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Partially or completely dead shopping centers

Started by tolbs17, February 15, 2022, 11:29:41 AM

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abefroman329

Quote from: HighwayStar on March 10, 2022, 05:44:39 PMNo matter what a private company may want to do, it would be incapable of generating these outcomes by any of its own policies.
So...the government is the reason why Amazon employees have to piss in empty bottles?  Walmart just HAS to pay all of its employees poverty wages?

By and large, private companies can do whatever the fuck they want, because we use civil litigation to keep them in line where any other first-world country would use a robust regulatory state, and any judgment against the company would be a drop in the bucket compared to their profits.


Rothman

Quote from: HighwayStar on March 10, 2022, 05:44:39 PM
Quote from: Rothman on March 10, 2022, 03:15:43 PM


Quote from: HighwayStar on March 10, 2022, 11:00:08 AM
Quote from: paulthemapguy on March 10, 2022, 09:15:25 AM
Quote from: HighwayStar on March 09, 2022, 10:19:41 PM
Of course it did, its called the race to the bottom. Provide the customer with less, pocket the savings, and enjoy a competitive advantage over your competition. In an era of falling wages and a declining middle class the entire story of retail consists of cost cutting, corner cutting, and undercutting in a scramble to be as cheap as possible by whatever means necessary. Sears gave way to the discounters, then the discounters gave way to Walmart, and now Walmart is giving way to Dollar Tree.  :coffee:

The decline in wages and the middle class are the result of corporate executives, like those of Walmart, pocketing all the growth in GDP observed in the last 30 years.  It isn't so much the cause of their success; it's more of a result.  If workers were paid a reasonable wage in this country, we could afford to buy more.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Neither corporations nor their executives are the root cause of any of this. People greatly overestimate how powerful or impactful corporations are. In reality, firms simply operate within the framework of the economy that is created by government policies. They have always been profit optimizers, what has changed is the framework we have given them to operate in.

Paying workers a "reasonable wage" is a a nice sentiment, but has little if any economic meaning. Workers are paid the market wage and always have been. What has changed is the market wage has fallen, for a number of reasons, but essentially none of them are the choice of corporations, all are the result of government policies. At one time workers were paid a "reasonable wage", but what is important is understanding why wages fell which is a far from simple operation.

This distinction is important, because blaming the wrong actor has prevented people from solving the problem. If you think Walmart or Amazon or whoever else is the reason this happened, it prevents you from addressing the actual issues. That said, I will grant that there is a feedback loop of sorts here where corporations do lobby government for one policy or another, which has an impact, but the fact that government policies are the ultimate source of the issue must not be overlooked.

Aristotle would have a heyday with this tripe.

"Government policy is the issue -- and corporations do influence it -- but corporations are not the problem."

I frankly don't care what some long dead Greek thinks about it. He would be more amazed about our ability to tame fire than anything else.

Government policy is the issue, it alone has the power to create the framework that allows this. No matter what a private company may want to do, it would be incapable of generating these outcomes by any of its own policies.

Second, as to the influence on government, it is something of a problem in terms of a feedback loop, but in this case one came before the other. These companies had to come into existence, which only happened after the policies were in place. Once they are there firms may continue to support or lobby for some policies, but they could not do that before they existed.

Many of these policy failures go back to the forties. Walmart was not around for decades after that to lobby for anything, so the blame has to be put primarily on government policies which created this situation, and only by the reversal of those policies will it change.
Dear heavens, you're repeating the tripe.  Might as well be J. Danforth Quayle: "I stand by all the misstatements..."
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

index

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.305693,-82.3392276,3a,90y,30.25h,85.2t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1spngywJ_VF2x3DhVivCHhOA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DpngywJ_VF2x3DhVivCHhOA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D204.24445%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

There's this one partially abandoned shopping center in Johnson City that trucks park in overnight all the time, even though there's a ton of signs saying not to. The truckers don't care though, and neither do I, because I've slept in my car a few times here, because I don't have the money to blow on a hotel room.
I love my 2010 Ford Explorer.



