In the same spirit as my last post I’d like to change the focus from local individuals to local corporations. There are two in particular I’ll be focusing on, but the treatment the city gets is more or less the same from all of its corporate citizens.
When the tornado ripped through my neighborhood in 2011 it devastated, and then over zealous municipal officials destroyed, a series of 19th century buildings impeccably restored by architect Peter Zorzi in the South End. I took a picture just a week or two before the tornado hit because the sidewalks, signage, and plantings had just been reconstructed and I wanted my bride to be to see just how lovely her new community was.
A few days later it looked like this:
And today it looks like this:
My belief is that Davenport, a Boston real estate concern which has partnered with MGM in putting together its new resort, has been holding on to this empty block so as to provide MGM with a get out of jail free card if their negotiations with economic development officials and a local developer don’t bear fruit regarding their commitment to market rate apartment construction. My guess is that the parties concerned are finalizing those plans and so Davenport is now free to market the block for retail.
Block plans for the Zorzi property have been published:
And there is a depiction of what future structure might occupy the lot hanging on the fence which surrounds the lot.
Any resident will tell you, any charrette will determine, and every master plan will attest that what this section of the city needs more than anything else is some kind of grocery store. Luckily for us, one of New England’s largest grocery store chains has its headquarters right here in Springfield AND they’ve recently announced plans for a huge expansion of their warehouse space in the city demonstrating their intent to grow way beyond their current 77 stores. They’ve also shown a willingness to experiment with new modalities like smaller convenience style shops, smaller yet more upscale markets, and even gas stations!
So this is a match made in heaven: a pressing need; right across the street from the region’s newest resort attraction; marketing your products to people from the same geographical area where your stores are located; a hop, skip, and a jump from corporate HQ!!
Yeah, not happening. You can guarantee it’s going to be a Walgreen’s or a CVS. With a grocery aisle!!!! Ummm, I can taste the Dinty Moore Beef Stew now. And there was much rejoicing.
Another enormous gap in our downtown is a diner. Springfield has never been replete with diners because, well, the region’s diner chain was, and is, headquartered here and so Friendly’s has always eaten up that space. When I was a kid there were 5 Friendly’s within a 5 minute drive of my house, there were two downtown as well. Deciding to eat at Friendly’s was easier than deciding at which Friendly’s to eat.
Springfield is down to one Friendly’s now, located on a stroad just at the very edge of the city just inches beyond which the corporate headquarters are located. Friendly’s, somehow, still has 250 some odd locations all over the northeast, but just the one in the town where it all began, and that one as far as possible from the city’s core.
Many of the original drawings of the MGM property had a Friendly’s within the footprint. I can imagine that MGM’s rents were a bit pricey for a restaurant chain struggling to find a niche in today’s world but, being honest, there are a dozen buildings and lots located all around the casino and its facilities that could easily house a Friendly’s, perhaps a nod-to-the-original “Soda Shop Friendly’s” that could really make a killing when I look at the make up of the families that always seem to be wandering around the MGM property.
Just as with the difficulties in getting well to do locals to live downtown, it seems impossible to get any local corporation apart from the Peter Pan Bus Lines to put their money into the downtown. Mass Mutual has retreated up State Street, Baystate Medical into the North End, except for STCC, which has no on campus housing, the colleges are too far removed to enliven the downtown, and so it seems development is up to the same pool of local entrepreneurs who, in 2018, are unable to open even ONE local brewery when there are dozens and dozens popping up all over the region in every town imaginable…except in the most populous city in all of western New England!
That leaves us with the out of town corporations once again. It reminds me of the scene from Jurassic Park where John Hammond realizes the only one on his side is the blood sucking lawyer! Well, at least that turned out ok.
I’m reminded of my misadventures in Cincinnati. Krogers supermarket has been based in Cincy for a century, yet the most rapidly improving historic neighborhoods don’t have a Krogers, or “up and coming” locations have been given a suburban style super center. Chain stores have formulas. The people who implement the formulas live in suburbia. When (if) they visit a downtown location they tend to drive in and out and think, “You know, this place might not be half bad if we could just remove half of these crappy old buildings and put in a few city blocks of surface parking.” Shrug. I don’t care enough to be bothered by this stuff anymore. I rarely step foot in a physical shop these days. I grow my own, buy direct from farmers, make semi-annual bulk purchases of package goods from Costco, and/or order online. As for urbanism, the future is all about adapting to the sprawl – like it or not.
What happened to the Friendly’s on Sumner Avenue at Ft. Pleasant St?
Grocery stores are a universal urban problem in the US. Even in Manhattan they are an issue. They have grocery stores but are small and awful. Trader Joe’s moved in to improve things in recent years. Hopefully Trader Joe’s and Aldi’s heritage in Europe will enable them to figure out how to profitably serve urban neighborhoods all across the US.
My 95th comparison of Springfield and Knoxville: Regal Cinemas recently moved their headquarters from the suburbs to the downtown waterfront. They also built movie theaters downtown several years ago, which helped the general revival.
But Scripps Networks and Pilot/Flying J built their headquarters way out in the burbs. It happens everywhere.
Fortunately TVA and banks have had a lot of office workers downtown for a long time. Those kinds of companies are unsung heroes for the city.
I think the two are comparable. 185,000 in 100 sq miles, 155,000 in 30, 3rd most populous city in each state, some great legacy architecture, good bones, issues with poverty, perception of safety. Keep it up!!
State and local government here have showed a commitment to the downtown as has the federal government with its offices/courthouse.
In my neighborhood in Baltimore there is a public market that has historically sold all sorts of fresh food. It is being renovated into boutiques and high-end restaurants. There is little complaint from the gentrified neighbors, because they can’t comprehend a scenario where you would shop at a market rather than drive your car to a supermarket when you need food. Even the corner grocery stores are gone. CVS and 7-11 are the only walkable options for groceries.
We had a seafood market a block away for as long as I can remember…gone now. My wife would have loved it…it closed a few years before we met.
Public markets seem like a good incremental grocery solution for downtowns. Markets can be started in tents in a parking lot. If popular, the market might takeover an old warehouse or other vacant building. Entrepreneurial vendors for a public market are much easier to attract than a large supermarket. Ultra-low overhead makes getting into business easy. A market like this one in Bradenton (Florida) started small and grew to become very large with hundreds of vendors (farmers market and flea market vendors): https://www.redbarnfleamarket.com/
Why do you suppose there has been such a lack of development of surrounding parcels? There are two spaces which recently housed restaurants – the Van Horn Spa and the Black Pearl storefronts. With MGM charging $60 for a steak, with 5x the number of people walking around down there than when those places were last open, doesn’t this seem like a reasonable gamble?
Are Springfield’s real estate owners just that disinterested in putting their parcels online, or do they maybe have an inflated idea of their rental value? How can a property owner let his property sit vacant for _decades_? It seems like that should be a signal that “the rent is too high”; some fraction of the asking price must be better than 0% of the asking price, right?
I think the latter is most likely although I have learned that if a commercial property is still under a mortgage that renting BELOW whatever valuation was used to get the loan can put the value of a property below a threshold which can trigger a situation where a loan is called in and so it can be better to leave a space vacant…while still claiming it could be leased for “x” a square foot. Crazy
What do you think of “Georgist” taxation systems that tax the value of the land and not necessarily the value of improvements? For cities with vacant land, a higher vacant parcel tax seems like an incentive for development.
Of course, if the development is miniwarehouse fortresses or similar noxious uses….