What Portsmouth Gets in Exchange if the McIntyre Block Grows Taller
October 15, 2026
October 15, 2026
The block bounded by Daniel, Penhallow and Bow streets still holds the four-story former Thomas J. McIntyre Federal Building. It was built in the 1960s as part of a federal urban renewal program, and for decades it housed the IRS, the Social Security Administration and the FBI. Since buying the property, developer Anthony DiLorenzo has run the land around it as a paid parking lot. His company, 80 D Street LLC, now has a roughly $200 million plan for the site called "Linden Square: The McIntyre Block." The plan is moving through work sessions with the city's Historic District Commission.
Most coverage has focused on architectural style. Building height will matter more to what downtown actually gets. In Portsmouth's zoning, height and public space are written into the same rule. If the project gets taller, the ordinance requires it to give up half the site as community space and include workforce housing. The plaza discussion and the height discussion turn on the same rule.
The rule is Section 10.5A43.33 of the Portsmouth Zoning Ordinance, which is current as amended through September 28, 2026. It applies to mixed-use developments of at least one acre in the CD4, CD4W or CD5 character districts that sit outside an incentive overlay district. For those sites, the Planning Board may grant a conditional use permit for "an additional story in height (up to 15 feet)," but only if every condition is met.
The first condition does most of the work:
"The development shall have at least 50% of the property assigned and improved as a community space. Given the large scale of the development, the community space shall include a Plaza or Square of at least 5,000 sq. ft. per acre..."
The plaza must also come with at least one of these: a pedestrian passage, a wide pedestrian sidewalk, a pedestrian arcade, a pocket park, a playground or a public observation deck. The Planning Board decides the size, shape and location of the community space.
The second condition is workforce housing. Either 10% of any for-sale homes must be affordable to a four-person household earning no more than 100% of area median income, or 5% of any rental homes must be affordable to a three-person household earning no more than 60% of area median income. Each of those homes must be at least 600 square feet and spread through the building wherever homes are located. The city tightened this language in 2024. The City Manager's comments to the Council in August 2024 noted that the earlier wording could be read to allow the extra story with community space and no workforce housing. The City Council passed the clarification on August 19, 2024.
DiLorenzo described the trade in his own terms soon after he closed on the 2.1-acre property at 80 Daniel St. for $9 million in a General Services Administration auction. NH Business Review quoted him in July 2024: going "from 40 feet to 55 feet" required "50% of the area to be community space and include a percentage of work-force housing," and together with the preservation easement that made the site "very difficult" to develop economically. Two years later, his own team is presenting that permit route as one of two finalists.
The June 2026 filing showed four massing concepts. The first three each placed three new three-story buildings beside the McIntyre. The fourth, labeled the CUP option, showed one three-story building and two buildings described as "4-story plus penthouse." By the third work session, the team had narrowed the discussion to Option 03 and Option 04.
| Option 03: Extended Plaza | Option 04: CUP | |
|---|---|---|
| Building A | 3 stories + mansard | 4 stories + penthouse |
| Building C | 3 stories + mansard | 4 stories + penthouse |
| Building B | 3 stories + mansard | 3 stories + mansard |
| Building D | Existing McIntyre, 4 stories | Existing McIntyre, 4 stories |
| Zoning path | Standard height | Conditional use permit with community space and workforce housing conditions |
The team's own wording sets the condition for Option 04. The CUP framework "remains a viable path for the site, provided that the resulting massing, setbacks, community space, and relationship to the historic McIntyre Building can be resolved" in a way the commission finds appropriate. In June, the team estimated 30,000 to 40,000 square feet of open space, which the documents described as 35% to 50% of the site. The staff report puts the parcel at 2.16 acres, and against that area 40,000 square feet comes to about 43%. The CUP route's 50% floor would mean roughly 47,000 square feet of improved community space, more than the high end of the June estimate.
