The long-awaited shopping center at Exit 17 in Penacook is already open if your Tesla electric car is running low – but road construction complicated by supply-chain problems makes it unclear exactly when the anchor Market Basket store can open its doors.
Market Basket has started advertising for job openings at the Exit 17 location, leading some to speculate that it would open soon, although the schedule has always been that it would not open until the fall of this year. Work continues on the supermarket and adjoining Home Goods store, but the city-overseen construction on Hoit and Whitney Roads, especially the two-lane roundabout at the intersection, complicates the schedule.
Concord will begin the latest phase of construction at the intersection of Hoit , also known as State Route 4, and Whitney as soon as the ground dries out, said Martha Drukker, associate engineer with Concord’s Division of Community Development. Work is largely completed on the smaller roundabout that allows traffic to turn off Whitney Road into the development, known as Merchants Way.
Also completed is a 12-connection Tesla Supercharger station on the grounds, said Laurie Rauseo, developer for Concord Crossing II. It has already begun charging cars.
Completion is nearing on a stand-alone state liquor state and is beginning on a stand-alone Wendy’s. Both can open when they are ready.
On Wednesday, the developers went before the Concord Planning Board to discuss a 6,700-square-foot standalone building that will hold a Jersey Mike’s sub shop, a bank, and a third tenant yet to be announced, Rauseo said.
The big complication for the Market Basket, which will probably draw a bulk of the center’s traffic, is that the state Department of Transportation, which owns the right-of-way for Hoit Road, doesn’t want it to open until the roundabout is completely finished, said Drukker.
The roundabout can’t be finished with paint and striping until overhead signs are installed at the nearby off-ramps connecting to Exit 17 of Interstate 93, alerting drivers that they’re about to enter a two-lane roundabout. But there’s a backlog of up to two years on steel supplies due to pandemic-fueled problems with the global supply chain, said Drukker. As a result, final paint and striping for the roundabout may not happen until 2023 or later.
This doesn’t necessarily mean Market Basket has to wait another year or two. “We are working with the state for an interim measure, looking at having a single-lane roundabout operate in the interim until overhead signs come in,” she said.
The final design will have two lanes on the Hoit Road roundabout, allowing through traffic in one lane as well as traffic turning into Whitney Road in another. A single-lane roundabout would allow both types of traffic to flow but would be able to handle fewer vehicles at a time.
Drukker said construction of the intersection this year will never halt through traffic, although it might slow it down at times.
While building roads without blocking traffic is common, it is complicated here by the Wheelabrator trash-to-energy plant, which gets multiple deliveries of waste from large trucks on most days.
“We have a very high volume of tractor-trailers. We need to accommodate their turning movements up and down Whitney Road,” Drukker said. “They need that wide turning radius and that makes it a little tricky in how we phase the reconstruction of the road.”
(David Brooks can be reached at (603) 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
