The grocery store chain Market Basket has paid $3.1 million for a portion of the planned Route 20 development in Shrewsbury where it will build its latest Central Massachusetts store.
The Tewksbury-based chain is unusual in retail for buying and owning many of its more than 80 store locations in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. In the case of its store that will anchor a new development at the former Edgemere Drive-In, Market Basket will own about 18 acres of the Edgemere Crossing at Flint Pond site, enough to include its own store, a proposed bank and pharmacy, and another nearly 23,000-square-foot retail space.
[Related:Â St. Pierre family sells site of planned 248-unit Shrewsbury development for $2M]
Construction started on the development last year, which will bring life back to the former drive-in site after two decades sitting vacant.
Market Basket bought from the Route 20 Nominee Trust of Cambridge, which still owns the rest of the roughly 68-acre site. The sale closed March 10.
The rest of the Edgemere Crossing site is due to include 250 apartments in addition to the retail uses and the nearly 80,000-square-foot grocery store. It will be Market Basket’s first location so close to Worcester, but it also has Central Massachusetts locations in Athol, Fitchburg, Leominster, Hudson, Maynard and Oxford.
