July 21–Add what many people think of as “the Five Guys plaza” to the list of sites changing amid a flurry of activity on Amherst Street in Nashua near Somerset Plaza, including a new hotel.
The 9,000-square-foot plaza at 341-345 Amherst St., officially called Red Fall Marketplace, as well as the 22,000-square-foot plaza behind it (Green Fall Marketplace), have been bought by Massachusetts developers.
They say the front plaza soon will be full for the first time in its five-year history, while the back plaza, which has never had a single tenant, should become more attractive with improved traffic flow due to redevelopment next door.
This adjacent redevelopment involves Nashua’s first branch of Service Credit Union, which will replace a now-demolished strip mall that held the Chen Yang Li restaurant, at 337 Amherst St. The Service Credit Union should open early next year, just east of the two marketplaces; the two developments will have connected parking areas so that traffic can visit both of them without having to venture back out onto heavily trafficked Amherst Street.
Slightly west of Red Fall Marketplace, Somerset Plaza recently saw a new, larger Market Basket open its doors to great fanfare. Details still are unclear about what will replace the former Market Basket store in that plaza.
And right behind Somerset Plaza, in the Trafalgar Square complex, plans are underway to build a four-story, 118-room hotel and free-standing restaurant. The restaurant will go before the city’s zoning board on Tuesday seeking a variance. If successful, the projects will then go before the city Planning Board.
“There’s a lot of activity around this site,” said Robert Raymond, who with partner Ben Coggins bought the two plazas at 341 Amherst St., on 2 1/2 acres, for $7.25 million. The two call themselves the Northampton Boys; they have leased 43,000 square feet of retail space in and around that central Massachusetts city. This is their first commercial real estate in this state.
“We’ve been trying to buy in New Hampshire for two years,” he said.
The Red Fall and Green Fall marketplaces, which share a parking lot, were built by Massachusetts developer Nick Hera in 2008, just as the recession clobbered the retail businesses nationwide. They have never recovered from that poorly timed start.
The back plaza, which is largely invisible to passing traffic on Route 101A, has been empty since. Nature’s Green Grocer, of Peterborough, planned to expand there in 2011, but that plan fell through.
The front plaza, best known for the Five Guys burger chain that became its first occupant in 2009, was empty for more than a year and still has some unfilled spaces.
But not for much longer, Raymond said. Two franchise restaurants — Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt and Firehouse Subs — will be moving in, he said.
“We’re signing two leases … that will have it fully occupied,” he said.
Raymond also was optimistic about Green Fall Marketplace, saying that they were talking with prospective tenants ranging from grocery to health club to professional offices.
“Hopefully, it will be tenanted by Christmas,” he said.
The hotel, proposed by a development group called Nashua TS Residence Inn, would be built on a site that had been cleared for an office building that was never built due to the recession.
It will create something of a hotel cluster, since it’s near the Crowne Plaza, Courtyard by Marriott and Extended Stay hotels.
David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua telegraph.com. Also, follow Brooks on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).
