The Mashpee Planning Board has rejected a proposal to build a Trader Joe’s at 647 Falmouth Road, the vacant lot beside Mashpee Commons, after members warned the popular grocery chain would unleash "chaos" on an already busy stretch of Route 28. Two "no" votes were enough to sink the special-permit application, which needed a supermajority to move forward under the board’s own rules.
As reported by Boston Business Journal, two of the board’s five members opposed the project, leaving it short of the required threshold. Residents who spoke against the plan focused heavily on traffic backups and parking pressures along Route 28 next to Mashpee Commons.
Project background
The proposal, submitted by Shellback Development LLC, called for a specialty grocery store of roughly 13,229 square feet on about 3.97 acres at 647 Falmouth Road (Route 28), according to the Cape Cod Commission project file. The site entered mandatory Development of Regional Impact review and has bounced between regional and local reviewers multiple times since 2022.
Board concerns and peer review
Town staff and the board’s consulting engineers zeroed in on issues such as turning radii for vehicles, the placement of curb cuts, and whether the traffic studies truly reflected peak summer conditions, according to the Planning Board’s public file. Those technical critiques, combined with vocal public opposition, helped push at least two members to vote against granting the special permit. One member warned that the store’s arrival would lead to "chaos," a concern reflected in both Boston Business Journal coverage and town documents.
Supporters and next steps
Trader Joe’s, in a letter dated Dec. 9, 2025, told the town it backed the Mashpee project and projected it would create "approximately 14 full-time positions and over 85 part-time crew member roles," language that appears in the company’s correspondence on file with the board. Supporters also circulated a petition on Change.org arguing that the parcel is already zoned for commercial use and emphasizing that many Upper Cape residents currently drive to Hyannis to shop at Trader Joe’s. The public record and a draft permit decision spell out earlier design changes and peer-review comments that the applicant would need to address if it decides to come back.
With regional DRI clearance in hand and a long local review trail behind it, the developer now faces a choice laid out in Cape Cod Commission and town files: return with new traffic mitigation measures and revised designs, or pause while engineers refine the studies. Either way, the application, which has been under review since 2022, will need more technical work before the board takes another vote, so Trader Joe’s fans will be waiting a while longer.
