Portsmouth approved the Durgin Lane redevelopment without offering a large tax concession because the underlying math, while not frictionless, is strong enough to support private financing. The project secured nearly $100 million in construction funding without requiring the city to redirect future tax revenue back into the development, preserving municipal control over the full tax base once the buildings are complete.³
A few miles away, the same confidence doesn’t exist.
At Fox Run Mall, the redevelopment proposal has leaned on a tax increment financing structure that would allow the developer to retain a significant share of future tax growth to pay for infrastructure. The request signals a different set of conditions: a declining asset, higher redevelopment costs, and a use mix that may not reproduce the combination of valuation and relatively low service demand that retail once provided.⁶
A Newington official, speaking during a recent discussion of the project, captured the hesitation: “We can’t assume the replacement will behave like the mall did. It probably won’t.”
That uncertainty is the hinge between the two towns.
Portsmouth is replacing underperforming retail with high-demand housing in a market where rents, occupancy, and financing all support the transition. The city is not betting that housing is more efficient than retail; it is accepting a shift from a surplus-generating land use to one that is closer to balance, where revenue and service demand rise together and must be managed in tandem.
Newington is facing a harder problem.
The mall, even diminished, represented a form of land use that concentrated tax revenue while keeping municipal costs comparatively low. Replacing it means moving into a more complex fiscal structure where the margin between what a property contributes and what it requires becomes narrower and less predictable.
The asphalt at Durgin Lane is mostly gone now, broken into sections where foundations will be poured, and the site has begun to shift from a place people passed through to a place where they will stay.
What used to be a parcel that generated several hundred thousand dollars annually while drawing little from the system is becoming one that may generate closer to two million dollars while also introducing a steady stream of service demand tied to hundreds of residents.
That is the trade, expressed in concrete terms.
The land will likely produce more revenue than it did at the end of its retail life, but it will no longer function as a quiet surplus inside the city’s budget.