Great Road's Big Boxes Are Leaving. Here's What's Moving Into Acton's Storefronts Instead.
October 22, 2026
October 22, 2026
On Sunday, October 18, the Town of Acton closed out its Great Road Stroll with a ribbon-cutting at 133 Great Road. The new store, BUCKOLLAR, sells gear for large dogs: walking gear, after-walk care, waterproof blankets, dog beds and personalized gifts. The owners say much of their inspiration comes from their two Dobermans, Buck and Dollar. They describe an opening day of face painting, kids drawing, and a lot of conversations about dogs.
A store that only sells big-dog gear would have been a hard bet on Great Road a few years ago. This fall it fits the pattern. National chains are consolidating or moving out, and the spaces they leave are going to small businesses that each do one specific thing. Several of those businesses are getting direct help from the town.
The biggest change came at Acton Plaza. According to The Acton Exchange's August 29 business briefs, TJ Maxx and HomeGoods closed there and moved up the road to The Point in Littleton. As of that report, no replacement tenant had been announced.
The same report listed several other changes on Great Road:
Some of those spaces now have replacements lined up. Warby Parker's store directory lists a Brookside Shops location at 145 Great Road, Space 4, as "opening soon." The rest of the new arrivals are local businesses, and the town has been actively working to bring that kind of tenant in.
Acton has been working on vacant storefronts for years. In 2024, The Acton Exchange profiled the town's economic development work and described a vacant storefront project run with the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. Town funds were paired with state tax incentives for businesses willing to move into spaces that had been empty for twelve months or longer. The process took a long time. Town Meeting had to approve the funding, the town had to draw a vacant storefront district around its longest-vacant areas, and the state had to sign off before any business could be recruited.
The first business that came through that project took about three years. It was Salted Soul, a salt therapy studio in Acton Woods Plaza, where Great Road meets Route 27.
This year the pace is much faster. The town's October 2026 Municipal Monthly reports that on September 23, the Economic Affairs and Community Committee approved $10,000 tax credits for each of two Great Road businesses, Adaptive Fitness & Movement and Mobility City. As part of the program, both will host exhibitions by local artists in their spaces. The newsletter says the final round of applications took expressions of interest until October 16.
The state rules behind the program have changed too. The Massachusetts Vacant Storefronts Program page says the framework changed in January 2025. Credits for 2027 can be used for identified storefronts that have been vacant for at least six months, half the twelve months Acton's earlier project required.
The credits came alongside the Great Road Stroll. On October 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Office of Economic Development spread activities, business promotions and an art exhibition by local artist Elizabeth Ames across seven plazas. The town asked visitors to park at the plazas, on Esterbrook Road or on Concord Road and walk the corridor. Police details were posted at key crossings so people could cross Great Road on foot. For one Sunday, the town treated a road built for driving between shopping plazas as a place to walk.
Read in order of street number, the new tenants show the pattern. Almost none of them are general-purpose retail. Each serves one specific group of customers.
| Address | Business | What it does | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 133 Great Road, Unit 1 | BUCKOLLAR | Gear and home goods for large dogs | Opened October 18, 2026 |
| 145 Great Road, Space 4 | Warby Parker | Eyewear, replacing Chico's at Brookside Shops | Listed as "opening soon" |
| 155 Great Road, Suite B | Mobility City | Sells, rents and repairs mobility equipment | Opened August 3, 2026 |
| 166 Great Road | Bethencourt Bakehouse | Sourdough, sandwiches, coffee | Owner hopes to open by Thanksgiving |
| 425 Great Road | Adaptive Fitness & Movement | Fitness and movement for people with disabilities | Programming listed on its site |
Mobility City opened in Esterbrook Plaza in early August, according to The Acton Exchange. Esterbrook Road was also one of the town's suggested parking areas for the Stroll. Adaptive Fitness & Movement offers fitness and purposeful movement programs for people with disabilities. A shopper wouldn't have found either kind of business in a Great Road plaza before, and both got town tax credits this fall. BUCKOLLAR says it is supporting the Acton Community Dog Park Pavilion Project, which ties a new storefront to a local town project.
Bethencourt Bakehouse shows how this kind of growth works. According to The Acton Exchange's September 19 story, Gonzalo Bethencourt started it as a microbakery in his home basement in spring 2025. He sold at farmers markets first. Then came Saturday noon pop-ups at Eve and Murray's in West Acton, where the line often stretched out the front door. He added Debra's Natural Gourmet in West Concord and the Concord Cheese Shop. On Fridays he sells his classic sourdough at Cucurbit Farm on Parker Street and at the Walden Woods Project Farm on Route 2 East in Concord, and he does all of it with no employees.
The basement couldn't keep up with demand, and when Velvet Vine Cafe closed, its space at 166 Great Road became available. The plans include lighter walls and ceiling, a wood counter in place of the black quartz, and a glass window in a new wall so customers can watch the dough being prepared. A new large oven is coming from Spain. Every appliance is electric, and the gas line will be disconnected. The menu will grow beyond loaves like Figs and Red Wine Sourdough and Everything Bagel Sourdough to include sandwiches on house bread, coffee and other drinks.
As of the September report, Bethencourt was still lining up contractors and permits and hoped to open by Thanksgiving. If you have been buying his bread at Cucurbit Farm on Fridays, the bakery's Facebook page and @BethencourtBakehouse on Instagram are the places to watch for an opening date.
The same story played out with BUCKOLLAR, which calls its Great Road space both a store and the brand's home base. In both cases, a small local business outgrew where it started and found its first real storefront in a Great Road space that had just opened up.
Some of the change on Great Road this fall is new construction, and several projects add apartments to commercial sites. The Acton Exchange's September 5 "construction edition" and earlier briefs list these projects, from the most nearly finished to the least:
These projects follow the same pattern as the new shops. Trade-shop space, a ground-floor storefront with an apartment above, and two apartments over trade space are all small and mixed-use. None of them looks like a single big tenant. Acton Plaza is the one large space still open, and it is the clearest early sign of whether the rest of the corridor follows the same path.
If you own on or near Great Road, or you're thinking about how changes like these affect what buyers notice when they tour your street, I'm happy to talk through it. I'm Edith Paley, and I keep a running list of what is opening and what is still in the works along Route 2A. Edith Paley can also tell you where your home stands today. Request your free home valuation, and we'll start with the street you live on.
Stay up to date on the latest real estate trends.
Edith will be your advocate. Whether buying or selling or both, she will work tirelessly to promote your best interests. When orchestrating deals, Edith is assertive and effective without being too aggressive.