The October deck opens with a "What We Heard" page summarizing commissioners' comments from the first two sessions. According to that summary, most commissioners supported the CUP approach, "particularly where additional development enables better public space, activated roofs and higher-quality architecture." Some also stressed that new construction should stay subordinate to the McIntyre. The other requests on that page:
The Portsmouth Herald reported that open and communal space came up repeatedly in the commission's first review on June 3.
The team's answer so far is a set of inspiration images, not a design. They include a classic brick plaza, sit-stairs connecting the plaza to an upper level, interactive art and sculpture, and storefronts with plaza seating. The deck says the shapes of the buildings, their "pushes and pulls," will determine how sunlight reaches the space and which areas can hold activities and artwork. Height and plaza are linked physically as well as legally. Every foot a building gains or steps back changes the shade on the square below.
The ways into the block are still being studied. One candidate is a passage at the Ceres Street corner, which would give a direct sight line into the plaza from Bow Street, but the team lists limited retail visibility and a difficult ADA entry as drawbacks. A third option, a passage on Penhallow Street, could be branded for retail and serve as a "gateway to plaza," if its scale works.
The streetscape pages count 34 on-street parking spaces around the block today: 9 on Daniel Street, 4 on Bow Street and 12 on Penhallow Street, plus 9 spaces and 2 loading zones on the opposite side of Penhallow. The same diagram shows city sidewalks as narrow as 18 inches. The proposed improvements would reduce street parking, extend crossing curbs and widen sidewalks for ADA access. Most parking would move underground. Site sections show two levels of parking beneath the buildings, and the plans call for more than 300 below-grade spaces.
Moving cars below grade and off the curb is what lets wider sidewalks and a ground-level plaza fit on the same 2.16 acres. The June filing estimated 340 parking spaces and about 30,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
Every option keeps the McIntyre itself. The city's staff report lists the structure as built around 1967, in the Modern style, with a historic survey rating of "Not Contributing." Its protection comes from the terms of the federal sale, not from that rating. As a condition of the sale, the GSA required a Historic Preservation Easement that gives the New Hampshire State Historic Preservation Officer specified rights over the building's character-defining features.
The one-story former post office wing is handled differently. The applicant's chief structural engineer concluded that its footings and foundation cannot support new levels, and the city reached a similar finding in 2022. According to the filing, SHPO agreed to modify the easement and required specific mitigation measures, with preservation work focused on the main McIntyre Building. The square footage that wing occupies today is part of the open space any plan has to arrange.
On style, DiLorenzo told the Portsmouth Herald that his team used AI modeling to show options "ranging from classical and traditional to transitional and contemporary," and that his "preference remains a more traditional architectural approach." The submission says the hotel and residential buildings now share a fixed set of components: "a lower/commercial floor, 2-3 levels of living/hotel and a mansard/flat-penthouse roof."
Several numbers are still blank. The June package listed "residential units" and "hotel rooms" among the estimated benefits without giving counts. The Herald's October report says the plans could include two hotels. No tenants have been named. Without a unit count, nobody can yet calculate how many homes the workforce housing condition would produce if the CUP route is chosen, because the percentage applies only to the homes actually proposed.
The project's own estimates include about $1.8 million a year in tax revenue and 350 to 500 construction jobs. According to city records cited by the Herald, the site was most recently appraised at just over $12.7 million. The city's staff report states plainly that the project "will need future Public Hearing and other additional land use approvals."
The applicant's six-month concept timeline, which the deck itself calls a "guesstimate," lays out the remaining steps:
The October 14 staff report and deck are posted on the city's agenda site. They're the clearest view yet of where Option 03 and Option 04 differ, and the November and December sessions are when the plaza is scheduled to get its detailed elevations.
Downtown projects like Linden Square shape how the blocks around Market Square look and feel, and that shapes how buyers see the homes nearby. If you'd like to talk through what changes on the McIntyre block could mean for a downtown Portsmouth property you own or are considering, Caren Logan Luxury Homes is glad to help. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
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