Dickinson Dev. completes 69,000 s/f Stop & Shop on old landfill site

Dickinson Development Corp. recently completed its third retail project in four years. A new 69,000 s/f Stop & Shop opened in September, occupying a five-acre parcel on Walkers Brook Dr., across from Dickinson's 480,000 s/f, $90 million Crossing at Walkers Brook retail center off Rte. 95 and I-128, home to Jordan's Furniture, Home Depot, Staples, Linens 'N' Things, and seven other retailers and restaurants. Dickinson's partners in the project were Pinnacle Partners of Braintree and Morris & Morse Co. of Boston. General contractor Pinncon LLC began the supermarket's site work last December. The site had been home for decades to the former Boston Stove Co. and more recently housed several warehousing tenants. "The success of Walkers Brook is having a 'snowball' effect on an area once seen as a no man's land because the predominant use was a closed dump and older industrial buildings," said Mark Dickinson, president of Dickinson Development. The project has created hundreds of new jobs and will provide a permanent stream of real estate taxes to Reading and income tax revenue to the commonwealth. "Just as important," said Dickinson, "we transformed a landfill into an attractive, productive destination retail site."