[B]URLINGTON — Venerable Church Street retailer Outdoor Gear Exchange will be expanding into the Panera Bread space after the national bakery-cafe chain decided to close its downtown store.
Outdoor Gear Exchange announced the decision to expand in a news release Thursday. The company, which has been in Burlington since 1995, owns its storefront building facing Church Street where Panera Bread is a tenant. Panera recently approached the landlord about the closure, said store floor manager Greer Ferguson.
“It was Panera’s choice to terminate their lease ahead of schedule,” Ferguson said. Panera’s downtown store is set to close this week. A message sent through Panera’s corporate media contact form seeking comment was not immediately returned.
OGE co-owners Marc Sherman and Mike Donohue were meeting Tuesday morning about a possible use for the extra space, Ferguson said.
“We’re going to be opening up the store and rearranging things, as you know the store is very crowded,” Ferguson said.
In a statement, Sherman credited OGE’s customers and staff with much of the store’s success growing from an 800 square foot store up to the prime real estate the store occupies now. The expansion is slated to open by the spring.
Also on Church Street, prospects are looking dim for any large retailer to arrive on the scene to replace Macy’s. Developer Don Sinex, who recently bought the building where the department store has been located, said it’s unlikely another large retailer will be moving in.
Sinex said several factors are contributing to the “state of flux” national retailers find themselves in, including the impact of online shopping, a slow economic recovery, lack of disposable income growth in the middle class and a retail industry that has been operating over its capacity.
Considering those factors, it’s unlikely a large retailer will vie for the space, Sinex said.
Macy’s announced recently that it’s closing its Burlington store, which is one of the Town Center’s anchor tenants. The store has about 65 employees and is roughly 150,000 square feet. The move is part of a larger company plan to close 100 stores nationwide, company spokesperson Emily Hawkins said. The store will close in March.
The Macy’s building is right next to the Burlington Town Center project, which will soon be called the Burlington City Place, will include a mix of retail and office space, apartments, a 925-space parking garage and a day care center. It will also reconnect the separate segments of Pine and St. Paul streets and include new trees and other streetscape improvements. The 274 residential units will be a mix of market-rate and affordable housing.
Completion is projected for 2021, with the first phase — including the reconnection of Pine and St. Paul streets — being done by 2019.
