The state’s business climate didn’t entirely get back to normal in 2023, but it shook off most of the pandemic blues, with several large commercial developments opening in Concord after years of discussion.

One of the biggest changes occurred downtown with the arrival of a new retail plaza on Storrs Street, filling part of the enormous parking lot of the Capitol Shopping Center.

Brixmor, owner of the shopping center, first announced the plans in 2020 before lockdowns and supply-chain snafus got in the way. The new plaza, anchored by 110 Grill restaurant and featuring a Playa Bowls restaurant, a Starbucks with a drive-thru and competing telecom companies (Xfinity and T-Mobile), opened in the fall, marking the biggest change to the shopping center in decades.

Capitol Shopping Center opened in 1962, replacing an elegant but dilapidated Boston & Maine railroad terminal that had been increasingly underused after passenger trains stopped coming to Concord in the 1950s.

The city’s long-term vision for the Storrs Street area includes more apartments and a wider mix of businesses.

In Penacook, a large retail plaza that has been on the table for years finally came to fruition in 2022, with a second wave of stores opening this year. The first phase of Merchant’s Way in Penacook near Exit 17 of Interstate 93, included a state liquor store, Market Basket supermarket, Home Goods and Wendy’s, built behind the existing Mobil gas station. A Service Credit Union and Jersey Mike’s Subs opened in 2023. An urgent care facility is also in the works.

The year also saw the return of a local business that hadn’t been inside city limits since the 1960s.

This fall Grappone Mazda opened its shiny new $18 million dealership, part of what Mazda calls Retail Evolution, a program to boost the brand’s image accompanied by the rollout of higher-end car models. It moved from space in Bow it had shared with the Grappone Ford Dealership for more than 50 years.

The Grappone Group was started by Rocco and Emmanuella Grappone, immigrants from Italy, who bought a gas station across the street from what is now Boutwell’s Bowling Center and in 1925 opened an Oldsmobile franchise. The franchise moved to Bow in the late 1960s.

Finally, one much-loved and much-moved retail operation moved yet again.

Strings and Things Music, whose owners say has moved seven times since it opened in 1982, left its South Main Street home after the building was sold and shifted into a refurbished former Citizens Bank on Village Street in Penacook.

It continues to sell musical equipment and books for all levels of musicians as well as offer music lessons to children and adults and do repairs on guitars and other instruments.