Restaurateur Peter Nulan outlines $28 million First Street Farms venue to Littleton Arts & Culture Board ahead of June 2 council review

Peter Nulan, a restaurateur and developer, told the Littleton Arts & Culture Board on Wednesday that his First Street Farms project is designed as a restaurant, event venue and public-facing park that he said would both showcase local artists and draw out-of-market visitors.

Nulan told the board the development would sit on about 4.5 acres in the River Park area, include a roughly 28,000-square-foot, U-shaped building facing west, and provide multiple event spaces, a large patio and an adjoining publicly accessible park. "This is a $28 million restaurant," Nulan said. "If this doesn't get built on June 2nd it doesn't go." (Peter Nulan)

The project, which Nulan said grew from his hospitality and community programming work, includes plans for local artwork throughout the venue, community-farming education on the south parcel and a flexible events program. Nulan said the developer will reserve a number of nonprofit and city uses: an initial agreement referenced about 12 free nonprofit/city events per year plus additional community activations for the event field.

Board members pressed presenters on capacity, use and equity. Nulan described the main event barn as 250 seats seated (with configurations and standing-room options that could expand total capacity well above that) and said the venue is being underwritten with weddings and destination events in mind: "My underwriting is like 70 weddings a year right now," he said. He also estimated a high share of dining dollars would come from outside the Littleton market and argued the venue would attract tourism dollars and ancillary investment in hotels and other projects.

Officials and board members asked for fiscal details. A city report cited in the discussion put an estimated lodging-tax payoff in a spillover scenario at roughly $250,000–$500,000 annually; presenters said fuller fiscal and economic-impact materials would be presented to City Council at the June 2 hearing.

Nulan described the financing challenge candidly: the project's scale, the high build costs and the long payback period make private underwriting difficult, he said, and the developer has requested a modest package of incentives and/or a tax rebate from Littleton to make the project investable. He said the developer has been negotiating with the city for multiple years and that city support is a condition for proceeding to construction and investor commitments.

The Arts & Culture Board treated the presentation as informational and did not take a formal position during the meeting. Several members signaled support for the cultural aspects of the proposal while also requesting more detail on projected revenues, lodging-tax estimates, the proposed community-benefit agreement and how city or nonprofit access would work on peak dates such as Friday or Saturday wedding nights.

The board was told the City Council will consider the incentive request at its June 2 meeting and that more detailed financial analyses will accompany that agenda item. The presentation closed with the developers reiterating their intention to create a long-term, artist-forward venue with public programming tied to the park and event field.