Developer Sal Lupoli bought a historic venue in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire 11 years ago. Now, he’s almost ready to reveal redevelopment plans that could add new dimensions to what’s largely a summer destination. iStock photo

Developer Sal Lupoli is eyeing a major $400 million to $600 million redevelopment of a landmark New Hampshire beachfront complex into a mixed-use, year-round destination with a boutique hotel, restaurants, convention and special events space, housing, a parking garage and more.

No official plan has been filed yet with the town of Hampton, on New Hampshire’s small slice of Atlantic coastline, but Lupoli said he can see submitting a formal proposal within a few months, ideally, after he gets more input from local town officials, residents and business owners.

“We’ve been doing a lot of [talking] with people up and down the strip and some of the people that live in Hampton,” said Lupoli, who bought the historic Hampton Beach Casino 11 years ago. “We’re trying to understand what can go there that’s the best for everybody.”

A Hot Spot Ready for Change?

Hampton Beach has long been one of New England’s bustling summer tourist hot spots alongside Provincetown and Maine’s Old Orchard Beach.

Fried dough stands, motels, bars, restaurants and vacation condominium blocks crowd the 1.5-mile Ocean Boulevard, anchored by the Victorian-era Hampton Beach Casino and its beachfront Seashell Pavilion music venue across the street. In the hot months, the quarter-mile-wide sandbar community is packed elbow-to-elbow with vacationers and day-trippers – some of them boisterous.

But like many beach towns, much of that activity dries up once cold winds start to blow off the Atlantic. Lupoli sees both an opportunity and a need for Hampton Beach to become more of a year-round destination point for visitors, including winter tourists and business travelers.

While emphasizing he’s open to redevelopment ideas from other Hampton Beach stakeholders, Lupoli, who controls about 7.5 acres of prime property along the beach, made clear in a recent interview that it’s time to think big in terms of revitalizing an area that he believes has become a little rough around the edges of late.

“I’ve just been witnessing some challenges up at the beach since COVID,” said Lupoli, a well-known regional developer and founder of the Sal’s Pizza chain. “I think it’s been a strain on not only the police department but the town. It’s time to do something to change the direction of the beach, to try to move it more back to a family [-oriented] operation.”

Wedding and Convention Facility

Start with the Hampton Beach Casino – not a gambling establishment, despite its name, but a double-decker parade of restaurants, shops, arcades and events spaces that front on the ocean. Its ballroom can be more than just a concert hall, Lupoli said; it could also serve as a special events venue and small convention center.

“It has this beautiful concert [component],” he said. “But is there also an opportunity to take that same venue and increase the size of it and maybe do other things in that venue? Maybe a beautiful wedding facility?”

To support more year-round activities, Lupoli said a new “first-class hotel” is needed on the strip, in addition to the numerous motels already dotting the area. The hotel could serve business travelers as well as tourists, 24/7 through every season of the year.

“We want maybe a beautiful boutique hotel that has 200 to 250 rooms or so,” he said. “There’s not a lot of places [to stay] if you’re going to have a wedding there or corporate retreat in the wintertime.”

Lupoli, whose current Hampton Beach properties are leased out to a variety of restaurant and retail tenants, said he sees a future redeveloped casino complex containing a number of new eateries and shops.

“I’d love to have half a dozen restaurants that overlook the ocean that are open at Christmastime and New Year’s Eve, during the winter months and in the spring,” Lupoli said.

He said he could see visitors coming to Hampton Beach in the winter, spending days in the mountains and returning in the evening to a “beautiful hotel” with a “beautiful restaurant, beautiful spa, beautiful shops.”

Residential Components and Parking

Lupoli, who is considered one of largest commercial developers in Massachusetts, is known for converting old mills into attractive mixed-use developments with plenty of residential units, such as at the sprawling Riverwalk complex in Lawrence.

And he said he envisions hundreds of new housing units on his Hampton Beach site, either in the form of apartments, condominiums or both. He said some people he’s talked to have even suggested that some of the units be sold as time-share units, as part of an effort to get more seasonal visitors to the strip.

Meanwhile, parking along the beach has become a “big problem” for businesses and residents alike.

“You have people parking on the side of the road. You have people parking in people’s driveways,” Lupoli said. “I think there’s a lot of challenges with parking today. So maybe the idea is also to create a parking structure on the real estate that helps support some of that [new] stuff, as opposed to people parking all over the place. Maybe a central parking facility. I don’t know.”

Lupoli confirmed that he’s looking at a total development cost, spread over a number of years and project phases, in the vicinity of $400 million to $600 million, when all amenities are included, such as a casino-hall expansion, a new 200-plus-room hotel and hundreds of new residential units.

“The numbers add up quickly,” he said. “Construction costs today are at an all-time high.”

Town’s Reaction Pending

Of course, it’s all just a pipe dream if town officials, after consulting local residents and business owners, don’t approve a final plan.

Lupoli said he’s been getting constructive feedback from various people in Hampton, most of whom apparently like the idea of making the strip a more year-round destination place.

Jamie Sullivan, town manager in Hampton, said he couldn’t speak on behalf of town selectmen and Planning Board members.

But he said talks with Lupoli have been positive.

“What’s been discussed has been very, very exciting,” Sullivan said, noting that Lupoli has been invited to address the town’s planning board about the general redevelopment concepts.

He said parts of the beach area are “ripe for redevelopment,” particularly if final plans include mixed-use and year-round components.

Besides the idea of having small convention and meeting spaces along the beach, town officials might also be open to more companies locating their headquarters to the beach area, he said.

While not giving a specific timeline on when a formal plan might be submitted and when actual construction might start, Lupoli said it’s important to take discussions to a more serious level.

“We need to start having these conversations,” he said. “It’s important this starts to take place now.”