I saw this building on Streetview, too, and I have a friend who lives nearby, so I drove by when I was visiting. There's actually
some information on it from St. Mary's Bank, which has gotten involved with the whole Rimmon Heights revitalization given that its their home turf. They have more information on the whole thing
here.
In addition to a couple other shops, there's a bakery on the ground floor that is the focus of the
Carrotmob right now. From what I can see on the St. Mary's page, the building didn't appear to be in terrible shape before (though who knows about the interior), but it's a fairly prominent building and I think it's great that they eliminated the ground floor apartments and replaced them with shops. It's the sort of transformation that will hopefully happen more along Kelley Street--more ground floor shops and restaurants with housing above instead of all apartments.
That having been said, I don't think the idea is necessarily nicer houses and less rentals for the neighborhood. It's a dense, diverse, urban neighborhood, so rentals and multi-family homes makes sense. I think what they are trying to do is get more ground-floor, neighborhood-focused retail along Kelley, as well as parts of Amory and Bremer Streets. In addition, they want to spruce the whole neighborhood up, and a big part of that is more owner-occupied apartments. So I guess in a way that's less rentals, but I think the idea is to keep the apartments, just have more landlords living in the neighborhood who will care more about the place.
My friend who lives there was initially skeptical and made fun of the whole Rimmon Heights thing, given that there wasn't a huge sense of community and the name was bestowed by the city. He said he thought it seemed like a foolish attempt at foisting an identity onto a neighborhood from outside, but since then he's said that the neighborhood has really taken to the idea. I think improvements like this building, and the sense of community pride by residents is a big testament to that.
Rimmon Heights has the potential to be one of the best neighborhoods in Manchester--its dense, walkable, diverse, and the housing stock is in decent shape and can be rehabbed easily and well. It's also so close to the downtown, but with enough separation to give it its own identity, and it benefits from being one of the few city neighborhoods that is well-defined geographically, being hemmed in by the Piscataquog and a steep hill to the south, and situated on a plateau overlooking the city.
