The long road to development: Walls finally up at Sewalls Falls Road subdivision

Four years after initial estimates, construction is finally underway at a housing development near Beaver Meadow in Concord.

Nestled in the crook where Abbott Road branches off of Sewalls Falls Road, the subdivision now called the Country Estates of Concord is expected to include 15 single-family homes. In the last few months, new developers started selling off ready-to-build properties on the eight-acre site, and the building company that bought six of those lots has started on the first home.

Chris Payne, the company owner, is looking to build and sell six three-bedroom houses by this fall on the lots closest to the intersection. The first one now has walls, a few windows and a roof, and he hopes that three homes will be on the market within 90 days.

“Obviously, it’s been a long time in the making,” Payne said, “but it’s going to be a nice neighborhood.”

The delay had been a frustration for both neighbors and the developer alike. Site work began in that area years ago, and after first getting planning board sign-offs in 2022, the project stalled. The new developers took over in 2024.

Now, the construction represents both progress on a languishing property and a small boost to the supply of single-family homes in Concord.

Payne’s expected price-point for those houses, between 1,800 and 2,000 square feet in his plans, is just under $700,000, putting them above the median value for the city’s existing homes.

A previous developer, Scott Desantis, announced plans for the subdivision in 2022 and segmented the eight-acre area into 16 lots. A perimeter of trees on the property were cut down and grass was cleared into a pile as if the site were being readied for construction, but none came.

In the more than three years since, tangled brush, standing water and a mound of dirt and loam have been the primary residents of the site. The holdup has been a drag on the neighborhood, according to Jennifer Kretovic, the city councilor representing the area.

“They’re finally seeing progress,” Kretovic said.

From dust blowing off the dirt lot in the summer to ponding in wetter stretches to street damage after sewer work, abutting residents’ opinion of the property has soured, according to Kretovic. The stalled construction has done little to win over some of those neighbors who were already wary about the added traffic and development in the area.

As construction and labor costs ballooned over the last year, it became increasingly common to hear of planned developments tapping the brakes. Those don’t seem to be the holdup for this project.

Sam Katz, part of the Nashua-based development duo that took over in 2024, described a protracted back-and-forth with the city over site readiness and compliance, which he said prevented his team from building or selling before now. Katz and business partner Eric Pearson had been financially involved with the plans since their initial stages.

The city has said changes to the plan and its impact on public infrastructure caused the delay.

After Katz and Pearson bought the project, they looked to keep a barn that had been initially slated for relocation or demolition. They would need to redraw the lot lines again to sell the barn; the planning board signed off and the building was sold.

The change prompted a rearrangement of the underground utilities planned for the site, which would have more impact on Sewalls Falls Road, according to the city’s public information officer Stefanie Breton.

Generally, when private development makes changes to or damages a public resource, those behind the project have to pay for it. Country Estates paid the city around $30,000 last summer to pay for “future improvements” to Sewalls Falls Road.

The land couldn’t be sold until the public improvements on the site were complete, per Breton’s statement. According to Katz, a protracted dispute about the pace of the city’s review and whether those improvements were ready delayed construction and drove up costs.

The Monitor has requested access to documented communication between the project’s developers and city officials and staff under the state’s public records law. That request, first made in November, has not yet been fulfilled, with the solicitor’s office citing the volume of relevant records as a source of delay.

There are between 500 and 1000 documents of such communication, according to City Solicitor John Conforti.

Katz said he’s pleased that there’s now movement on the project. “It’s all green-lighted to move forward now, and new homes will be coming,” he said. “But getting to this point, just to get this going, has really been an issue.”

Kretovic, the Ward 3 councilor, is excited about construction, and not just because it means an improvement on the land.

A subdivision like this one, promising 15 homes on what had been a dormant farm in an already built-out area, is exactly the kind of housing growth that fits the city’s goals, she said.

“Most people are not happy about it,” she said, “but we have to have this development.”

The 1800s-era barn at the center of the area was sold to a family from Bow currently using it for storage, according to Katz. While some kind of renovation might be in the cards, he said, the barn will stay.

In addition to the land sold to Payne, one empty lot was bought by the Tunnels to Towers Foundation, which gives homes to disabled veterans and first responders or the families of deceased veterans and first responders.

Katz and Pearson plan to construct houses on the handful of properties at the site and later sell them. When those homes are built, their plan is largely comparable to what’s in the works by Payne: three or four bedroom homes. Construction on those, however, isn’t imminent.

Their projects in other towns, which Katz said have moved along faster, take precedence.

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