Pheasant Lane Mall

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Coordinates: 42°42′06″N 71°26′15″W / 42.70167, -71.4375

Entrance to the Pheasant Lane Mall Food Court

One of the largest shopping malls in the state of New Hampshire, the 1 million-square-foot Pheasant Lane Mall is the focal point of the commercial area in south Nashua, New Hampshire.

Currently, the mall has more than 150 stores and kiosks, including 5 anchor stores: a 138,000 square foot Target, Sears, JCPenney, a 150,000 square foot Macy*s, plus 15 restaurants. As of 2008, it is owned and managed by Simon Property Group of Indianapolis, Indiana. Former anchors were a Jordan Marsh that became Macy*s in spring 1996, which closed in early 2006 and moved into the former Filene's; and Lechmere, which closed in fall 1997 and was rebuilt into the Target in fall 1999.

Located off Exit 1 of the F.E Everett Turnpike/Route 3 in Nashua and Exit 36 of Route 3 in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts, the property straddles the state line, although the entire mall is in New Hampshire. Approximately 1/3 of the parking lot and water runoff area is located in Tyngsboro. Shoppers who park adjacent to the Sears store walk across the state line to get to and from their cars. The JCPenney store has a pentagon shape to keep it entirely within New Hampshire. Were the store to make a square corner at its south end, the entire store would be subject to Massachusetts sales taxes.

Size and proximity to the border have long drawn shoppers from Massachusetts seeking to take advantage of New Hampshire's lack of a sales tax.

The middle of three signs on Daniel Webster Highway

[edit] History

Founded in 1986 after the land was sold by local restaurateur Dan Chan, whose name now adorns the entrance road to the mall, the mall transformed South Nashua. It turned the southeastern portion of the city, roughly conforming to the city's 8th ward, from a sparsely populated outlier area into a swath of financial, retail and high-density residential development that stretches from over the state border in Tyngsboro to Exit 3 of the F. E. Everett Turnpike, just south of Rivier College.

The rise of South Nashua spurred by the Pheasant Lane Mall has elevated Nashua's municipal identity beyond gateway to New Hampshire, and helped create its current status as part of the greater Boston economic area, and a hub in its own right for surrounding bedroom communities.