A major snowstorm may have relegated Simoneau Plaza’s grand opening to the inside pages of the Feb. 20, 1963, Telegraph, but the event was no less a major milestone in the history of Nashua retail shopping.

With a snip of the ribbon and a flurry of handshakes that snowy morning, the little village of 12 stores built on top of the filled-in Harbor Pond became the city’s first bona fide shopping plaza.

Initially a marvel of modern urban design and construction, the roughly U-shaped plaza and its parking lot soon took on some rather odd characteristics that left adults scratching their heads and kids having a field day giving shopping carts a strong push and see which way they’d go.

A half-century ago, it wasn’t uncommon for site work to consist of depositing countless cubic yards of miscellaneous fill in a wetland area, packing it down, leveling it off and giving the go-ahead to the builders.

Such was the case at 300 Main St., where settling ground under the plaza’s foundation eventually forced floors in some of the bigger stores such as Bradlees and W.T. Grant to sink, bend, crack and sprout little hills and dales.

The parking lot, meanwhile, turned into a sinkhole-dotted carnival ride where it wasn’t impossible to “bottom out” a car or feel like you parked on the side of a mountain.

In addition to filling in what remained of Harbor Pond, plans also called for the “re-routing” of Salmon Brook, which flowed near the south end of the plaza. It was decided to “bury” a section of the brook, according to a Telegraph article.

“For this, 10-foot diameter culverts have been installed,” the newspaper reported.

Main Street Marketplace, today’s incarnation of the plaza, bears little resemblance to its geographical ancestor other than the rough footprint it occupies. Named Globe Plaza from 1996-2003, the property has been retrofitted and upgraded several times over the years, the most extensive work being attempts to level the parking lot and floors in the 1970s and a comprehensive face-lift in 2001.

It may have wobbled now and then over the years, but Joseph W. Simoneau’s namesake endured, adapting as necessary to an increasingly fast-paced, ever-changing society.

It weathered the spurt of similar plazas in the ’70s and ’80s and strip malls in and around Nashua, and absorbed two potential knockout punches: the late-’60s construction of the Nashua Mall and the rise in 1986 of the regional shopping mecca called the Pheasant Lane Mall.

“That plaza was built with change in mind,” said Jim Vayo, assistant project manager at Renaissance Downtowns at Nashua. “It’s designed to change as market forces change, without a lot of cost attached.”

At first a separate entity from Nashua’s core downtown, the plaza has also had a history of not quite fitting into the neighborhood, Vayo said.

“It’s sort of secluded, especially for people in the Crown Hill area,” he said. “All they see is the back of a bunch of buildings.”

But all that is changing, just as the plaza’s founders envisioned, he said.

“We’re now seeing it becoming part of downtown,” Vayo said. “… I think it’s just a matter of time before it also becomes more a part of the neighborhood.”

While Shaw’s is more supermarket than neighborhood grocery store, Vayo said, the fact it’s surrounded by homes and mostly small businesses gives it a bit of a corner-store feel.

It’s the same for Workout World, which moved into a redesigned southern wing of the plaza several years ago.

“It’s accessible from both sides, which makes it feel like it’s part of the neighborhood, as well,” Vayo said.

As downtown Nashua is “coming into its own once again,” Vayo said, the Pheasant Lane Mall could well be casting a wary eye of concern north toward the rise of the Merrimack Premium Outlets.

“Certainly, Pheasant Lane isn’t going to die anytime soon, but they may need to find more investors with the outlets coming,” Vayo said.

About a decade ago, the plaza reached a turning point and – thanks to the fact it was designed to change – came out of it just fine.

Purchased in early 2001 by Andover, Mass., developer John Roberts and renamed Globe Plaza, the site had grown into an eyesore and was drawing complaints by residents and aldermen.

In May 2001, Roberts and the city agreed to split the cost of a consulting firm hired to recommend ways to redevelop the plaza so it would fit well into a newly revitalized downtown. The metamorphosis included the arrival of Shaw’s; a redesigned access point from Lake Street; the razing of the strip of stores along the northern edge, as well as the Brandt Theater and a Dunkin’ Donuts that fronted Main Street; and a face-lift of buildings’ facades.

The largest and most comprehensive overhaul of the plaza since it was built, the project is precisely the kind of development urban-design and smart-growth expert Ellen Dunham-Jones advocates for in her writings and lectures.

“The biggest development projects in the next 50 years are going to involve retrofitting and repurposing big box stores and malls and reconstructing wetlands out of parking lots,” Dunham-Jones, a professor of contemporary architecture and urban design at the Georgia Tech School of Architecture, said in a recent lecture that appears on YouTube.

While much of Dunham-Jones’ emphasis is on “reclaiming” suburbia, a demographic loaded with “underperforming retail sites,” she said in the lecture, her theory also applies to cases such as that of Nashua’s first shopping plaza.

Reinventing the old buildings, she said, “allows us to redirect a lot of growth back into existing communities, many of which can use a boost, instead of continuing to cut down trees and tear up green space.”

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

Newsletter