By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

Cabela’s representatives unveiled a conceptual plan chock full of potential spots for restaurants, hotels and retail stores for Hooksett’s new commercial district around Interstate 93’s Exit 11.

The plan was developed as a conceptual model in order to frame questions from the state about potential traffic impacts of the whole tax increment financing, or TIF, district, said Cabela’s representative Ed Eckman.

Showing the project to the planning board at a Monday, Oct. 2, meeting, Eckman stressed the plans are preliminary and conceptual.

“The purpose here is to try and get you all part of this process early,” Eckman told the board.

The plan

Eckman displayed what he said were a number of “logical” commercial uses within the TIF district.

Drawings on the east side of the interstate showed retail building “pads” ranging from 16,000 square feet to 115,850 square feet, two 100-room hotels, three restaurants, two fast food restaurants and a coffee shop.

On the west side, the plans showed spots for two wholesale/distribution centers, each exceeding 100,000 square feet, two more retail locations and another fast food spot.

To measure the effects of such development on traffic, Cabela’s representatives used a model whereby the TIF district would be 80 percent developed by 2012 and 100 percent built by 2022. A 55-acre site, to be anchored by a 115,000- to 125,000-square-foot Cabela’s retail store, would be built in 2007, according to the scenario.

Cabela’s presented about 900 pages of traffic findings to the state Department of Transportation on the same day representatives met with the board.

Reaction to traffic

No planning board members questioned the commercial uses envisioned for the district. Instead, nearly all of the board’s questions concerned traffic.

Engineer Robert Duval, from TF Moran, presented several phases of suggested traffic improvements that included solutions like widening Hackett Hill Road and Route 3A where they intersect, adding toll booths at Exit 11, and multiple roundabouts, or traffic circles.

If the whole district were built out, said Duval, the new developments would draw about 700 additional vehicle trips per hour on weekday mornings, 1,100 in the afternoons, and 1,500 to 1,600 on Saturdays.

He compared those numbers to the current traffic counts at the Route 3A and Hackett Hill intersection, which range from 1,200 to 2,000 trips per hour, depending on the day and time.

Despite the potential increases in traffic volume, Duval said the proposed changes would improve upon most current conditions to the roadways around Exit 11.

An early problem spot seemed to be the Main Street and 3A intersection, especially as more traffic is anticipated to come to the west side of the river on the new connector road, which will stem from Route 3 to the village area.

Planning board members suggested the Route 3A and Main Street section is already problematic, without additional commercial development.

“No matter what, as years go by, this is going to become a major problem,” board member Bob Sullivan said of the intersection.

Said board member Raymond Guay, “That’s not a Cabela’s issue ­ that’s something we’re going to have to deal with.”

Moving forward

Eckman offered to meet regularly with the board to discuss mutual plans for the TIF district.

He said Cabela’s is also meeting with the Department of Transportation and other state agencies to negotiate commercial accesses to state-owned land.

The TIF developments will also require that Cabela’s and the town council hash out an agreement regarding the $18 million bond for public and private infrastructure approved by voters at this year’s Town Meeting.