The Mayor of Matthews, North Carolina has described a 620,000 s.f. mall opening in his community as “pedestrian friendly”, because part of the mall has a village center with some small retail and a walkway. But the “Sycamore Commons” development also happens to have a Lowe’s and most recently a 150,000 s.f. Costco warehouse club. It’s hard to imagine a mall the size of 14 football fields being considered pedestrian friendly, unless the pedestrians come with wheels in Norht Carolina. It seems the entire Charlotte-Mecklenberg area is being swallowed up by sprawl. The Planning Commission for the two communities set up a panel to strategize ways to re-use the growing number of abandoned big box stores, according to the American City Business Journal. The big corporate logos are playing leapfrog in the city. Circuit City is leaving its old store on Independence Avenue, and, as the Journal said, it wants to “return the older building to the landlord, but will also look for a new tenant.” A real estate broker who sits on the Planning Commission “reuse” panel, said that “many large retailers want to better position themselves in the market rather than add stores, because of the economic slowdown.” Target abandoned its original store looking for a better “position” perhaps, and now a BJs Club is moving into the Target. The community seems to be at a loss to deal with the “empty box syndrome” that has become commonplace in the Charlotte area. Maybe that’s because looal officials still call a 620,000 s.f. mall a “new urban” design. The developer of Sycamore Commons, meanwhile, was passing out land along the way to the mall. The Journal reports that the developer donated 10 acres to the town of Matthews, and 10 acres to the “Happy Times Club” senior center. Nothing like a little land to keep people happy with their pedestrian friendly malls.
So Circuit City wants to “return” a store as if it was the wrong shoe size. Target also leaves a store behind. The city sets up a panel to study what to do with all those emtpy big box stores and puts real estate people who lure malls into the area on the panel. Talk about running in circles. If the community would place a dimensional limit on the size of stores, and require more green space in site plans, or assess a bond to cover the cost of demolition for any store that sits empty for more than a year, THEN maybe they would start to see less stores “returned” empty. The city could say it was just trying to “better position” itself for the future by avoiding unnecessary sprawl and wasted land uses.
