Target Says It Has No Plans For Burlington Store

BURLINGTON, MA -- Sorry, Burlington, but there are no plans -- or at least no plans anyone is willing to comment on -- for a Target store at the site of the Roche Brothers grocery store that will close next month. Target said it does not have a location set to open in Burlington and a spokeswoman for the property owners of the Burlington Crossroads shopping center on Cambridge Street said "right now, we don't have any specifics to share."

Meanwhile, there is another shakeup in the works at the Plaza. On Monday, selectmen approved a transfer of Busa Wine and Liquors license to Total Wine and More, a national chain that describes itself as "America's Wine Superstore." The Burlington location will be the company's fifth in Massachusetts.

But Total Wine won't take over Busa's space in the Crossroads Plaza. Instead, it will take over the space currently occupied by the the Bauer hockey equipment store, which is closing.

With Roche Brothers and Busa closing, another two properties in the plaza will be vacant. That's not to say that Target won't open a location at the Roche Brothers site, or that it hasn't at least inquired about the site. But ever since Roche Brothers announced in early October that it would close the store on December 9, there has been speculation about what would take its place. That speculation escalated in recent days, with one online forum for Burlington residents making it seem as if Target taking over the space was a done deal.

Many of the posters in the closed Facebook forum said they had been told by Roche Brothers employees that Target would be the next tenant of the space. The posters envisioned a "mini Target" like the one in the Redstone Shopping Plaza in Stoneham. And that, in turn, set off worries about traffic from a store which may never actually locate on the busy stretch of Cambridge Street.

No plans for a Target had been filed with the town as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the planning board's Website. The only stores Target would confirm that is opening locally is a new Roslindale store, which is opening in March, and a new Medford store, which will open in July.

Burlington residents have reason to be concerned about the Crossroads Plaza, whch has struggled with new competing developments that the town has approved in recent years. An Outback Steakhouse next to the supermarket has been vacant for several years and the space previously occupied by a Busa before it moved to a new location within the plaza remains vacant. Only recently did the town give final approval for a brew pub to open in the Outback Steakhouse space.

Roche Brothers employees were told in October that the store would close when the current lease expired December 9. The company said the store had suffered from sluggish sales -- undoubtedly caused in part by the Wegman's store that opened in Burlington three years ago. The Roche Brothers has anchored the Burlington Crossroads shopping plaza on Cambridge Street since opening in 2001.

The store closing comes as Roche Brothers announced the opening of a new "Brothers Marketplace" store in Waltham next spring. The next closest Roche Brothers store to Burlington is in Acton, which the company opened in 1995. The company said it would continue to offer catering and delivery services in the Burlington area.

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Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).