Hole in the Capitol Shopping Center parking lot is the start of stand-alone expansion

That big hole in the parking lot of the Capitol Shopping Center on Storrs Street is the start of the first major change to the site in decades.

Brixmor Property Group, owner of the half-century-old plaza, has presented proposals to build a casual restaurant, a Starbucks with a drive-thru and 6,000 square feet of retail space in the parking area. Work has begun on the foundation.

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

Capitol Shopping Center was built in the early 1960s. It replaced the Concord Railroad Depot, a handsome brick building that had fallen into disrepair after passenger rail 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.

In past discussions with the city, Brixmore has said long-term leases with some current tenants complicate  major changes to the structure until 2035. This constraint led city planners to support a zoning change allowing drive-through business on the site as “an effective phased approach to reaching the long-term economic development and density goals of the city.”

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