A crowd of more than 200 people turned out in Manchester Thursday night to hear state officials and Mayor Jay Ruais discuss the state's plan to sell the former Youth Development Center, which includes 150-acres of real estate in the city’s north end.

“Nothing should go into that place without having a conversation with you,” Ruais stressed as the two-hour meeting got underway.

The property along River Road has a long — and decidedly mixed — history. Once farmland owned by Revolutionary War General John Stark, and now the site of the 144-bed Sununu Youth Services Center, the property has for more than 150 years been the location of a facility that housed a range of young people: everything from truants to the state's most violent juvenile offenders.

It’s also the site where thousands of

See Full Page