Market Street On Track For 2012 Construction

The long-awaited Market Street at Lynnfield project is expected to begin phase 1 construction in 2012, with an eye on having the major tenants in place by the beginning of the 2013 school year.

At Monday night's selectmen's meeting, Ted Tye of National Development was on hand to provide town officials with an update on the project.

In recent weeks, workers have been removing asbestos, disconnecting utilities and addressing other environmental issues on three old buildings on the former Colonial property - the conference center, club house and maintenance building. With much of this work now complete, Tye indicated that the buildings could start coming down as soon as next week.

Other matters in progress at this point include re-routing utilities to the adjoining Boston Sports Club to accommodate the coming construction work, and there are also still some negotiations underway regarding the LIFE portion of the project.

Tye also displayed a couple of large graphics showing the layout of the coming project. (See photos)

Regarding the businesses that will be coming to Lynnfield, Tye said that "our leasing is incredibly strong," but, for competitive reasons, declined to name any additional Market Street tenants. "We have a terrific group of tenants that are committing to this project," he told the selectmen.

Earlier this year, the company announced three tenants - Whole Foods, Legal C Bar, which is affiliated with Legal Sea Foods, and King's, which is a family entertainment/arcade type of business. Many of the phase 1 tenants are expected to open around the same time.

Phase 1 consists of nine individual buildings, mostly single-story, which will be constructed three at a time with a goal of opening in the fall of 2013. Phase 1 construction will see the development of residential space as well as retail and office space. Tye also indicated that the time between construction phases should be relatively short.

"It's a very nice mix of food, fashion, convenience and some fun," said Tye. "It's very consistent with the sort of tenants we've always talked about here."

Tye also reported that the project is expected to generate more than 500 construction jobs, as well as around 2,000 full and part time jobs upon completion. Town residents can also expect about 3,500 square feet of community space on the second floor of one of the new buildings.

"We're making a great deal of progress and we are very focused on a construction start in 2012," said Tye.