Counties traveled

tolbs17

#28
This shopping center is almost half vacant and it was built in 2006-2007ish along with a movie theater.

https://goo.gl/maps/jvATv3BLQV1CjCFy9

Nothing here! https://goo.gl/maps/ZXpDgVhCnJnGKeqC6

gonealookin

Quote from: GaryV on February 16, 2022, 01:05:58 PM
Pick a former K-Mart location. At least 50/50 that it's eligible for this list.

I was walking in Carson City today and took a few shots of Northtown Plaza, which was anchored by a Kmart from 1994 until that store closed in 2003.  It's situated on North Carson Street, which was the first part of US 395 to be bypassed by what is now the full I-580 bypass of Carson City.  Satellite view here:

https://goo.gl/maps/ehxQuBer2gzLePiF6

A part of the Kmart was briefly used as a Gold's Gym, but that is gone now too.  This center has been pretty desolate for 19 years now.  There are only a couple businesses in the main buildings; most of the cars appear to be customers of the dialysis place, along with a few people smoking weed in their cars in the empty lot.  A couple of outbuildings contain a sports bar which actually does reasonable business, a Starbucks and a pizza place.  But that's about it.

The first shot is mostly showing the old Kmart.







The property is quite a few acres and has excellent access to both North Carson Street and College Parkway, both major thoroughfares which connect to I-580 a mile or so away.  There's a Save Mart supermarket just across College Parkway and a busy Walmart/Home Depot/restaurants development at College Parkway and I-580.  Northtown Plaza has no hope of ever reviving as a retail center, and I wish somebody would tear it down and build some sorely-needed low to moderate income housing on the site.  Those two adjoining boulevards could easily handle all the trips generated by hundreds of apartment units on the property.  For now, though, this place just sails on as a ghost ship with pathetic "Available" signs on the fronts of the buildings or in the windows of the empty store spaces.

Here's a "Ghosts of Carson" article from 2012 with some photos taken then as well as some from 2003 when the Kmart was getting ready to close:

https://aroundcarson.com/2012/06/06/ghosts_of_carson_super_k/

ftballfan

Quote from: GaryV on February 16, 2022, 01:05:58 PM
Pick a former K-Mart location. At least 50/50 that it's eligible for this list.


The Manistee K-Mart closed in 2016. At the time, the shopping plaza was also home to Subway, Admiral Tobacco, Fiesta Hair, the Secretary of State (Michigan's equivalent of the DMV), and the unemployment office. Since K-Mart closed, Fiesta Hair closed, Subway moved across the road into the long-abandoned space in front of the bowling alley, and the unemployment office moved to another office building. Admiral Tobacco and the Secretary of State are still there for now, and I'm surprised no one has bought and reopened the gas station (which was one of a few gas stations K-Mart put in front of their stores just before the 2002 bankruptcy).

Ironically, the old old K-Mart plaza is in better shape, with Dunham's Sports, Dollar Tree, Gill-Roy's Hardware, and Continental Rental. For years, the former K-Mart area in that plaza was empty until that area was subdivided between Dunham's and Peebles (which went under a few years back).

While on the topic of K-Mart gas stations, the Ionia K-Mart store closed in 2008, yet the gas station in front of it remained open under the K-Mart brand until at least 2015 (according to GSV) and reopened in 2019 as a Mobil.

Bruce


Flint1979

Quote from: GaryV on February 16, 2022, 01:05:58 PM
Pick a former K-Mart location. At least 50/50 that it's eligible for this list.
Like this one? The store on the right is the former Kmart, on the left is a former Kroger with two stores open in the middle (a thrift shop and a baseball gym). The former Kmart is now a self storage and the Kroger remains empty. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4150663,-84.0169885,3a,50.6y,170.79h,89.23t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s1Cie3aq99EhXhVSxExY4nA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D1Cie3aq99EhXhVSxExY4nA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D171.75304%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

Or this one. The former Kmart here is already a self storage in the GSV but the rest of the plaza remains empty. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4716138,-83.976812,3a,48.9y,233.32h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sPEh9cN-Pm5JstIEz25GGWA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The plaza surrounding this former Kmart is still going pretty strong for an example of a plaza that isn't really dying other than the Kmart which is still open in the GSV. https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6221333,-83.9131956,3a,75y,109.26h,88.1t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sN0XHaVaR0byv8IdBLiV6iw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DN0XHaVaR0byv8IdBLiV6iw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D238.42897%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656


elsmere241




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