This article comes from Fast Company Magazine, and it partly explains why we haven't seen a whole lot of shopping mall construction in the past five years or so. Yes, we've seen plenty of plazas and no shortage of retail space, but the mall as a shopping form seems to be on the way out. You agree?
How Much Longer Can Shopping Malls Survive?
BY GREG LINDSAY
There are dead malls, and then there is Dixie Square. The suburban Chicago mall made famous by The Blues Brothers--who destroyed it on-screen in a spectacular car chase--had already closed by the time the film was shot in 1979. It's just sat there ever since, not worth the cost of tearing it down. By now, trees sprout from the parking lot and the ceilings have turned to mush. Every attempt to redevelop the site--into a showroom for kitchen implements or senior housing--has fallen through due to asbestos, fire, and one suitor accused of threatening his creditors with a gun.
By any measure, Karen Heller is one the best columnists in the country. In this recent piece, Karen nails the problem of the proliferation of gambling right on the head. We've grappled with our own reasons why we believe the move toward gambling a revenue source in the rust-belt is a losing bet any way you look at it. Now that every state will soon have its own slot parlors, the pie slices get increasingly smaller while the liabilities imposed only increase further. Go get 'em Karen!
By Karen Heller
O Table games, O Table Games How lovely are your profits! Your lucre green will always grow In Harrisburg through winter snow
Oh, snap and craps! Here we thought the Pennsylvania legislature was going to deal us blackjack and poker for the holidays because nothing quite says Christmas like seven-card stud.
But no. Table games have been tabled. We will have to wait until January, or perhaps Groundhog Day, to get the roulette ball going.
Gov. Rendell, in what might be called a snake-eyes-for-students move, held up $647 million in appropriations for Pennsylvania State, Temple, and Lincoln Universities and the University of Pittsburgh until Thursday night in an effort to get his games. Now, he says 1,000 government jobs are on the line if the measure isn't passed by Jan. 8 to generate a projected $250 million in revenues to close the budget gap. Basically, it's shut up and deal.
This piece comes from The Buffalo News, and it contains some excellent points. We applaud the town of Hamburg's efforts to make Wal-Mart bend to their aesthetic will, though at the end of the day, this may amount to not much more than mere lipstick on a maloderous pig. Still, other towns and communities need to read this and understand that they should not sell themselves short just to curry the favor of another sprawl spreading big box store. Thanks to Doug Smith for the tip.
By Donn Esmonde
There was a grand opening Wednesday for the Walmart in Hamburg. It was a celebration not just of commerce, but design.
Tens of thousands of people will drive by it or come to it over the years. This is how it is with a building. It becomes part of the landscape, for better or—too often— for worse. Which is why what happened in Hamburg should happen all of the time, everywhere, with any public or commercial building.
The new Walmart on Southwestern Boulevard is not the glorified concrete-block bunker that the company usually builds. Its walls are red brick. Massive white pillars topped by peaked roofs frame its three entrances. It is not the Parthenon. But it is not a massive scar on the landscape, either.
That is not an accident.
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Public Radio station WNYC in New York recently ran this piece about the economic spinoff yet to come to the neighborhood surrounding the new Yankee Stadium. When the Yankees and the City of New York proposed the new stadium, they argued in favor of more than $350 million in subsidies and tax breaks reasoning that the business from the fans would more than make up for the outlay. Trouble is, the new sports arenas function much like many of the new casinos we see sprouting up all over the country: Each one is designed to keep customers and their money within the building.
Now, it's no secret that I'm a Yankees hater, but I oppose spending any public money on professional sports facilities. These are private, profit-making enterprises and should be financed with private investment. Study after study show that public financing of stadiums show no positive financial return for the governments that pay for them.
As this article shows, the problem gets worse because the surrounding businesses not only do not see any additional business, the City's ill-considered actions have the opposite effect.
NEW YORK, NY — The first World Series in the new Yankee Stadium begins today. In the third part of our Main Street series, WNYC returns to the shopkeepers on 161st in the Bronx.
They’ve seen their businesses suffer in the shadow of the new stadium, and the playoffs didn’t improve matters much. Many of these shops expected to do better with the new stadium. But WNYC’s Ailsa Chang takes a look at how the new Yankee Stadium is getting Yankee fans to spend more money inside rather than outside the ballpark.
REPORTER: Eddie Morrison has been coming to Yankee Stadium for 30 years, but right now, he’s chomping on the fanciest nachos he’s ever bought at a game. He’s sitting next to Gate 6, in the brand new Hard Rock Café.
MORRISON: It should say THE BRONX Hard Rock Café, not just the Hard Rock Café. Because this is the Boogie Down Bronx, so you gotta show respect.
REPORTER: It may be the Bronx, but those nachos just set him back 13 dollars.
MORRISON: That’s just a part of the tradition. You have to uphold the tradition of buying very expensive food at the ballpark.
REPORTER: And there are more than a hundred separate spots in this stadium where you can spend lots of money to uphold that tradition. They’re mostly big chains – like Nathan’s hotdogs, Johnny Rockets and Carvel Ice Cream. Yankee fan George Figueroa says he forgets he’s at a ballpark.
FIGUEROA: You walk around and it’s like you not even in a game. You walk around and it’s like you in a mall. You have whole bunch of stuff you could do. You can buy food, you can buy merchandise – whatever. It, like, takes you away from reality. That’s a good thing. I mean, we don’t have that in the Bronx. We don’t have a big mall to walk around, so this is our mall right now.
REPORTER: But that’s the problem. Businesses just a couple blocks down 161st street didn’t think they’d be competing against a new mega-mall. Abdul Traore is managing a near-empty store called Jeans Plus. It sells Yankee souvenirs – many of them identical to the ones sold at the stadium, but about 30 percent cheaper. Traore’s been sitting on a stool by the door during the playoffs, as if waiting for customers to come in.
TRAORE: This playoff is different. Totally different. Like Saturday, I stay here until two o’clock in the morning – from the time the game start until two o’clock in the morning. I don’t even make thousand dollars.
The Wildwoods, NJ – The Wildwoods will hold its 29th Annual Halloween Parade on Friday, October 30, followed by a FREE Halloween Fun Fair at the Wildwoods Convention Center, located at 4501 Boardwalk in Wildwood. The parade begins at 6:15 p.m. at Wildwood and Pacific Avenues and will proceed south to Andrews Avenue, east on Ocean Avenue and ending at the Wildwoods Convention Center.
There are dead malls, and then there is Dixie Square. The suburban Chicago mall made famous by The Blues Brothers--who destroyed it on-screen in a spectacular car chase--had already closed by the time the film was shot in 1979. It's just sat there ever since, not worth the cost of tearing it down. By now, trees sprout from the parking lot and the ceilings have turned to mush. Every attempt to redevelop the site--into a showroom for kitchen implements or senior housing--has fallen through due to asbestos, fire, and one suitor accused of threatening his creditors with a gun.
