Planning Board Approves NH Distributors' Expansion Plans

The Concord Planning Board approved on Nov. 28 expansion plans for New Hampshire Distributors, the beer and beverage wholesaler, that will allow the company to add nearly 39,000 square feet of space and a new driveway for trucking items around to stores.

Chris Brown, the president of the company, told the board that currently, the Regional Drive facility has about 100,000 square feet and 13 truck docks but was at capacity and would soon outgrow its space.

During the last 10 years, a number of new brands have been brought into the fold with new packaging and space needs. There are always new brands being created and the company would like to expand the amount of items it can bring to stores.

“We need to have space to hold adequate inventory,” he said, “to attract these new brands into the state of New Hampshire.”

When the company first started in 1982, it had about 58 SKUs of products; today, it’s more than 1,200 SKUs and growing. Currently, the company has 30 trucks that travel in and out of the warehouse daily with another six to 10 trucks incoming from other companies. The new expansion would be used exclusively for trucks on a one-way driveway for deliveries.

Erin Lambert of Nobis Engineering said a conditional use permit was needed because “the property has some constraints” with a PSNH easement on one of the building and a butterfly buffer run by the New Hampshire Fish & Game Department on another. This forced the company to expand to the east side of the building.

Lambert said they looked at other ways of fixing the flow of travel on the site but there were grade and driveway issues. There is enough frontage for three driveways, she noted, but they liked the idea of a “straight shot” from Regional Drive.

The company would work on improving the butterfly management buffer restoring native and adaptive vegetation. They would also maintain a corridor of the pine barren on either side, Lambert said. Parking would be altered slightly with more shade trees along Regional Drive. She added that current trees on the site which are not getting enough water and were looking a bit gangly could be replaced. Lambert said the company would be trying to nurture the trees back to life.

Rebecca Hebert of the Planning Department said the only comments staffers had about the plan was the need to replace the trees now, saying it could be done during the construction, “getting it all done at once,” and would replace the need to track the health of the trees later.

“They’re in really rough shape,” she noted.

After some talk about the trees, the Planning Board approved the plan unanimously.