Brandon, behind the curve again

 Posted by on 6 March 2009  Modern Life
Mar 062009
 
sign-of-the-times

The plight of vacant big-box stores will come to Brandon about 15 to 20 years after they start hitting the rest of the world. So, in about 15 or 20 years. Tragically, we will be caught completely unawares.

My home town of Brandon is still fixated on what to do to “revive” its ailing downtown, where a mall has been transformed into a sleepy “professional centre.” And, in the one-time suburbs, the “real mall” is rapidly shedding foot traffic. Where’s everyone gone?

To the shiny new “Corral Centre” big-box mall, where pedestrians are treated as an afterthought that was never really thought of at all, and even cars aren’t shunted through the parking lot very efficiently. If there was a Razzies for urban design, well, it might be the only urban design award Brandon would even be up for.

Anyway, a couple of years ago, after the Corral Centre began to take shape, there was a lot of congratulatory back-slapping among Brandon VIPs (Very Inflated Personalities) who spoke of the “retail power centre” as if it were an economic renaissance that meant Brandon had finally come of age.

But I knew, even then, that Brandon only jumps on board a bandwagon when it’s about 90% out of steam. And the big box culture? Call it over:

The format has reached the saturation point, industry experts say. In home improvement renovation alone, there are now nearly 280 superstores, or one for every 26,000 families, according to the latest quarterly report by the online industry trade publication, Hardlines.

Small is back in style.

Partly due to changing demographics and the current economic downturn, but mostly because the market is saturated, many big box retailers are downsizing to smaller formats or opening fewer stores of any size.

There have even been a few store closings, including the announcement last week that six Sam’s Clubs operated by Wal-Mart would close at the end of this month. Last year, Rona closed two of its larger stores because they overlapped nearby stores acquired from a competitor. Last Christmas, Linens ‘n Things went out of business.

Some are encountering political resistance.

“Political resistance” in Brandon is laughable, where the city bent over backwards to encourage the Corral Centre, even at its own expense (see: ongoing reconstruction of 18th Street and its associated bridges).

Unfortunately, the cost is just beginning. Inevitably, when the stores that now fill the Corral Centre decide that those buildings no longer meet their needs, and when their lease is up, they’re gone-gone-gone. And if there’s anything worse for a city than a big-box mall, it’s a vacant big-box mall, which is just about unusable for any other purpose.

You can turn old warehouses into cool condos. You can put a clothing store into a former tobaccanist. But a vacant power centre just sits there. The buildings are too big, and too crappy for any other purpose except low-margin, high-volume retail.

If there’s any doubt, and you’re in Westman, just go check out the former Zellers at 34th and Victoria. Note how it has been turned into a thriving new — wait, what? An ultra-low-end discounter inhabits just a small part of the space?

Now think of that — times 20. That’s the Corral Centre, circa 2025. Tumbleweeds, baby. Tumbleweeds.

Grant Hamilton

  • Robson

    Please write your next Grant’s Tomb on this subject. Either that or I’ll poach it for an editorial… ;)

    Seriously, though, you make the point well and Brandon needs to hear it.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      Poach away!

      If I sound like I make the point well, it might be because I did write a few Tombs about it a couple of years ago, when the Corral Centre was new, and the basic arguments are well-oiled.

  • Trent

    I’m sorry, but this post reeks of superciliousness. The “no” people of Brandon who go against any corporate development are doing far more damage than those who might be too antsy when it comes to growth. If a city/town doesn’t grow, it dies.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      1. Not to be too pithy, but any use of the word superciliousness reeks of the same :)

      2. I won’t claim to speak for everyone who opposed the Corral Centre, but I strongly object to the implication that I’m against “any corporate development.” Here are some very easy ways that the Corral Centre could have won my support:

      - top of the hill, not the bottom of the hill
      - sidewalks throughout, linking the stores, and the store ‘islands’ as well as linkages to the walking paths outside the parking lots
      - smarter traffic flow, including room for buses
      - integration with the stupid “Paddock” mini-box-mall-within-a-box-mall
      - greenspace areas integrated into the parking lot pedestrians/people who go to starbucks and subway

      None of these would have cost anything, compared to the scale of the project. The take only a mild bit of thinking-before-doing. They are lessons learned from the tens of thousands of poorly-planned big box malls in other places — lessons that Brandon conspicuously failed to heed.

