NASHUA – The longest-
running corporate rumor in recent Nashua history has finally come true: Whole Foods is coming to Nashua, replacing the departed Market Basket at the Turnpike Plaza next to Exit 7.

The company has put up a sign saying “Coming soon!” on the plaza sign on Amherst Street, but no paperwork has been filed with the city’s planning, zoning or building departments.

Beyond that, few details were available.

“Yes, I can confirm that we are developing a Whole Foods Market location in the Turnpike Plaza in Nashua. Because it is so early in the process, I don’t have any further information to provide at this time, beyond that we are projecting a 2014 opening,” company spokeswoman Heather McCready wrote in an email responding to a Telegraph query.

It’s not known, for example, whether Texas-based Whole Foods plans to merely move into the 30,000-square-foot space left by Market Basket last month or has plans to rearrange the entire plaza.

Employees at a standalone Papa Gino’s restaurant that shares the plaza’s parking lot have long told Telegraph reporters – without attribution – that the restaurant will be moving at some point, but no official news has come from anybody.

Market Basket left last month after the company opened a bigger store at Somerset Plaza a mile west.

Turnpike Plaza opened in 1965. Because it was built on a long, skinny parcel of land, it has always faced away from its customers.

The plaza looks east, meaning the stores are far more visible from the adjoining Everett Turnpike, which has no direct access to the plaza, than they are from its access point, Amherst Street.

Also, because of Amherst Street’s notorious “jug handle” turns, the plaza can only be reached by westbound traffic.

For several years, Whole Foods has listed Nashua as one of more than 50 cities around the country where stores are “in development,” but nothing further has happened.

For a long time, many people were certain it would replace the departed Building 19 further west on Amherst Street, but that parcel remains empty.

The plaza was initially anchored by grocer First National Foods and Rich’s department store. First National was replaced by Market Basket around 1981, while Rich’s went under in 1996 and A.C. Moore moved in.

Whole Foods’ arrival occurs at a time of unusual turmoil in the grocery industry.

A dozen stores have shut in the Granite State this year, including the swift closure of all six Stop & Shop stores in New Hampshire as well as a half-dozen Shaw’s supermarkets in other parts of the state, while Market Basket has opened two new large stores – in Bedford as well as Nashua.

Trader Joe’s, which runs much smaller stores, hopped the border into Nashua from Tyngsborough, Mass., this year.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com. Also, follow Brooks on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).