Image courtesy of Stack + Co.

The development team behind Bedford’s Market & Main development have returned for a third try at the large mixed-use project, 10 months after having their revised phase two plans shot down by local officials.

Encore Enterprises had originally billed its reboot of a former stand-alone Macy’s site as a retail-heavy mixed-use center, anchored at one end by a Whole Foods store developed as part of the project’s first phase in 2016.

Citing “lack of demand and high vacancy” in the office sector, the Texas-based developer had asked town officials in late 2019 for permission to replace 125-key hotel, 49,750 square feet of office space, 51,300 square feet of medical office space and 112,791 square feet of retail in its original phase two plans with nearly 300 residential units in two buildings.

Town officials killed off the plan in September 2020 in the face of stiff opposition from residents opposed to new housing and reducing the amount of commercial property tax-paying properties in town.

The new plans, presented to Bedford’s Planning Board last month, return to the original concept but scale down its ambitions. Gone is the cinema, plus around 160,000 leasable square feet.

The plans show 67,000 square feet of retail space and almost 18,000 square feet of restaurant space1 clustered around a central “Main Street” to the south of the Whole Foods building, in single-story buildings, with some spaces oriented towards large-format retail.

A 50,000-square-foot, 3-story office building will rise at the end of this central core with a 4-story, 52,000-square-foot hotel nearby. Structured parking may be added next to the office building depending on the tenant’s final need.

The move comes as Colliers International research shows the state’s office market saw 143,500 square feet of net negative absorption in the second quarter as the vacancy rate hit 10.2 percent, up from 8 percent in the second quarter of 2020. The quarter market the seventh consecutive quarter of negative absorption in the office sector.

Bedford officials largely praised the new plans, and Encore officials said their next step would be to refine the design and present it to town planning officials for formal approval.

“We are in a hurry, now. We have some tenants who we’ve signed and want to get going,” Mike Nelson, Encore’s president of commercial development, told Bedford officials during the presentation.