Royal Ridge Center

Royal Ridge Center opened in May 1974 on Daniel Webster Highway in Nashua, New Hampshire, positioned within what has become the largest commercial retail corridor in southern New Hampshire, drawing shoppers from Lowell, Methuen, Lawrence and Fitchburg in Massachusetts and Hudson, Windham, Derry and Merrimack in New Hampshire, aided by the state’s lack of sales tax. The Wilder Companies, a Boston-based retail developer and manager, currently owns and operates the property.

At roughly 220,100 sqft, the center is anchored by Shaw’s grocery, with Marshalls, HomeGoods, Sierra (formerly Sierra Trading Post, rebranded in 2019) and PetSmart carrying the broader tenant base, alongside The Paper Store. The property drew 2.3 million visits in 2024, within a wider commercial corridor that saw roughly 16.6 million visits the same year.

The center’s tenant roster has cycled through several notable transitions: CompUSA’s space went to Buy Buy Baby after CompUSA’s 2007 closure, and Buy Buy Baby itself closed in 2023 as part of parent company Bed Bath & Beyond’s bankruptcy; Sports Authority’s 2016 bankruptcy and store closure led to that space splitting between HomeGoods and Sierra Trading Post in 2018. Nordstrom Rack opened in spring 2025, accompanied by a newly installed modern pylon sign on Daniel Webster Highway.

That repeated anchor-space subdivision, a single big-box footprint splitting into two smaller retailers (HomeGoods and Sierra Trading Post) after a bankrupt anchor’s departure, reflects a broader trend among 1970s-era power centers: rather than seeking a single replacement anchor of equivalent scale, owners increasingly divide larger vacated spaces to accommodate the smaller-format retailers that have come to dominate off-price and specialty retail since the 2010s.