Image | Courtesy of Framingham Planning Board
Urban Edge Properties is pitching a zoning change for Shopper's World which would allow for redevelopment which would include residential uses.
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Shopper’s World owners pitch zoning change to allow for 224 residences
Image | Courtesy of Google Maps
Shoppers World on the border of Framingham and Natick
Urban Edge Properties, the New York-based firm which purchased the Shopper’s World retail complex in Framingham for $187.1 million in 2023, has pitched potential zoning changes to allow it to construct multi-family residential units at the site.
Representatives from the organization appeared before the City of Framingham Planning Board on May 1 to pitch a potential redevelopment of the shopping plaza, which would add residential buildings and make the area more walkable. The project would require rezoning at the site to allow for residential uses.
The potential redevelopment opportunity at the site outlined by Urban Edge at the May 1 meeting was a 224-unit mixed-use site at the current location of a Kohl’s. The proposal would include a number of retail buildings totalling about 90,000 square feet, centered by a walkable street with green space. A grocer is one suggested retail use for the site.
Representatives from the project said rezoning would allow what was one of the country’s first shopping plazas to evolve into a modern live-work-play environment.
“When we think back on the original Shopper’s World, it had so much character,” Dave Snell, principal of PCA, a Cambridge-based architectural firm working with Urban Edge on this project, said during the meeting. “That central place and places of gathering. Through a long renovation process, we could bring the spirit of that back.”
It would be ideal for the discussions to advance to the point where a site plan approval could be issued in about 12 months, Jeff Mooallem, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Urban Edge Properties, said in the meeting.
Mooallem said the proposal was inspired by conversations stemming from the Golden Triangle Planning Study, a 2018 joint effort between the municipal governments of Framingham and Natick to explore how to modernize the area’s zoning and bring more economic activity to the area.
Katherine Garrahan of Worcester-based law firm Bowditch & Dewey is representing Urban Edge for this proposal.
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
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