Factory of Future site in limbo amid Market Basket feud

LYNN – While the Demoulas family continues to battle it out over the future of the beleaguered Market Basket supermarket chain, a local developer is waiting patiently as he is caught in the middle and sitting on a piece of land he can’t use.”I’m still under contract with Market Basket,” said Charles Patsios, a Swampscott developer who was poised to build the city’s first Market Basket on the former GE Factory of the Future site when the infighting began. “I can’t do anything until they settle this issue.”Ousted CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, who with his family owns 49.5 percent of Market Basket, has been trying to buy out the remaining shares owned by his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas. The fractured family’s decades-old rivalry came to a head when Arthur T. was fired in June, triggering a boycott of the stores by employees and shoppers.Patsios bought the former GE manufacturing site in May 2013 under an agreement calling for Market Basket to renovate the building for use as a store. Patsios would provide parking and other site improvements. The agreement remains valid despite the continuing Demoulas family saga.Ward 7 Councilor Rick Ford is worried that what he called the perfect plan isn’t going to come to fruition.”I don’t know what Plan B is,” he said. “I’m hoping they pull it together.”When plans to build Market Basket on the Federal Street property were first announced, Ford said he and Ward 6 Councilor Peter Capano held neighborhood meetings where residents nearly all agreed that Market Basket would be a great neighbor.”I never saw such a group come together,” he said.Ford said he liked the plan because it put an affordable grocery store in the area and would provide jobs.”Everything’s a plus,” he said.Now he’s worried that people are already changing their shopping habits.Capano said he is concerned that no one knows what Market Basket will look like once the family saga is settled and if the workers aren’t happy, then he, as IUECWA Local 201 vice president, will likewise not be happy.”If Market Basket doesn’t move in, then it will be up to the owner to have a discussion about what we could have there,” he said. “There’s not really a lot we can do about it right now.”