NORTH ANDOVER — Dirt, stone and steel are on the move and site redevelopment underway at the North Andover Mall.
Route 114 travelers and mall shoppers have a diorama-like view of construction unfolding each weekday — a fitting sight where generations ago a drive-in theater stood.
Now the setting stirs with excavators, backhoes, front-end loaders, dump trucks, graders and the vehicles of shoppers.
Here is mounded dirt, stone and gravel. Also rebar and stakes and plastic wrap.
Now showing is the iron framework of a former Kohl’s and previous stores. A yawning gap sits below in the strip mall’s mid-section.
The horizontal beam above bears the name General Iron in white paint, the steel fabricated in Lawrence generations ago at General Iron and Steel Works, formerly on Methuen Street.
Prep work for the Market Basket relocation started in late spring.
The new 91,000-square-foot supermarket and its Market Cafe and specialty departments still target 2025, late spring, early summer, for opening in the former Kohl’s store location.
Kohl’s, by the way, and smaller stores are slated to move to the current Market Basket space at the mall’s north end after the supermarket’s relocation.
The mall project also includes redesigned traffic patterns, reconfigured parking, and additional sidewalks, green space and drainage.
Early activity
Early project activity included stripping the facade from the former Kohl’s store and demolition and excavation within the building space to make room for the new larger Market Basket and its HVAC, water and drain and electrical infrastructure.
Other work has included removing and recycling pavement to establish a base in two parking lot locations.
They cover a portion of the lot in front of the existing Market Basket and a middle section in front of where the new Market Basket will be located.
The parking lot recycling and repaving, called reclaiming in construction lingo, is said to be a less expensive and more ecologically sound process.
It’s being phased over the course of the project, to minimize disruptions to businesses at the mall.
Business owners hope construction does not interfere with holiday shopping, critical to their bottom line.
Additionally, construction has included removing a strip of pavement and creating new green space — an acre — bordering the grass swale that runs the length of the parking lot parallel to Route 114, aka Winthrop Avenue.
Dealing with drainage
Other work has included digging two detention ponds to collect and treat stormwater.
Also installation of staging areas, and, within them, storing materials — water and drain pipes, rebar, stone, dirt, erosion control materials and such — to support the project’s future construction.
To minimize erosion, crews have installed silt fencing along the swale as well as long, tubular straw-wattles, an absorbent material, in places.
A serious concern comes from pedestrians who arrive at one end of the mall on foot or are dropped off there at a bus stop.
To get to stores on the mall’s opposite end, they have to trek around the fenced mid-section, which blocks the mall sidewalk where construction is taking place and extends 50 yards into the parking lot from front to back.
At times pedestrians walk alongside zipping motorists, churning heavy equipment and big buses.
On the bus route
MeVa buses serve the mall daily. Weekdays more than 100 buses on four routes come here, bringing some 1,000 shoppers and workers and riders to two stops, at either end of the mall, says MeVa administrator Noah Berger.
A regular rider waiting for a MeVa transit bus on Thursday afternoon at the mall’s north end said people who walk around the fenced area risk being struck by a vehicle, some of which travel at high speeds.
On Thursday a large electronic message board posted inside the mall’s south entrance read: “USE CAUTION ACTIVE WORK ZONE.”
A hand-painted plywood sign at the curve leading behind the mall where some workers park and delivery vehicles travel read: “SLOW DOWN.” (5 m.p.h.).
Kate Keisling, owner of the Purple Couch bookshop, at the mall’s south end, said workers there would walk to Market Basket to get lunch but now their route is blocked.
Bookseller Olivia Renzi of North Andover, who walks to work, says it takes too long and is too dangerous walking along the narrow, two-lane road at the periphery of the parking lot to get to Market Basket and back to work.
North Andover Town Planner Jean Enright said she will bring pedestrian safety concerns to the mall project engineer to seek a solution.
Happy with changes
Keisling said she is happy with her location and the mall’s ownership — the Demoulas Company — and looks forward to the new Market Basket, and its cafe, where readers might head with a book or conversely, coffee drinkers might head to the bookstore and browse.
Next door at Londi’s Roast Beef & Pizza, owner Akash Saini has contended with occasional hardship due to the construction.
Londi’s Internet connection was knocked out at lunch on a Friday in mid-August and it remained down for the day, eliminating on-line orders as well as credit and debit payment in person.
The following day a surge knocked out electricity and power to the walk-in freezer, causing lost product, repairs and lost business.
Most recently, a week ago, a water line problem shut down the business for the day.
A few people worried about flooding in a section by the grassy swale — about halfway along its length.
There are also concerns about flooding and freezing water in the winter months, making conditions slippery for motorists and walkers.
Opening next spring
The strip mall, which occupies 12 of the site’s 41 acres, was built in 1968 and has room for 14 commercial units.
Market Basket shoppers returning to their cars with groceries Thursday had no complaints about the construction.
“It hasn’t changed the way I feel about shopping here,” said Sofia White of Andover, a regular Market Basket shopper. “Not a bit.”
The upgrades to Market Basket make no difference to her.
Others look forward to a bigger supermarket with more amenities, a more walkable mall and better outdoor lighting.
The parking lot will be reduced by 102 parking spaces, going from 1,011 to 909.
The redevelopment work continues in a public way, giving onlookers a daily view of the latest progress.
Market Basket representatives have said there will be no interruption of shopping at the supermarket.
The old location will close one night and the new location will open the next morning.
The opening is expected around the time the Class of ‘25 graduates and school closes for summer.
A dime-store tour of a mall redevelopment in progress.
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