Donald Smith, a partner with the Hingham-based firm, said the company is looking to build on what has been a positive experience in Plymouth.

Saxon Partners , which developed the 170-acre retail complex on Commerce Way, is proposing two zoning changes that would accommodate the firm’s plans to develop additional stores and restaurants on a former state Park and Ride lot across from the center, and 150 to 250 rental apartments behind the center.

A decade after Colony Place opened for business, the Plymouth shopping center off Route 44 is seeking town support for a new development effort.


“Despite the bad market, we’ve had a good run down there,” he said of Colony Place, which has 625,000 square feet of retail space. “We’ve added space almost every year in small increments right through the Great Recession, and the sales reports we’ve been getting down there have been good and improving. So we are bullish on Plymouth.”

Colony Place opened in 2005, anchored by a Walmart supercenter and the adjacent Sam’s Club, which later closed. The center added a new section of small shops, The Village, whose first stores opened in 2007.

The zoning proposals come as developers are preparing to construct three new auto dealerships on the site of the former Sam’s Club.

Saxon Partners is set to discuss its proposals with the Planning Board on Jan. 12. The firm has petitioned to place the two zoning proposals before the annual Town Meeting in April, but hopes the board will agree to sponsor them. A public hearing on the proposals has been set for Jan. 26, according to Lee Hartmann, the town’s director of planning and development.

One of the measures would rezone the former 6.6-acre Park and Ride lot from light industrial to mixed commerce, which is how the shopping center and the property on both sides of the Park and Ride lot are zoned. The change would allow Saxon Partners to bring a mix of stores and restaurants to the site, which the firm agreed to acquire from the state at a Nov. 26 auction.


The other measure would add multifamily housing to the allowable uses in the mixed commerce district. The change would accommodate Saxon Partners’ plan to bring apartments to the vacant 27 acres it owns behind the shopping center, which are in the mixed commerce zone. If the change is approved, Saxon Partners would sell the land to a residential developer for that use.

“We’ve been talking to some multifamily builders about bringing a residential component to Colony Place,” Smith said. “Towns across the country are increasingly moving to a live-work concept where people can walk to restaurants, walk to shops.”

Paul McAlduff, chairman of the Planning Board, said Colony Place has been a “great asset to the town,” praising Saxon Partners for fulfilling all its commitments to the town.

McAlduff said he would be willing to listen to the zoning proposal to allow multifamily housing, but would prefer to limit it to one- and two-bedroom units, noting, “Our schools are already crowded and there is not a lot of opportunity for people to find a one-bedroom apartment in town.”

Regarding the zoning proposal for the former Park and Ride lot, he said he would favor an alternative that would allow retail on the site, but only if there were offices on upper floors. “We don’t have enough office space in town,” he said, observing also that offices require fewer town services than stores.


John Laidler can be reached at laidler@globe.com.