When The Loop hit the market this month, it wasn't because the owning business failed. Its owner went bankrupt. That distinction matters, because it gives Methuen a rare opening: a 338,000-square-foot shopping center, anchored by AMC Theatres, Home Depot, Marshalls and Planet Fitness, that will change hands on a court-driven timeline, and the city should have a plan before the first bid arrives.
The Loop at 90 Pleasant Valley St. is listed by A&G Real Estate Partners, the firm hired to sell properties in the bankruptcy of investor Michael Shabsels and his brother David, according to the Boston Business Journal. Entities linked to Michael Shabsels paid $74 million for the center in 2022. The Loop is not connected to the federal fraud allegations against the brothers over pandemic aid. It is simply one of roughly 50 properties in 22 states caught up in the bankruptcy.
Let's start with what's at stake…
Methuen has been here before. When the old Methuen Mall closed in the late 1990s, the site's annual tax revenue reportedly fell from about $60 million to $18 million. The Loop rose from that wreckage and has since anchored the city's tax base. Whoever buys it next will shape Methuen's finances for a generation.
Now the hard truth about competition.
Just across the border, Tuscan Village in Salem, N.H., offers shopping with no state sales tax. Methuen can't match that, and a fight over price is a losing game. A shopper hunting for a coat will go where it costs less.
But nobody drives 30 minutes for a coat. People travel for an evening. That's the lane Methuen can own: live entertainment.
A mid-size music and performance venue at The Loop would give visitors a reason to arrive at 6 p.m. instead of leaving at 5, feeding the restaurants, theater and shops already on site. Methuen already has a musical identity in its Memorial Music Hall, and a modern venue could build on that story.
Should the city buy the center outright? Probably not. Ownership would pull The Loop off the tax rolls, saddle taxpayers with retail risk, and likely require borrowing on a scale that deserves a much harder look. Even at a bankruptcy discount, the number would be large for a municipal budget.
Better for the city to play matchmaker.
Recruit a buyer with entertainment experience, then offer what a city can: faster permitting, zoning flexibility, and perhaps a tax increment financing deal tied to the venue actually opening.
"We've already begun exploring opportunities to reimagine the long-term future of The Loop, and this news will certainly accelerate those discussions," Mayor Beauregard told Inside Methuen.
That's encouraging. It also raises the stakes.
Bankruptcy sales run on a court's schedule, not a city's. If those discussions are accelerating, residents deserve to know who is at the table, what the city is willing to offer, and what it won't give up. A deal negotiated quietly can still be the right deal, but the public will live with it for decades.
Methuen got a second chance once before. The question is whether it will use this one well.
Source: Boston Business Journal, "Bankruptcy case puts Loop Shopping Center and Westborough Executive Park up for sale" (Oct. 20, 2026)(https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2026/10/20/shabsels-fraud-bankruptcy-real-estate-sale.html)