Market Basket developments, openings delayed

The Market Basket location in Revere has yet to open nearly one year after construction was completed. Roberto Scalese for the Boston Globe

Several Market Basket store developments, in various stages of completion, have been delayed in Massachusetts, with the setbacks in at least two communities attributed to the long-running feud within the Demoulas family, which owns the Tewksbury-based grocery chain.

In Lynn, a spokesman for developer Charles Patsios has said Patsios’s plans to build a Market Basket on Federal Street have stalled because of the Demoulas dispute.

In Revere, a new supermarket at the Northgate Shopping Plaza on Squire Road was completed a year ago, but it has yet to open its doors to customers.

“The long-standing dispute and infighting has no doubt delayed the opening,” Mayor Daniel Rizzo of Revere said in a statement.

Two sides of the Demoulas family have fought for control of Market Basket’s parent company, Demoulas Super Markets Inc., for more than 20 years. The imbroglio led to the ouster last month of Market Basket head Arthur T. Demoulas and other top executives by Demoulas’s rival and cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas.

“New management expects to move forward with store openings and is working on the plans and logistics for doing so,” said sources close to the company.

In Attleboro, another new, completed Market Basket also remains unopened. Mayor Kevin Dumas and Rizzo each sent letters of complaint to the Demoulas company’s board.

“This behavior is alienating to your prospective new customers here,” Dumas wrote in June. “If allowed to continue in the face of hundreds of inquiries from this office, [it] can only serve to greatly diminish the power and quality of your brand in their eyes.”

Rizzo, who sent his letter in May, wrote, “The signs in the area advertising Market Basket at its highly visible location on one of the busiest roadways in the city are daily reminders of the new supermarket that is not open for business.”

A spokesman for Rizzo, who threatened possible legal action to get the store opened, said Revere officials were subsequently promised by the Demoulas company that “efforts would be made to open.”

In Plymouth, residents have speculated for months that a Market Basket would be part of a larger retail development, but no formal plans have been filed with the town. A road into the site leads only to massive piles of dirt.