      Oddly, rushing into poorly-planned developments is only half of Brandon’s failing. The other half is over-studying things with “expert” after “expert.”

      • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

        @MPot: the article cited market saturation as one of the factors. They also said that new smaller-scale stores were opening at twice the rate of big-box malls. That said, is the Brandon market saturated? No way — not so long as there are still stores on Main Street, Minnedosa and Centre Ave, Carberry.

        @Trent: I think you’re making a false assumption that growth = good and otherwise the city dies. An explosion of unmanaged growth is just as negative, IMO. Hey, I like it when new things come to Brandon, and for all its negative aspects, I confess that I get a lot of use out of the Corral Centre and its tenants.

        That said, as I mentioned above, there are simple, easy ways to minimize the negatives while maximizing the positives of whatever development comes to town. But Brandon doesn’t even seem to have its priorities picked out, let along ways to measure whether or not any particular development is having the right or the wrong effects.

  • MPot

    Trent: “If a city/town doesn’t grow, it dies”.

    that’s an excellent point, Trent, except that you’re wrong ly assuming that erecting destructive and perhaps soon-to-be-obsolete box stores = growth. What an odd assumption that is.

  • MPot

    One point of concern, though: The article quoted seems to indicate that the stores being closed are victims of market saturation. Is the Westman market similarly saturated?

  • Trent

    Welp, guess we better start throwing out some other ideas for growth!

    I didn’t mean to make that assumption though I clearly did. I would just like to hear other ideas for growth from the crop of brilliant entrepreneurs that Brandon clearly has to pick from.

  • Trent

    @Grant:

    Irony in an imperfect world, I’d say.

    You’re right about my word usage, but “supercilious” sounded more neutral and less of an attack word than some of its synonyms.

    I agree with your points, but not grounds for me to oppose it. I made a mistake in assuming that this post was suggestive of an anti-corporate stance.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      @Trent: Ah irony. The one thing those pesky terrorists couldn’t kill — though culturecrats sure tried to write its obituary on 9/12, didn’t they?

      Anyway, back to the discussion, I’ve actually taken your challenge to throw out some other non-big-box-mall ideas for growth to heart, and when I’m not actually at work, I hope to write them down. I’d be really supportive of an online brain-storming session, for sure.

  • http://youcannotwin-ston.blogspot.com/ Wynston

    I find it pretty funny that you posted about this the day the the city of Winnipeg announced more details about the Ikea development. Which will apparently be bigger than Polo Park, but smaller than the Mall of America.

    http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/ikea_project_to_add_6m_to_city_taxes-40835312.html

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      My favourite comment on that Ikea development is that the city has bungled the roadway design and traffic management so badly that for most Winnipeggers, it’ll still be faster to go to the Ikea in Minneapolis.

      Credit where credit is due:
      http://policyfrog.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/city-planningfor-catastrophe/

  • Colin Corneau

    Well Trent – we’ve had several ideas to help our downtown in just the past few years alone and they get the usual Brandon response: grumbling, anonymous character assassination and grousing that “it’ll never work.” Naturally the people doing the boo-bird routine never have ideas of their own to throw out.

    I speak, of course, about the casino project and the present Strand Theatre project. Both had/have promise, sound reasoning and business cases behind them and, true to Brandon’s can’t-do attitude, plenty of detactors.
    (Full disclosure: I’m in favour of the Strand Project and have written a letter of support for it.)

    I know of two business owners who put their personal fortune and a few tons of sweat equity in downtown ventures…only to have the civic bureaucracy swoop in and bring things to a grinding halt. You’d have to be naive to think there aren’t legions more.

    Don’t even get me started about the lacklustre effort displayed by some (definitely not all, but some) business owners downtown, who’d rather hang a “closed” sign during business hours or drive out entire blocks worth of business (who can forget 10th St. being called “Misery Canyon” during a past federal election) as their contribution to a thriving community.

