When Charles Whitten and Juniper Advisory Services took over the property on Vose Farm Road, it was being pitched to single buyers, 30 years behind on code, and still referred to by the name of its former occupant, Brookstone.
Now, the Vose Farm Business Center is an asset to Peterborough that Whitten hopes will bring jobs and recognition to the community. He broke it up to lease to multiple tenants, made the necessary improvements and brought businesses into the town.
“You can break them into Peterborough-sized chunks,” he said. “When people move in here, they almost always expand.”
Among the tenants are industrial businesses ranging from Dahle North America, which Whitten says makes “the world’s best paper shredders” among other office supplies, to DS Huntington, a local furniture manufacturer. Co-owner Cam Dexter says the company began in a 1,200 square foot space in Hancock and now occupies 5,700 at 9 Vose Farm Road.
Community engagement is important. Because of its proximity to ConVal, Vose Farm Business Center’s tenants have countless connections to the education sphere, including plans for a Nashua Community College site filling over 35,000 square feet.
Visible from Route 202 is a farm run by the Cornucopia Project. Hannah Bissex manages the space with four ConVal students.
“Everything you see here was done by these four ladies,” she said. “They’re thinking about food systems and engineering and entrepreneurship.”
The next business to open is to be Monadnock Gymnastics Center, which fills 14,400 square feet and will offer classes for gymnasts of any age beginning at 12 months.
According to Whitten, ConVal’s athletic department has long wanted something like this, in addition to the personal training center, War Room Athletics, a few doors down. There are plans for ConVal dance and cheerleading teams to use the facility.
Ginger Mermer, owner and coach, said, “People didn’t even see the space and I had almost 40 people sign up,” and that it will be ready for classes on Sept. 1.