet for parking, 16,000 square feet for second-floor office suites with an additional four floors to create 64 residential units.
“That’s the highest valued intersection in the city. It should be able to work. Someone should be able to offer the money and this should be redeveloped.” The biggest obstacle that Vayo sees in redesigning the lot is Kapos’ long-term lease with Meineke.
“He hit the jackpot in getting a long-term lease with a national chain,” says Vayo, adding that income from renting to a national chain means that Kapos would have no motivation to sell the lot or develop it.
Amira Hasoon, 30, is the artist in residence at the Factory on South Willow Street. She explains that she likes that the building isn’t boarded up and she can see nature taking it over. After making a purchase at Antiques on Elm, two blocks south of the former trade school she says
“It’s a beautiful concrete jungle. I quite like it.”