83-unit apartment building in Claremont fills up in about a month

CLAREMONT — It took just a little more than a month for Chinburg Properties to lease all 83 units at Mondanock Mills, a renovated mill building on Water Street.

Samantha Launder, property manager with Chinburg, said they began renting units in early April after an open house, and the last unit was rented about a week ago.

Launder said she had a list of people interested in a unit and began contacting them first.

The five-story building has 13 two-bedroom apartments, 39 one-bedrooms and 31 studios. Rents range from just over $1,000 to about $2,100, including utilities.

Launder said the demand was not “overwhelming” but steady and picked up toward the end of April to early May. She said she could not divulge information about tenants such as where they are moving from.

For years, Claremont has hoped that the housing crunch in the Upper Valley would bring people who work in that area to the city for housing needs because homes and rentals are generally more affordable.

“Most of the interest was from people in the area,” Launder acknowledged. “They are happy to see something like this happening in Claremont.”

The building shell was renovated around 2007 with new windows and repointed brick as part of a multimillion-dollar private investment to repurpose three late 19th-century mill buildings. The other two buildings are home to a restaurant, an inn and office space. Plans for condominiums in what was referred to as the Peterson Building never materialized as the Great Recession hit in 2008.

The 62,000-square-foot building, which was once part of the Monadnock Mills textile company along the Sugar River, sat untouched for years until Chinburg, of Newmarket, N.H., bought it in 2020 and began work on the apartments after securing financing.

Among the building’s amenities are an area rooftop deck on the building with a patio and seating where residents can enjoy views of Mount Ascutney and Arrowhead Recreation Area, and an outdoor grill on the ground level. Launder also said Chinburg purchased some parking spaces at the nearby parking garage for Monadnock Mills residents.

The quick leasing of all the apartments is not surprising given a vacancy rate of close to 0% in the city.

Sulco Corp. on Pleasant Street rents 75 two-bedroom apartments in the city. Deb Matteau, general manager of Sulco and the city’s assistant mayor, said they don’t have to advertise when an apartment becomes available.

“We just need a couple of days to get the place ready (after a tenant moves),” Matteau said.

Demand for rental units has pushed the monthly rent from $925 two years ago to $1,350 today, she added.

Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.