Walmart Going Urban

(Walmart).. has almost exhausted growth possibilities in suburbs and small towns, and now is looking at urban neighborhoods. ...

To fit into cities... It would shrink its stores to as small as 8,000 square feet, about 4 percent of the size of an average supercenter. It is considering formats that are primarily groceries, stores where customers can order something online and pick it up, stores where local business owners can lease space, and even formats like bodegas.

...“We have very small market share in the large cities within the United States, so we see a big opportunity for us to grow in those urban markets,”... -In the NY Times

Is Target Essential?

I hear people talk about Target like it is an essential part of living. I think I've been to the one on Ridge Road and it just seems like an updated K-mart with tons of cheap plastic from China. But thought this tidbit from a merchandising industry webmail was interesting:

The second-largest U.S. discount chain recently announced it ... will develop a smaller store format with an edited merchandise selection to reach customers in dense urban markets. The retailer also has its sights set on expanding outside the U.S., most likely in Canada, Mexico or Latin America.

Downtown as a Shopping Mall

Via a Fresno Downtown Association, here is a video that was produced by shopping mall architect Victor Gruen. He starts by reviewing the decline of the city from prewar to 1960 via the automobile and freeway development. He then offers a solution of separating cars and people by building more parking garages and making a car-free pedestrian mall of a big chunk of downtown. It is 20 minutes, so you may not want to watch it, but I found it a fascinating look back on the prevailing thought pattern of the time (which was that cities needed to become more like the suburbs):



Fulton Street, pre-plan, crowded but "declining":
 

Fulton today 

I found it interesting that a commenter on the video stated that today Fresno is often dissed as being the most midwestern-like city in California.

Totes Isotoner Outlet

I heard about a new outlet store, and rushed out to see it. It is quite fancy:
 

And so are the prices:
 

Cincinnati LEGO Store

Hover for controls, click to enlarge.

You heard it here first, now the new Cincinnati Lego Store is open at Kenwood Towne Centre, and it is fabulous.

Boxed sets line the left and right walls floor to ceiling. A row of portals runs down each aisle at kid-eye level. Inside each is a completed LEGO kit with an appropriate backdrop and accessories, forming a action scene.

Their selection is vast. From simple sets with few pieces for little kids, to 1000+ piece sets for ages 16 and up, costing over a hundred dollars. Most of the Cafe' Corner sets featured here on CityKin are stocked, and the Green Grocer set is on permanent display in one of the large dioramas.

In the middle of the store are display kiosks of some of their really complicated Star Wars models, and of course there's a play table next to a huge vat of bricks for kids of all ages to play with during their visit.

108 bins of both common and specialized parts cover the rear wall. Nearby dispensers provide "Pick a Brick" cups in roughly quart and pint sizes. Mix and match at will, and buy whatever you can fit into the cup for one low price.

Sales associates are extremely helpful, attentive, but not pushy, and knowledgable. They were clearly recruited for their love of all things LEGO, and then trained very well. I'm not somebody who usually likes retail excursions, but I loved shopping here.

A "Shop and Ship" touchscreen PC kiosk near the middle of the store allows you to order off the LEGO website, just like you could do at home, with one key difference. If whatever you want isn't immediately in stock, a staff member punches in a code, and it's shipped to you for free.

Sometimes I wish I could be a kid again. At this store, that wish almost comes true.

West End Loan

"West End" in OTR: 

Kinda like the "Vine Street Flower Company" that was on two locations on Court Street. Which BTW I just found out that Dan Kerns, the longtime owner of Vine Street Flower Company retired and closed his shop. Rumors are that Lisa at City Roots will start carrying some cut flowers to fill-in.

Closed on Saturday

Maya, I need one of those tags: 

LickaSto

Sometimes I need a newspaper article to explain what is going on around me:

There have been countless times when the corner (liquor) store has come to the rescue, like recently, when I got a call from a gorgeous girl I had been trying to kick it with. "Let's go to the movies," she said. As I was about to walk out the door, I glanced in the mirror. I had been wearing that same black hoodie, flipped back beanie, and old white T for way too long. I needed to step it up, and fast.

A quick walk around the corner elevated my clothing game to a new peak, with enough time to pick up my beautiful date, get my popcorn, and find a seat all the way in the back of the pitch-black theater.

CAC and Caroling Tonight

We may go to City Roots tonight and buy a tree. There is also caroling, and an event at the Contemporary Arts Center which should add to the spirit:

Members of the Cincinnati Men’s Chorus serenade shoppers for Caroling in the Quarter as they go from shop to shop, including Park + Vine, starting at 6 p.m. Dec. 11. Shopping runs until 9 p.m. and then the fun continues into the night ... at Below Zero Lounge.

Contemporary Arts Center: Good Design. Unique Gifts. Fabulous Artists. Great Festivities.

Come and enjoy a festive shopping experience as well as a wine and cheese reception with music and first-hand insights from Good Design artisans who will be on site to talk about their work.

