‘Big White Whale’: Businesses, Officials Lament Stalled Steeplegate Plans

Cody Whitwood thinks the area around the former Steeplegate Mall has the potential to really be something again.

As the general manager at Stove Barn, whose red walls and gambrel roof look out over the former mall from across Loudon Road, he sees his store as proof of concept.

Taking over last June, Whitwood and new owner John Ceaser put in some elbow grease. A full interior renovation of the store is nearly complete with stockings hung over a garland-dressed fireplace and “The Santa Clause 2” queued on the television on their showroom floor. They plan to expand into the former mattress store at the front of their lot.

The developer’s plan for 625 apartments, a Whole Foods and a Costco at the former mall was a revitalization proposal that city leaders had hoped would deliver needed housing options and economic growth to the city. Many local businesses looked forward to the energy – and foot traffic – such a project could bring.

Those plans have faded now that the entire mall property is up for lease as retail or office space. The nearby movie theater, hoped to be a Whole Foods, is up for sale or lease.

Local businesses and officials fear the deteriorating property will languish, leading to more crime and blight on the Heights.

A sign inside the Steeplegate Mall directs people looking for the Hatbox Theatre to go outside and turn left on Monday, February 14, 2022. Credit: GEOFF FORESTER

“I really, really wanted to get this project to a ‘yes,'” City Councilor Judith Kurtz said. “I really felt we were headed in that direction, then it just fell apart.”

Kurtz felt the city’s negotiations with the developer on some kind of city investment had promise. Finding an agreement that would help the project, while not giving the developer everything they sought, was tricky but possible.

“The last I was told was that ‘this is it,” she relayed. “This is over.'”

From the housing opportunities to the new anchor grocery stores, Kurtz felt the plans could have been a big “win” for Concord.

“It’s one of the last large parcels in the city where we could do something significant,” she said. “All of it. I wanted all of it.”

The lawsuit brought by JCPenney against the developers, challenging the demolition and renovation plans, remained a real sticking point. Councilors were told that, when the grocery store chains pulled out of the project, that’s when Onyx changed course, according to Kurtz.

“The JCPenney issue is significant in terms of making use of the property,” she said. “That will be an issue for any project there.”

The Hatbox Theatre had to cancel eight months of shows and sell off most of its equipment when its lease was terminated by Onyx in January 2024, said owner Andrew Pinard. It was an earlier termination than the organization had been told to expect. He doesn’t think they should have closed the mall to begin with.

With news circulating about spaces reopening, friends have been asking Pinard whether Hatbox might move back into its cozy space inside the mall. He said that’s unlikely.

Pinard wonders about the condition of the theater space, sitting inside the boarded-up mall that has been a target for trespassing and vandalism and hasn’t seen maintenance since long before it closed. He’s also lost trust in the landlord.

Pinard doesn’t fully blame Oyx – he felt overlooked by city leaders who he said failed to protect the small businesses in that area.

“If you’re not on Main Street, forget about it,” he said. “The city of Concord owns a large measure of responsibility for this situation, not just the individual developers.”

Hatbox has been looking for a new home in the Concord area for nearly two years, but hasn’t found one. A big part of that is rent prices, Pinard said. Even if he wanted to go back to the mall, he doubts he could get the affordable rent Hatbox had before.

“They would rather sit with a vacant space, waiting for that ‘big white whale,'” he said, “than to rent to a smaller organization.”

After the investment at the Stove Barn, business has doubled, Whitwood said, no thanks to the commercial eyesore across the street. As the mall has sat hollow and attracted crime, Whitwood said it’s hard to keep a local business on the map. He had a break-in on Father’s Day. Discarded trash appears in the parking lot. Police will pull over speeding cars and block their entrance, forgetting that there’s an open business there.

Cody Whitwood, right, is the general manager at Stove Barn and has been overseeing a renovation and marketing push at the business since taking over last year. Credit: CATHERINE McLAUGHLIN / Monitor

Whitwood had been eager for the mixed-use housing plan to make progress. If it reopens as a mall, he sees potential in an “uptown shopping scene,” too.

“We’re spending almost as much as we’re making, just trying to get the people in the door, trying to reset that customer mentality, the community mentality,” Whitwood said in an earlier interview.

More than anything, he just hopes something can be done with the mall, and soon.

“Anything happening would be better than where we’re at now,” Whitwood said Wednesday. “Everyone else here would benefit.”