On Saturday Lindsey and I decided to run a few errands. We really needed some new craft supplies in our house, so she helped me make a list and we went to the store. First Wayne asked us to go to a local running store to pick him up some things.
Our first stop was Marathon Sports -- the store is a little tiny space in our neighborhood. The minute you walk in someone asks how they can help you, and there's everything you could possibly need for successful running: athletic shoes, performance gels/bars, socks, water holders, apparel, etc. But all just running, not a huge square food warehouse.
As we were leaving I noticed that on the corner across the street a new little coffee shop had opened called Dragonfly Coffee. We decided to stop by and check it out -- lucky us, today was their grand opening! Spoke to the owner who was working the counter, things were a little disorganized but you could feel the excitement and nervousness from the staff. I hope it does well. He named it Dragonfly Coffee after his grandmother who loved dragonflies and also owned a restaurant with dragonfly somewhere in the name. Pretty cool.
Then off to our next task: craft supplies. For this our next stop was Michael's, a chain of craft and hobby supplies. It's a large store located in what used to be called the Circuit City Plaza. I say "used to" because while the store hasn't moved, the plaza is currently unnamed since Circuit City went out of business and took their name with it. It was surrounded by shuttered stores on all sides: Circuit City, CompUSA and Cost Plus World Market.
There was only one other store of this entire complex that was still operating, and that was OfficeMax. Heard they aren't doing so hot, either.
All of the shuttered stores had for sale or lease signs on them, advertising the square footage available, usually somewhere around 22,000 to 27,000 sq ft.
The two stores that I had come from that were still in business (or at least just starting their business) had to have less than 2,000 sq ft.
Hmmm...is the big box era over, to be replaced by little local retailers? Wouldn't that be an awesome side effect of this economic downturn, if that were indeed the case?
This is good. Your neighborhood is rather unique. I suppose other cities have similar areas, most large cities have always had neighborhoods. The story you tell is kind of a mirror of the times. I doubt we shall see the death of large malls or strip malls. When you get into the rural area where the population is so spread out small works, but you'd better really be good in choosing your location. It is a lovely area you live in.
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