Market Basket has a plan to put two apartment buildings and more retail on the overflow parking lots at its Chelsea flagship, the old Mystic Mall site, the Boston Globe reported on October 6. The chain began circulating a 40-page conceptual master plan among city officials last week, according to the Globe. It could create 162 housing units on the 30-acre property, with a “village center” where cars now park.
The plan still needs City Council approval, the Globe reported. If the council approves it, Market Basket would seek a development firm such as Redgate to build it. No construction timeline has been given.
Market Basket president Chuck Casassa told the Globe in a statement that the company has been “working very closely” with the city, and credited Chelsea’s “complementary zoning changes” and its work on infrastructure and financial incentives for developers. City Manager Fidel Maltez gave the Globe a shorter case for building on the lot: “Pigeons don’t pay taxes.”
What the council has been told
On September 14, Councillor-at-Large Leo Robinson filed an order asking Maltez to “reach out to and meet with the owners of Market Basket to discuss their ongoing development plans and report back.” The council adopted it. According to the Globe, Market Basket has been working with Maltez, Robinson and other councillors for about a year.
The Market Basket plaza sits inside the West Chelsea Mixed-Use Overlay District, which the council created in June around the commuter rail station. The overlay also covers the current Bunker Hill Community College site. The city’s zoning presentation named Market Basket and North Colony as the two landowners whose plans matter most there. The overlay allows mixed-use development by right and relaxes parking requirements. The site sits next to the commuter rail and Silver Line stations.
Why the city changed its rules
The Globe reported that Maltez blames a 2017 affordable housing requirement for stalling apartment construction in Chelsea while developers went to Everett and Revere. Between 2020 and 2025, Chelsea’s housing permits grew 31 percent, compared with 59 percent in Everett and 228 percent in Revere, according to Boston Indicators research cited by the Globe. Greystar, building 1,900 apartments on land straddling Everett and Chelsea, put a park on the Chelsea side instead of a building because the requirement made it unworkable, the Globe reported.
In June the city reduced that requirement. Chelsea no longer sets aside 15 percent of units as affordable. Buildings under 10 units are exempt, and developments of 50 or more units must make 10 percent affordable, matching Everett’s policy, according to the Globe. The city is also working with other developers who need tax abatements from the city and the state.
The same push is behind the city’s proposal to drop parking minimums for new housing, which has community meetings October 8 and October 20.
Market Basket bought the former Mystic Mall, where it had been a tenant, and turned it into a 130,000-square-foot superstore in 2009. The Globe reported that the store, the chain’s biggest and busiest, is opening a 20,000-square-foot liquor store, MB Spirits, on Friday, October 9.
Photo: The Chelsea Market Basket and its parking lot in October 2009, shortly after it opened. Cybah, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.