Steeplegate Mall Owners to Start Partial Demolition in Concord

The walls should start coming down soon at Steeplegate Mall, 35 years after they were erected.

The Concord Planning Board unanimously approved Wednesday an amendment to the Steeplegate site plan that will allow most of the mall to be torn down.

This differs from the standard route for getting city permission to demolish buildings partly because of the project’s complexity – about one-fifth of the mall, including the JCPenney store, will not be taken down – but mostly because of concern about people breaking into the empty building to post videos online, which spurred owners to speed up the request.