Christian Strike and Matt Distel of Iconoclast Editions will be on hand to discuss editions and new Iconoclast projects including the launch of the CAC's new Iconoclast Kiosk designed by Cincinnati artist Chris Vorhees. Shop limited edition art from local artisans Sandra Gross and Kelli Gleiner who will be available for an open dialogue as well as Maya Drozdz and Micheal Stout of VisualLingual.

Santa on Wheels

 

Vine Street Kroger Going Upscale?

Not really. Not at all. They still have minimal produce selection, but they did add a small display of Honey, Kashi, Soy Nut Butter, and Power Bars which they never had before:

 

Sorry for the fuzzy photo. See previous post on this Krogers. By the way, the store at 1412 Vine, adjacent to Krogers has now closed. The old owners were stripping it last week, and it is padlocked and it looks like it is sold, probably to 3CDC.

Deveroes vs Bass Pro

These two stores are similar, and opposite. Bass sells rural identity, whereas Deveroes sells urban identity.

They sell conspicuous consumption, and I feel condescending when I think about it that way, but actually, I have the same need to display my consumption. I just have better taste!(sarcasm)

Bass Pro Empty; the stuffed animals and empty parking spaces, awaiting the hordes:

 

I heard from a friend that read my Cincinnati Mills article, that Bass Pro Shop, which is one of the largest tenants at the mall is considering a move further-out, to a stand-alone location on I71, near Lebanon. They apparently want a site with a pond (so you can float your boat before you buy it, I guess), and a site that is more central to their customer base.

A strip mall comes to the city. The Deveroes and two rinky stores in Camp Washington near the freeway exit:

 

At least Deveroes keeps a store in the city. Does Bass have a store in the Smokies?:

 

Could we get a Bass Pro at Broadway Commons?

Cincinnati Mills Empty

I had to go to the Cincinnati Mills Mall (former Forest Fair Mall) last week. I'm sure this is old news to many people, but the place was completely deserted on a weekday lunch hour. The food court below, which could seat hundreds, had less than a dozen people in it:

 

They also had a Starbucks in the center atrium, and the server there was reading a book. Actually most of the store clerks seemed to be reading books.

We have way too much retail space in this country.

In a related story, a homeless man is convicted in Akron for living in a vacant portion of a mall.

City Residents Crave Grocery Stores

An article in the Washingtong Post about the dissapearance of grocery stores from New York City. Not totally relevant to Cincy, but there are some interesting ideas in the article:

(Corner stores or bodegas)often offer little in terms of nutritious food, with shelves carrying little more than hamburger mix, white bread, canned pasta and peanut butter, generally at higher prices than a supermarket charges.
...
One project is the return of the greengrocer pushcart, an effective and low-cost way to get fresh produce in certain neighborhoods, Bloomberg said. The city plans to license 1,500 street vendors to sell fruits and vegetables in the city's poorest neighborhoods.

Another program encourages bodegas to carry low-fat milk and to sell fruits and vegetables in single-serving bags.
....
"As we do new housing developments, we should think about how to structure space on the ground floor" and "make plans to incorporate street-level retail," said Linda Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services.

Alicia Glen, the managing director of the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, brings investment capital to underserved neighborhoods to stimulate economic development, including grocery stores. She said it is difficult to convince national supermarket chains "that even though people's incomes may be low, they still shop."

"I think you could characterize it as redlining," she said. "There's a real sense that there's certain places they won't go."

She said investors have been slow to realize that grocery stores can anchor neighborhood development. "How are you going to have million-dollar condos if there's no place to buy bok choy?" she asked.

A study by the Reinvestment Fund, a development finance corporation in Pennsylvania, found that every $1 spent on supermarket construction and operation generates $1.50 in additional economic activity.

The rationale for the vanishing grocery stores is clear: Grocers traditionally make profit margins of only 1 to 2 percent, while skyrocketing rent prices in recent years have outstripped the stores' income, industry experts said.
...
High-end grocers are doing well, such as Whole Foods Market. It recently opened the largest grocery store in the city, at 71,000 square feet, including a sushi bar, an ice cream bar and a fromagerie. FreshDirect, an online grocer that delivers to certain neighborhoods, has so transformed food shopping that many new residential buildings include a refrigerated room off the lobby for food deliveries.
...
"Traditionally people went to their neighborhood stores to buy their needs," he said. "They won't be able to do that. It's not just grocery stores."

Furniture Stores Downtown

When we were looking for furniture a few years ago, we felt lost. We couldn't find anything we liked. The only place downtown we knew of was Contemporary Galleries and we did end up getting a few things there, but never could find shelving that we liked. We didn't like much of the stuff at the department stores. Now, I realize we missed a few places:

Abode

High Street

Mainly Art

Metronation

With these downtown, and a Crate and Barrel in Norwood and an IKEA in West Chester, it will soon be easier to furnish a home.

