All updates from the month of July 2004 are listed below.

Updates for July 31, 2004
Written by Justin on July 31, 2004 at 11:11AM

A very important Natick Mall update, Sherwood Plaza news and more!

• The town of Framingham has announced that they will appeal the Natick Mall approval due to traffic concerns. In an article today from the MetroWest Daily News, the town is unsatisfied with the mall's cooperation with town officials to fix and upgrade intersections that will be affected by the Natick Mall expansion. Because of this, the mall will not be demolished in early August as planned, possibly as early as August 10th. The mall has offered Framingham $5,000-$10,000 to perform a traffic study. Additionally, Wayland may be getting $25,000 to fix an intersection. This is all in contrast to the $4 million that Natick will be getting for similar roadwork, along with significantly larger property tax revenues than the current facility. Due to this, the mall construction will be at least temporarily halted. F/NR will bring you more updates as news breaks.
• At least there's good news for Natick, as large changes are planned for Sherwood Plaza. First off, the vacant Decathlon USA and the Starbucks coffee shop will be demolished and replaced with a new 2-floored, 68,000 sq. ft Dick's Sporting Goods with a new adjacent Starbucks Coffee. Dick's representative is expecting that if approval and construction proceed on target, the store (and new coffee shop) will open in mid-2005.
• But there's more. In addition to Dick's Sporting Goods, a tenant (or two, actually) have been found for the vacant Zany Brainy. A new Famous Footwear store, along with The Children's Place, which is relocating from the Natick Mall, will fill this spot in the Plaza. The new stores will remodel their respective fascades to match the new look, the best example of which is the Avenue store. The two new stores plan to open in the fall

This news should provide for an interesting next few weeks. Also, to 'Dale', I tried to respond to your email but the address, apparently, does not exist. Otherwise, send me your local retail news at the feedback link on the side of the page, and enjoy your week.

Updates for July 10, 2004
Written by Justin on July 10, 2004 at 12:31AM

Breaking news on Natick Mall 2, with a Lowe's update!

• The Natick Mall expansion has been approved! Reportedly the Natick Planning Board debated until 1AM but finally approved the plans for the mall. Demolition of the Wonder Bread factory is scheduled for early August 2004 with an opening in late fall 2006. The board will soon study the proposal for the 250 condo units. This portion of the project is yet to be approved.
• Regarding Lowe's, the meeting was broadcast on Government Access Television. The store apparently will not follow the #116 template that is used for most stores, and will instead match the adjacent Target store to an extent. The store, however, will not utilize the adjacent post office that was first predicted by F/NR, and will include the rooftop parking area as Lowe's first suggested. However, the proposal was clearly shot down by the planning board as well as local residents in attendance. Planning Board members cited that they enjoyed the strip of green space in front of the store, which appears to be something that they will need to incorporate into the project. The next meeting is scheduled for July 20th, and it appears that there will be many additional meetings in the future before the project is approved.

Yay about the mall! As always, if you have any additional comments please send them to me using the feedback link on the side of the page.

Updates for July 2, 2004
Written by Justin on July 2, 2004 at 10:04PM

New news regarding the second anchor of the Natick Mall, plus a possible change in mail brought about by Lowe's?

• On July 1st, GGP announced that the second anchor of the planned Natick Mall 2 will be Neiman Marcus, as predicted by FN/R. Construction was nearly approved at this week's Natick Mall public hearing, but problems landscaping and traffic planning held up the approval. However, there may be good news next week about this.
• A possible expansion to the Natick Promenade is being considered. Developer Bill Baker of Baker Partners wants to acquire the LensCrafters building and have it converted into a restaurant. Plans have supposedly been filed with the planning board of Natick. The Natick Promenade is the replacement for Loews Theaters, consisting of a La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery and a Circuit City, both currently under construction.
• Finally, there is new news regarding the proposed Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse for Cochituate Road in Framingham. According to a local mailperson, Lowe's is planning to acquire the post office, replacing it with two new large post offices for North and South Framingham. Therefore, Lowe's would be able to construct a store that is in total about 150,000 sq. ft. as the confines of the Verizon building would allow for only a 100,000 sq. ft. store.

That's it. If you have any comments please e-mail them to me using the feedback link on the side of the page. Thanks!

By the way, I am rewriting many of the site histories so please check them out. Also, the Neiman Marcus press release has been encoded into the latest format, as will be done with all the rest. Enjoy!