Who needs another Old Navy?

 

For over a year, earth movers have been reshaping a land at the SW intersection of Colerain and I275. As a child, I remember this area from before I275 was even built, and it is a hilly, forested property, with a stream. Despite being at the intersection of Sprawl Pike (Colerain) and the largest ring freeway in the country, it remained a wooded lot for decades because of the difficult topography.

So tons of money and effort has gone into transforming this land into a shopping center. Meanwhile, a couple hundred yards away to the north, a vacant Walmart is sitting. I also remember the farm and houses that were removed for the Walmart.

Look at the graph above. I nabbed it from Jim Kunstler's site. Somehow Italians can clothe themselves and furnish their houses in style without 40,0000 SF Bed Bath and Beyond stores. Today they were putting a sign up at the colerain site and the first two stores are: Bed Bath and Beyond, and an Old Navy.

What a waste. We owe it to ourselves to improve the land when we build, not to destroy it. Here is a map of the area in question.