And apparently A Lucky Step is a furniture store soon to open on Vine (1218 or 1220?). I googled this store, and found and interesting article about the owner:

For Angelita Jones this time, the tears that flowed were tears of joy.
The Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati awarded her third place in the contemporary favorite decorating category at Homearama 2002, held in South Lebanon a week ago.

“This is wonderful,” Mrs. Jones said. “I don't care if it is third place or whatever or whether it was for decorating toilet paper. I am just glad to be a winner.”

Mrs. Jones, who owns A Lucky Step furniture store in Evendale, was among the 57 winners given awards for traditional, transitional and contemporary interior and exterior decorations; favorite landscaping, family room and great room, kitchen and dining room; favorite home, bedroom suite, bath, lower level, outdoor living and family gathering area.

She has kept the store going after witnessing the shooting death of her husband, Stephen Jones, there last August.

Mr. Jones was a co-owner with her in the business they started two years ago. She called 911 and reported the shooting. Alonzo Campbell, 38, of Walnut Hills, was arrested and charged with aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault and illegally possessing a weapon as a convicted felon.

He was convicted and sentenced to 20 to 100 years.

Mrs. Jones has struggled to put the incident behind her while continuing to operate the furniture store and her other business, Eastern Personnel Services in downtown Cincinnati.

“I don't have anything else to do but keep going,” she said.“This award will help lift my spirit.”

The home she decorated was built by Perry Bush Custom Homes in Fairfield. Other winners in that category were: Eagle Custom Homes Inc., Sycamore Township, first place; and Shonave Custom Homes Inc., Mason, second place.

Downtown Shopping vs Mall vs Lifestyle Center

The Economist gives their know-it-all summary to the history of the American Mall. Entertaining article with some interesting tidbits of information here and there:

...
America now has some 1,100 enclosed shopping malls, according to the International Council of Shopping Centres. Clones have appeared from Chennai to Martinique. Yet the mall's story is far from triumphal. Invented by a European socialist who hated cars and came to deride his own creation, it has a murky future. While malls continue to multiply outside America, they are gradually dying in the country that pioneered them.

.... his shops were like mousetraps. A few years later the same would be said of his shopping malls.
....
Oddly, this most suburban American invention was supposed to evoke a European city centre. .... shoppers were expected to sit and debate over cups of coffee, just as they do in the Piazza San Marco or the Place Dauphine.
...
In 1998 Good Housekeeping ran a story entitled “Danger at the Mall”. Indoor shopping malls are now so out of favour that not one will be built in America before 2009 at the earliest, according to the International Council of Shopping Centres.
....
So many malls have died or are dying that a new hobby has appeared: amateur shopping-mall history. ...One of the most touching is a website devoted to Lakehurst mall near Chicago, which was demolished in 2004. Prodded by a local journalist, women and a few men write in with memories of back-to-school shopping trips, ear piercings, first jobs at Cinnabon and Orange Julius, early dates and even marriage proposals. Many are bereft at the mall's demolition, as though suffering the death of a pet. “You don't realise how much you miss something until it is gone,” writes one. Others are almost apologetic: “If only we knew what we had, we would never have strayed to other malls.”
...
Mr Caruso believes that people are naturally gregarious, and that America has failed to provide them with places that meet their social needs. Like Gruen, he claims to be trying to create not just profitable shopping places but also more perfect city centres.
...
He has tried to re-create a kind of prelapsarian downtown where there is no crime or homelessness. His romantic evocations of city centres are possible only because people have forgotten what downtowns used to be like. And they have forgotten, of course, largely because of the suburban shopping malls that Gruen built. It was necessary to kill the American city centre before bringing it back to life.

Green Baby Products Downtown

Park + Vine makes the following announcement in their newsletter:

We're very excited about our new "green baby" products arriving in the store throughout the next month. New arrivals include a nice selection of easy-to-use cloth diapers and other cloth diapering accessories. As far as we're concerned, Park + Vine will have the best cloth diaper selection in Cincinnati. We're also receiving two organic baby carriers: a pocket sling and a Mei Tai. Kids step stools, organic storage, and crib bedding from Nest Please, organic stuffed animals from miYim, and organic baby clothing from Blue Canoe round out the new offerings

We used cloth diapers, but we had to order all our cloth diapering supplies by phone as the selection in town was limited. Great to see this new store venturing here.

Now all we need is a cloth diaper laundry service. (An extinct service in the hometown of P&G, creator of the modern disposable diaper).

[where: 1109 Vine Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

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.

Over-the-Rhine business rumours

A few things I've been hearing:

1. The owner of Fries Cafe has been thinking about re-opening the Elder Cafe at Findlay Market.
2. In addition to Metro Nation, a Jean Ro lunch restaurant, Park and Vine, 3CDC has also enticed:
- an urban garden store
- a successful O'Bryonville store

All of the above are likely to open stores near 12th and Vine this summer.