Valley News Business Writer
Published: 8/9/2017 2:43:57 PM
Modified: 8/10/2017 1:16:48 AM
West Lebanon — The company that oversees the Upper Valley Plaza plans to subdivide the long-dormant Shaw’s supermarket building to hold four tenants, including PetSmart and HomeGoods stores.
WS Development, based in Chestnut Hill, Mass., has filed an application permit with the Lebanon Planning Department to renovate about 61,000 square feet in the building, which Shaw’s vacated in 2013. The supermarket chain has another store along Route 12A just north of Interstate 89 in West Lebanon.
The application says the $1.9 million renovation would divide the building into four retail spaces that would include a PetSmart, HomeGoods, “possibly” a Verizon Wireless vendor, and a fourth tenant to be named later.
At the same time, WS Development has scrapped plans it filed last summer to build a new $1.7-million, 18,225-square-foot store for PetSmart adjacent to the JCPenney store in the same plaza. Leann Cushman, an administrator in Lebanon’s Planning & Development office, said a representative from the company contacted the office in October to cancel the plan.
Word that HomeGoods, a discount home furnishing store chain operated by the same company that owns retailer T.J. Maxx, was eying the Shaw’s space in Upper Valley Plaza began circulating in January.
At that time, a spokeswoman for HomeGoods said the company had not yet announced any plans to open a store in West Lebanon. She did not immediately respond to an inquiry on Wednesday.
The plans for the former Shaw’s market would mark the second major retail project along Route 12A this year.
Alrig USA, a Michigan-based commercial real estate developer, is building a new 6,000-square-foot building on the site of the former Pizza Hut between Burger King and Denny’s in which the anchor tenants will be a Starbucks and Aspen Dental.
The developer already had listed the project for sale with an asking price of $4.2 million.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.