Three years ago, back when Northland first announced plans to redevelop its properties along Needham Street, the question I was most frequently asked wasn’t about traffic, school crowding, the number of parking spaces, or how many units of affordable housing there would be. It was:
“What’s going to happen to my Marshalls?”
When you think about it, that’s not really very surprising. I don’t recall when the Marshalls at 275 Needham Street first opened, but it seems like it has been there forever. Certainly it played a big role in clothing my family, furnishing our home and, most recently, as a source for snacks since it is right across the parking lot from my office.
It’s also been a big economic engine driving foot traffic to other businesses on Needham Street.
Although I’m more of the get-what-you-need-and-get-out-quick type of shopper, for others Marshalls and other TJX stores are a form of entertainment, a place to spend hours hunting for that special thing.
Then a few days, or a week later, you return and do it again.
Next week, the store at 275 Needham closes for good (and already as you can see from the photo, the place is pretty much stripped clean). The good news is the store and their employees are only moving across the street to the site that used to be TJ Maxx (before TJ Maxx moved down the street to Newton Nexus).
But let’s pause to appreciate this old location, the generations of families it clothed and the hours so many shoppers from Newton and beyond spent there.
Glad to hear it’s only moving across the street. It would have been said to lose Marshalls.
Needham St musical chairs.
I was a semi-regular patron of Marshalls and was always struck by the seemingly random, very bizarre selection of snack food items on display while you waited for the next cash register. Anybody for some baked tomato-mango-plantain chips? How about some delicious salted-chocolate covered snap-peas?
Greg you mentioned snack shopping for your office at Marshalls. I hope you’ve been plying Chamber of Commerce visitors with these exotic Needham St snacks.
@Jerry: As you know from having visited, the chamber office never has a shortage of snacks –particularly Fig Newtons — although those come compliments of Wegman’s, our “snack sponsor.”
If you want to try the strawberry- jalapeno pretzel sticks, you’ll have to know someone.
I continue to lament the loss of:
1) Newport Creamery and its Awful-Awfuls
2) the jewelry store that was pronounced ost-a-KEV-itch but spelled (I think) Ostalkiewicz
3) the drive-up Fotomat kiosk in the middle of the parking lot
4) Good Vibrations (the record store, not the present-day “sex-positive retailer”)
So what about New England Mobile?! I’m not hearing any well-deserved lamenting. Surely it deserves more than Marshalls, especially since M’s is only moving across the street!
@Pat Irwin – there was much lamenting when the original NE Mobile Book Fair closed. The current radically downsized store, not so much
Just got off the phone with a w orker at NEM who says there’s a possibility they may move to Davis Sq. More to follow…..
NEMBF would be such an amazing addition to one of the new developments on Washington Street. I wish it would end up there.
Tom Lyons from New England Mobile Book Fair will tell you that Northland saved his business from either leaving Newton or going out of business when they offered him a below market rate rent at Marshals Plaza.
The current Northland also includes below market rates for independent retailers. No idea if that’s the next step for the Book Fair or not. The book business keeps getting harder and harder.