Shops at Billerica

The Billerica Mall, renamed the Shops at Billerica in 2011, is the shopping center on the east side of Boston Road (Route 3A) at Tower Farm Road, numbered 480-496 Boston Road. It opened in October 1975 as an enclosed, L-shaped mall of about forty stores, anchored by a Kmart of about 84,000 square feet and an A&P supermarket of about 50,000 square feet.

Twenty-Fifth Billerica Corp. bought the 29.79-acre site from the Farmer family on November 20, 1974, and the same day recorded a memorandum of its lease to S. S. Kresge Co., which ran the Kmart stores: 25 years from the store's opening, with ten five-year options. In 1975-1976 the land itself passed to Fraydun Realty Corp. of New York, which leased it to Twenty-Fifth Billerica Corp. for 25 years, so that the mall company held the buildings on a ground lease and sublet the stores. When the mall connected to the town sewer in 1975, the town counted "the K-Mart; A&P Store and 30 other stores in the Mall," and five more stores were added in 1980.

A rent roll of May 1977, filed with an assignment of the mall's leases to its mortgage lender, lists the first tenants by store number in six wings, A through F: DeCrosta florist, Radio Shack, My Store for Levi's, William Kennedy, Tagway Shoes, Kay Jewelers, Baskin-Robbins, Papa Gino's, Record Town, Reliable Stores, Tello's, Fanny Farmer, Crosby's Hobby, the Funtime arcade, Thackeray's, the Stoneham Co-operative Bank, Garden of Eden hair salon, Sozio's, Tobacco Road, Modern Miss, Marianne's, Beaconway Fabrics, Loot, Windjammer Books, Balsam's two shops, Children's Choice, the Cinemall theater, Mug N Muffin, Woman's World, Mall Liquors and the Drug Mart, with the Woburn Bank in its own building and Kmart and the supermarket as the two "special major" tenants. The supermarket lease, listed as "DeMoulas (A&P)", had passed from the A&P to DeMoulas Market Basket. The cinema, leased in 1976, was taken over by Interstate Theatres in 1980, closed in the early 1980s and reopened in 1986 as the Billerica Flick, which closed in April 1998; Dollar Tree later took its space.

Full-page store directories printed in the high school yearbook list 39 stores in 1987 and 39 in 1993. Almy's department store, which leased its store in 1979, gave way to T.J. Maxx in 1990, and Burlington Coat Factory leased the same 69,560 square feet in 1994. Market Basket added 9,000 square feet in 1988. In 1990 the ground lease passed to Billerica Mall Associates. The mall lent empty stores to the Recreation Department for classes in 1991, and its parking lot was used for school carnivals, bake sales and town events.

In 2004 Fraydun sold the land for $7,000,000 to FB Billerica Realty Investors LLC, an affiliate of RD Management of New York. In 2006 the owner signed a 30-year ground lease with Home Depot and won zoning permits for a store and garden center, but a citizens' group, Billerica First, organized against it, and the lease was terminated in 2010. By 2008 more than half of the interior mall stood empty. After part of the roof fell in during February 2010, the interior was closed off, and in 2011 the stores were given outside entrances and new facades as an open-air strip center, the Shops at Billerica, anchored by Kmart, Market Basket and Burlington and soon joined by Planet Fitness (2011) and Big Lots (2012). A state MassWorks grant of $2.29 million paid for sidewalks and traffic signals in 2015-2016 to connect "the shops of the Billerica Mall to the Town Center."

Kmart closed on February 16, 2020. The Planning Board approved a redevelopment in 2021, and work began on March 28, 2022: the Kmart building was replaced by a 43,000-square-foot grocery store, a strip of new shops and restaurant pads was added along Boston Road, and land on Tower Farm Road was set aside for apartments. Market Basket, told to vacate, closed on June 11, 2022. Amazon Fresh carried out a large build-out of the new grocery store but never moved in, and in 2025-2026 the finished space was offered for lease. In August 2025 the apartment parcel was sold to AvalonBay Communities for $14,000,000 for a 200-unit complex, and new outparcel buildings opened for Chase Bank (2025), Starbucks (2026), Dave's Hot Chicken (2026) and Northern Bank & Trust (2026).

References

1. Forgotten New England: the opening of the Billerica Mall, October 1975
2. Cinema Treasures: Billerica Mall Cinemas / Billerica Flick (closed April 1998)
3. Shops at Billerica (Wikipedia)
4. Flickr album: the Billerica Mall interior before its closing (2008)
5. Banker & Tradesman: more Massachusetts Kmart stores to close by February 2020
6. RD Management: facade renovation at the Shops at Billerica (2016)
7. Boston Real Estate Times: officials break ground for the redevelopment of the Billerica Mall (2022)
8. Shopping Center Business: PROCON breaks ground on the redevelopment of the Billerica Mall (2022)
9. CBS Boston: Market Basket closing its Billerica Mall store (June 2022)
10. Market Report: the unopened Amazon Fresh in Billerica (March 2025)
11. Traded: sale of the 480 Boston Road apartment parcel to AvalonBay (August 2025)
12. CommercialSearch: Shops at Billerica leasing listing (2026)

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.