We could’ve had a nice little shopping and neighborhood center on the old Burlington Industries site but no, we get super grocery store. Lorraine Ahearn wrote about liking a shopping experience with less exposure here. But I was convinced the land would be used better (always in my opinion) for a crowd-pleasing, walk-outside, neighborhood-like shopping area where you could park and walk and sip a latte and sit on a bench.
Not if a “bigger” HT anchors the complex. Alluvasudden you’ve got traffic congestion, people darting in and out, and those lovely shopping carts dotting the landscape (already fixed one door with a deep gouge from a roller) . I was thinking PF Changs and maybe a tiny little Nordstrom outpost and I got a deli counter and the new definition of “unnecessarily huge.” Why should I respect or even look forward to this kind of planning when one of the parties built the current HT location on Friendly with its awkward parking, damnable speed bumps, connection to a theatre where people actually WALK in the parking lot and “you can’t make a left onto Friendly” game they instituted instead of video games.
My favorite has to be the “I’m going to block your backing out of that space because I can wait for this woman to load grocercies into her car trunk and then I’ll take her space because it’s 11 feet closer to the door than the one you’re trying to get out of nyah nyah nyah” game that we’ve come to love so much at the current HT.
They could have built a decent-sized HT downtown where it’s needed. We don’t need a “bigger” grocery store on Friendly. Who allowed this? Who encouraged this? Was it those folks who brought us “Wendover at 40?”
Your blog is rockin’ today Sue.
And yes, it seems that when there’s a decision to be made in this town regarding development, the decision-makers always do the polar opposite of what the sensible majority would do. We all stand around slack-jawed as yet another Insta-house cul-de-sac and MegaTraffic superstore springs up. “Who was clamoring for this?!”, we all ask. No answer. Ever.
It seems obvious to me that real estate developers should be barred from positions on the City Council, due to daily conflicts of interest they cannot possibly overcome every single time.
That’s not to say I know of any wrongdoing; I just know the track record. Development has ruined this once beautiful, rural-suburban enclave. Shame on them. Shame on us for letting them.
The conspiracy me smells greed. The grouchy me smells stupidity. The thoughtful me struggles to comprehend why human beings can’t stop s**tting where they eat (and live).
When people find out that I live in Greensboro, they usually remark, “oh, that’s a nice town”. For the first 7 years I lived here, I agreed wholeheartedly. My stock response now is, “yes, it certainly used to be.”
One thing’s going right though: downtown.
Bigger Bigger Bigger
Sue, I totally agree with you.
I’m pretty sure the developers’ decisions are driven
almost totally by the demographic metrics used by companies
like Harris Teeter, Nordstroms, Starbucks, etc.
Those companies will not locate in small stores
or in areas of town with insufficient disposalbe income
because such places don’t offer enough profit margin.
That’s why there’s no Starbucks downtown: their market
data takes in enough of east Greensboro that it looks like
a poor market for them.
Apart from electing professional urban planners to the
city council, the only way this kind of development
will change is if people stop shopping at such places.
And maybe you and Chewie and Ed and Lorraine will stop,
but I think most Greensboro residents like them just fine.
De gustibus … sigh.
Ask Action Greensboro (You’re a member, right?) AG seems to run everything else in this city, I’m sure someone there knew of this too. After all, “Bigger, bigger, bigger” is the AG motto. Jim Melvin’s goal has always been to make GSO as big as Charlotte so this is no surprise.
And if AG had nothing to do with this then how did AG manage to let such a great money making deal slip through their fingers?
Me, I don’t live near West Friendly but I do drive it every day to and from work, not to mention my many trips past it in the course of making deliveries. Looks like my job just got harder.