In response to my question "Does anyone have good examples of big-box retail retrofits?" (posted on an APA discussion board), John Woods writes --
What is your standard for "good"? If you are looking for cutting edge
design excitement or trendy new-urbanist lifestyle centers, then no, I
don't know of any. However, if restoring a strip mall to full occupancy
with vibrant businesses counts, you could look at Peachtree Plaza in
Hammonton, NJ. A Jamesway department store and an Acme Market both
closed after a Wal-Mart and a larger Superfresh Market opened across the
street. When Shop Rite Markets came to our economic development office
looking for a greenfield site to develop a new store in our town, we
directed them to the owners of the old strip mall and pointed out the
real advantages of retrofitting the old department store. While the
space was no longer viable as a discount department store, it proved to
be perfect for a larger grocery store. With the presence of a new and
competitive anchor tenant, the remaining spaces, including the old Acme
Market space, were quickly rented out to an appropriate tenant mix. A
portion of the back of the old Acme Market space was subdivided for use
as a call center for a computer tech support firm. They needed cheap but
clean space without any walk-in traffic. That back portion of the
building was perfect and that reduced the size of the remaining market
space making it more appealing to mid-sized retailers like Advance Auto
Parts.
Sometimes the best answers are simple but effective. By re-positioning
the center with a grocery store anchor rather than a discount department
store, it made all the difference. Some minor facade improvements and
addition of a new restaurant on a small out parcel completed the package
with minimal demolition and reconstruction expense. It increased
traffic not only in Peachtree Plaza, but also at the new Wal-Mart across
the street. With a larger critical mass of businesses, customers would
come from longer distances to shop in the area. Peachtree Plaza is
located at 80 S. White Horse Pike, in Hammonton, NJ.
John Woods runs the consulting firm Revival by Design focused on design-based economic
development, revitalization master planning and community visioning.
Al Jones adds the following:
We've seen them used
for data center, call centers, physician-owned outpatient clinic,
government offices, furniture stores, a 63,000 sq. ft. pawn shop that
needed the display space, antique mall (home-based dealers rent space
within), carpet store (again flooring demands a lot of space), light
manufacturing (that was a surprisingly easy transition and then sold
portions of the vast parking lot to fast food outlets to pay off the
building mortgage quickly), and as John points out retailers growing
beyond traditional sizes into what could work in the big box location
like grocery, specialized grocery, craft and fabric shops (one took
100,000 sq. ft. and has made it work quite well.)
They'd work very well for dividing into classrooms for higher ed or K-12
for that matter and have the power supply, lighting, parking, and
finishes in place so you're looking at throwing up some interior walls,
more power distribution maybe, WI-FI, fiber optic cabling connection
maybe, and expanded lavatories so dramatically cheaper, probably 10-15%
of the cost that education looks at with buildings when I've run the
numbers on it but almost immediately out of consideration by educators,
who remain the least practical group I've ever run across in facilities
management and planning. It'd solve a lot of overcrowding or need for
lab space for technical training compared to $170-300 sq. ft. new
construction on high cost land over 3-10 years that's considered the
standard solution.
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