The massive Burlington store at Capital Shopping Center is set to be converted into four smaller stores under the latest proposal to redevelop the sixty-year-old Storrs Street mall.
“We’ve known for five years that Burlington … wanted to downsize. We worked with them … but we couldn’t do that until we had a viable plan for the rest. Now we have a plan,” said Marc Newman, vice president of Brixmor Capitol, which owns the mall.
Under a proposal Newman presented to the Concord Zoning Board on Wednesday, the 7,000-square-foot Burlington store, formerly the Burlington Coat Factory, would be downsized to 2,100 square feet, making room for three other retail stores. “We don’t believe the space is viable as a 7,000-square-foot store anymore,” Newman said.
The specific tenants were not named, but would sell goods and not services, he said.
Burlington is currently revamping its nationwide footprint. The company is downsizing most of its existing stores across the country while opening new stores with smaller footprints.
The city’s planning board on Wednesday unanimously approved several exceptions that allow more signs and fewer parking spaces. One exception that would allow a sign that would extend beyond the building’s flat roof was rejected due to concerns it would set a precedent.
Under the proposal presented Wednesday, 23,000 square feet of space would be available at the rear of the building, facing I-93. Newman said that space would be difficult to sell because it is not highly visible from the Storrs Street parking lot. A gym was supposed to lease the space but backed out, and no tenant has signed on at this time, he said.
Much of the discussion Wednesday centered on the size and location of the signs, as the existing signs for Burlington will be replaced with up to five different signs for the other businesses at the front and five at the back of the building. Additional signs will be placed on each side of the building to attract people to the businesses at the back.
The proposal calls for a small, 3,000-square-foot addition to the rear of the building to create a loading dock for the business and would eliminate some parking spaces behind and adjacent to the mall, including potentially some that are leased to the New Hampshire Chamber of Commerce.
“This is an evolution. We’ve looked at a lot of things and we think this is the best thing we can do,” Newman said. “It’s like a lot of malls in other parts of the country – they have big parking lots that aren’t being used properly, and frankly, that’s not the direction they’re going in these days.”
The Capitol Shopping Center was built in the early 1960s. It replaced the Concord Railroad Depot, a massive brick building that fell into disrepair after passenger rail service to the city was discontinued.
The first expansion in decades occurred two years ago, when a standalone Starbucks store and a small restaurant and retail building were built.
Concord’s long-term hopes for the area, called the Opportunity Corridor Performance District, are a mix of multi-story retail, service and residential buildings that would be more pedestrian-friendly and less dependent on cars.