    Grant, this entry is bang-on. Sadly.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      @Colin: Okay, let’s leave aside the casino for a second, which I think is more an example of Brandon trying to jump on a bandwagon a decade or so after it’s left the station. Other than that:

      The Strand is such an amazingly good idea for downtown. It’s so amazing that I’m surprised it’s going ahead. I just wish that some use could have been had in that building, oh, I dunno, YEARS ago, considering it’s been vacant forever. But if we want to talk about that, then we’re going to get into terms like “monopoly” and “demolition by neglect” and we won’t get anywhere.

      The biggest thing that would generate activity downtown, is people living there. There are dozens of three-storey buildings down there, and far too many of them are vacant above the ground floor. They should be tiny, cool, affordable apartments. They should be the abode of choice for artists and students. They shouldn’t be lofts or condos, they should be cold in the winter and hot in the summer — but they should be CHEAP. And if every one of those buildings was full of people — people who probably wouldn’t own cars as a matter of course — then the storefronts below them would fill up, too.

      As an aside: a question. Why is the downtown perceived as so bad when 10th Street anywhere south of Princess seems to be doing pretty well? It’s got tons of quirky little businesses, from restaurants to bookstores, to barbershops, 7-11 and Ted Good Music. Stores along that stretch of street have all the negatives associated with downtown (like metered parking) and yet they’re by-and-large successful, with regular opening hours, too. Plus, the streetscape isn’t exactly pedestrian friendly — there are huge swaths of open space and a gigantic wall-mural.

  • MPot

    This “Strand” thing intrigues me. Do explain!

    A casino would be a disaster, as anyone who lives in a city that went that route could tell you. I live in Windsor, where Caesars Palace dominates the skyline. It’s been a magnificent success for its investors, but it’s left the poor (its targets) in terrible debt and created a situation wherein the most kids around here can hope for is to take advantage of others for minimal pay in order to enrich their bosses, contribute to the economic destruction of entire families, and encourage the likes of (shudder) Celine Dion to visit.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      Colin might be better able to explain the full scope of the Strand Theatre project, but briefly, it’s an initiative of the Brandon Folk Festival people to turn the old Strand into a performing arts space that can be used year-round. If you’re familiar with the Park Theatre in Winnipeg, I think it’ll be along those lines.

      The plans that I saw call for a stage with re-arrangeable seating, so that it can be used for a variety of events and types of shows, plus a fair bit of office space, and retail spots along 10th Street.

      From what I understand, they’ve secured a commitment from the movie folk to sell them the theatre (for $1 or something?) and now they’re just working on getting funding to get the renovations underway.
      …
      We could not agree more on the issue of a casino. It’s fools’ gold, as far as I’m concerned. And if you’re going to do it, you have to be the first one on the block, not the Brandon-come-lately that we are.
      …
      Another great initiative that can’t seem to get any traction is the skate plaza downtown. Planned for Ninth and Princess, not only will it replace an ugly parking lot, the design sketches call for a real respect for the heritage of the Prince Eddy, which used to be there. And, it’ll bring tons of people downtown — at least in the spring/summer/fall. And how many of them will want to maybe get something to eat or drink later? I’d be thrilled if I owned Komfort Kitchen, right kitty-corner from the proposed park. It would also be a boon for a music store, a cool and cheap clothing store, or a head shop of some description.

  • Colin Corneau

    I’m not disagreeing with you necessarily on the casino idea, GH…at least on the idea that it’s a concept a few years after the fact anywhere else. But at least it was an idea and in small cities like ours, it generally morphs into the sort of concept that the Strand seems to be — a mid-sized entertainment venue.

    I like how the Strand also is way more inclusive than a casino type venue would have been. From individual artists, to small groups, to dance and theatre troupes…it always struck me how there was so much going on in Brandon but it always seemed scattered in 100 different places.

    Plus, wouldn’t it have been great to see Hawksley Workman in a venue that was a bit better suited to live music?

    Great post, again, Grant. Architecture matters!

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      Well, not to get too off-topic, but I think the problem with casinos as entertainment venues is that they suck up all the possible artists — making it unfeasible for a Strand-like venue to get off the ground, since they have to compete with Casino MegaBucks.

      At any rate, I’m glad that there’s some agreement that architechture matters — and that design as a whole matters. I don’t know why people in Brandon seem to think that it’s somehow a mark of honour to build the cheapest buildings possible. There’s being smart with your money, and then there’s being miserly. One makes you Warren Buffet, the other makes you Scrooge.