Momentum with a more measured pace - by Michael Harrington

After nearly four decades working in Southern New Hampshire commercial real estate, I’ve learned that our market rarely moves in straight lines. We correct, digest, and then quietly reset before the next wave of activity arrives. That was the story heading into 2025 and it remains the story as we look ahead to the balance of 2026. The difference this year is that the “reset” phase is starting to give way to a more deliberate, but still very real, growth cycle.

In short: demand has broadened, capital is more selective, and the projects moving forward now tend to be the ones with genuine longterm fundamentals, location, scale, and a clear demand story behind them.

On the industrial side, the frenzy of the post-COVID, last-mile era has cooled to something more sustainable. Users are no longer grabbing every 75,000–100,000 s/f box they can find within a halfhour of Boston; instead, they are rightsizing, consolidating, and focusing on buildings that actually fit their operations. Vacancy has drifted up from the historic lows of 2% into a healthier range, but well-located, functional warehouse and manufacturing product in Southern NH remains tight enough to support stable rents and selective new development.

At the same time, Greater Boston continues to wrestle with a shortage of large, modern blocks and the reality of high construction and operating costs. That tension keeps Southern New Hampshire in the conversation for serious industrial and R&D users who want proximity to the Massachusetts labor and customer base, but prefer a New Hampshire tax address and a more attainable cost structure. That theme will not change in 2026.

What has changed is the character and scale of our mixeduse and lifestyle developments. A decade ago, the notion that Southern New Hampshire would host true, largescale mixed-use destinations would have sounded ambitious. Today, it defines a big piece of the story.

Tuscan Village in Salem continues to be the clearest example. What began as an ambitious redevelopment of the former Rockingham Park site has matured into a bona fide regional node, drawing retail, restaurant, residential, hospitality, and medical users who would once have defaulted to Massachusetts. In 2026, we should expect that momentum to continue but with a shift toward more service, medical, and officelite uses that support the growing onsite residential population. For tenants, Tuscan has become less of an experiment and more of a proven address.

Up I-93, Woodmont Commons in Londonderry is now firmly in the “execution” phase. The early residential and retail pieces have set the table; what 2026 will likely bring is continued layering of everyday services, small office and medical users, and additional multifamily. Woodmont’s strength is its ability to absorb a wide range of use, industrial and warehouse on one end of the site, walkable mixeduse on the other without trying to force everything into a single template. In a market where true, large-scale, master-planned sites are scarce, that flexibility has real value.

Perhaps the most noteworthy new entry in the pipeline is another Londonderry project: The Village on Technology Hill. Breaking ground in 2026, this 110-acre mixed-use development is designed from the outset to balance where people work with where they live and the services they need. The current program includes 439 apartments, a mix of industrial and R&D space, a childcare center, and service-oriented retail.

For Southern New Hampshire, a project like The Village on Technology Hill is important for two reasons. First, it adds meaningful, modern housing supply in a corridor that has struggled to keep up with demand from both local workers and inmigrants from Massachusetts. Second, it creates a true employment-and-lifestyle node along a key transportation corridor, with industrial and R&D space that can appeal to growth-oriented regional users. It is exactly the kind of integrated environment that many employers now want when they think about talent, retention, and quality of life.

Office remains the most challenged asset class, but the story in Southern NH is more nuanced than the national headlines. Traditional, commodity office space particularly older suburban product without amenities will continue to struggle. However, smaller, highquality spaces embedded in mixed-use settings, medical office, and specialty flex/R&D will fare better. Landlords who reinvest in their assets upgrading systems, improving common areas, and adding modest amenity packages are finding that there is still a tenant for well-priced, well-located space.

Southern New Hampshire is not a boom-or-bust story for 2026. It is a market that has absorbed a turbulent few years and is now leaning into projects and users with staying power. From major destinations like Tuscan Village and Woodmont Commons to the next generation at The Village on Technology Hill, the common thread is long-term functionality.

For occupiers and investors who value that combination — practical space, strategic locations, and a tax and cost structure that still makes sense — Southern New Hampshire should remain firmly on the radar this year and beyond.

Michael Harrington, CRE, CCIM, RPA, is a principal of Harrington & Company, Manchester, N.H.