According to the city's CEO, new housing, upgraded infrastructure and critical zoning changes have improved the ability for stores to thrive in and around the downtown district. Thanks to a measure just passed by the Haverhill City Council, hundreds of residential units could be generated from the multiple mills that bear decaying witness to the Merrimack Valley's former life as a river manufacturing town.

"If you bring in people, people bring in businesses," says Fiorentini, whose three-year tenure has already seen one mill altered into housing and Forest City Development of Cleveland now eyeing a similar project.

This Family Dollar location is the latest store among 2,500 opened nationally by the chain in the past five years and the first lease of the new plaza, which is at the key Lafayette Square intersection of Route 97 and Hilldale Ave. A CVS Pharmacy will soon open across the street in a $2.5 million development, taking over a defunct automobile dealership.