Storrs Street center construction ongoing

A mist rises as a paving worker spreads out the asphalt in the Storrs Street parking lot where new stores are being built during a snowstorm late last month. Construction is expected to wrap up next month, although stores aren’t likely to open until sometime this summer. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff
A mist rises as the paving worker spreads out the asphalt in the Storrs Street parking lot where new stores are being built during a snowstorm late last month. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff
A mist rises as a paving worker packs down the asphalt in the Storrs Street parking lot where new stores are being built during a snowstorm late last month. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Monitor staff

Published: 1/29/2023 4:15:33 PM

Construction on the Capitol Shopping Center is expected to be complete by the end February despite delays caused by permitting and supply chain disruptions.

However, the shopping center won’t see any formal openings until the summer, city officials said.

“We did encounter supply chain issues, but the construction team had planned ahead to minimize the disruptions,” said Brixmor Property Group spokesperson Maria Pace. “The buildings are completed, and tenants are working on their store build-outs.”

The construction of sidewalks, outdoor patio spaces and green spaces, ramps and railing and additional features are underway, she continued, and landscaping will begin in the spring once the snow thaws.

Brixmor, owner of the half-century-old plaza on Storrs Street that includes the downtown Market Basket, first presented plans to the city in 2020 to add a 110 Grill restaurant and a Playa Bowls, a Starbucks with a drive-thru, an Xfinity store and 6,000 square feet of additional retail space and apartment buildings to the plaza, which hasn’t seen any changes in decades.

Developers broke ground in a portion of the plaza’s parking lot that was not being used for parking in July, but even with the removal of those spaces, the lot is still expected to have ample parking for shoppers and residents.

According to earlier proposals from Brixmor, the standalone structures will face onto Storrs Street opposite the Pleasant Street Extension. They will be separate from the plaza, a first for the site.

The shopping center was built in the early 1960s to replace the Concord Railroad Depot, a handsome brick building that had fallen into disrepair after passenger rail traffic stopped coming to the city.

Concord’s long-term hopes for the area, called the Opportunity Corridor Performance district, is for a mix of multi-story retail, service and housing that would be more pedestrian-friendly and less dependent on cars.

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Jamie Costa joined the Monitor in September 2022 as the city reporter covering all things Concord, from crime and law enforcement to City Council and county budgeting. She graduated from Roger Williams University (RWU) in 2018 with a dual degree in journalism and Spanish. While at RWU, Costa covered the 2016 presidential election and studied abroad in both Chile and the Dominican Republic where she reported on social justice and reported on local campus news for the university newspaper, The Hawks' Herald. Her work has also appeared in The *Enterprise *papers and the *Cortland Standard *and surrounding Central New York publications. Costa was born and raised on Cape Cod and has a love for all things outdoors, especially with her dog.