Neighbors,

It’s with much disappointment that I revive this website with the announcement that Winstanley Enterprises, owner of the Chelmsford Mall, has once again proposed a redevelopment of the mall including two restaurants.

Apparently what’s happened is they’ve bought the 3 plots of land that were boxed in by the main Chelmsford Mall entrance and the second entrance. One of these plots currently has a green house on it.

Rather than develop the upper parking lots by the main entrance, they’ve submitted new plans to bulldoze the green house and build an 8,846 sqft building on these plots. Here’s what we know so far:

• The proposed strip mall has 4 retail spaces
• 2 of these are restaurants
• 1 of the restaurants will have a drivethrough
• A new entrance/exit to Chelmsford Mall onto Rt-110 is proposed

It’s quite disappointing that despite residents coming out to voice their concerns about the previous drivethru project, nearly none of those have been addressed by this proposal and Winstanley is “full steam ahead” on trying to devalue our neighborhood to their own benefit.

This project will be discussed at the Wednesday, October 7th Planning Board Meeting at 6:30 PM at the Town Offices, 50 Billerica Rd, Room 204.

It’s unknown how much we can fight this. Since the plots are zoned CC, the developer has a right to build anything that Chelmsford zoning laws allow in zone CC which would include retail and restaurants. However, the drivethru requires a special permit from the Planning Board, so if we don’t want to see one of the restaurants become a drivethru we need to show up at the Planning Board meetings and make our voices heard on requesting they deny the special permit as this is within their power.