Chestnut Hill Shopping Center Plan Excites Tenants, Local Businesses

Local businesses are saying a proposed building redevelopment in the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center would be a welcome improvement.

Both a current tenant of the building where the proposed development would take place and neighboring businesses say that the three-story multi-purpose commercial building would help bring energy the shopping center has lost since the departure of Macy's and the Rugged Bear. (Read stories on , and )

The plan, proposed by Chestnut Hill-based development firm WS Development, would remove sections of the building that currently house the Century Bank and City Sports and replacing it with a three-story mixed-use development.

The new building would feature ground-floor retail space for both existing and new tenants, as well as office space and a new headquarters for WS Development. The current proposal would also include improvements to the adjacent Route 9 carriageway. (Read the .)

Century Bank would like to remain in the location in the new development, according to executive vice president Linda Kay. She said the bank had discussed the planned project with WS Development, and that in the coming weeks she hoped a plan to relocate the bank during construction would be finalized.

"Our hopes are to stay there," she said. "It's a fabulous location, and we have quite a nice customer base there. It's been a very strong branch for us, deposit-wise."

Kay said that the bank had been expecting development in the area eventually.

"Obviously, when Macy's pulled out and Rugged Bear left - we knew that their plan was to redesign the area," she said. "The area is a little naked at the moment. It needs some more activity."

"We're hoping to stay there, and we'll know more soon."

The project would give the shopping center a needed facelift, said Laura Wolfe, who, with her husband, co-owns The Cottage, a continental/California cuisine restaurant in the shopping center near the planned development.

"I think that two years from now, the center will look completely different than what it does now," she said.

Wolfe said the firm has been in touch with the restaurant, adding that the firm has some limited offices on-site now, and employees eat in the restaurant often.

"They're in the restaurant often, but when they come in, we don't ask them about it," she said - though she said she does often tease the employees by threatening to install a "red-phone hotline" to the firm's offices once the offices were completed, so their orders could be fast-tracked.

Julio Dos Santos, the general manager at the Legal Sea Foods location that abuts the site, said that project would be a great improvement to the shopping center. However, he said he had seen other proposals for improvements and developments to the center come and go, and so he was tempering his enthusiasm until the firm breaks ground.

"Of course, we would be excited" by the development, he said. "Any new business around here would help - but they said they were putting stuff in the Macy's too, and they never did, so I guess I'll believe it when I see it."

Employees at City Sports referred questions to the company's corporate office, which could not be reached for comment.

The city's Planning & Development board is set to meet tonight at City Hall in room 222 to continue their public hearing on the proposed development at the Chestnut Hill Shopping Center. The hearing will continue at 8:15 p.m.