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Old 01-12-2009, 09:26 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,606 posts, read 77,287,663 times
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In continuing the impending renaissance of our region's largest city, Kildare's Irish Pub has announced that it is leaving Montage Mountain due to the horribly slow traffic at the Shoppes at Montage and is going to be opening a new restaurant in the former Bee-Witched building, roughly across from the Radisson/Lackawanna Station Hotel at the juncture of Jefferson & Lackawanna Avenues in the Electric City. To be quite honest I worry that with Molly Brannigan's and The Banshee both just blocks away that the downtown market will become too saturated with Irish pubs, but then again Scranton is a city proud of its Irish-American heritage (and is proud of its struggles with alcoholism and DUIs, but I digress).

I can't say I'm surprised with their decision. I was at the Shoppes the other day to buy something for my friend at the Sapphire Salon, and you could hear a pin drop. I could look for a few hundred feet in front of me and be lucky to see ONE other person on the sidewalks. From what I've heard most retailers at The Shoppes at Montage have been complaining about slower than expected sales, and I can't say I blame them. Save for the Christmas Tree Shop and Starbuck's I'm often the only person coming in and out of any given store at any given time when I visit, even on weekends. Perhaps enough people in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area are INTELLIGENT enough to realize that creating a faux-downtown out in the suburbs at the expense of driving businesses out of our real downtowns is NOT a good idea? Most people I speak to in my age range do NOT like the Shoppes, and since I was one of the FEW originally opposed to this project I can now feel satisfying to say "told you so" to everyone who thought the Shoppes would be a smashing success. The developer had a grandiose opportunity to rehabilitate an entire city block in Scranton to house these businesses but instead opted to further our region's pandemic sprawl problem by raping Montage Mountain due to its proximity to I-81. I notice that there are still MANY vacant storefronts here as well, and I can only hope that this entire complex falls FLAT ON ITS FACE with the tenants moving into Downtown Scranton to show PRIDE in our area!

Now all Downtown Scranton needs are some lofts/condos, and it can truly be well on its way to becoming an 18-hour city.
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Old 01-12-2009, 09:39 PM
 
Location: NEPA
923 posts, read 3,083,466 times
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ScranBarre outside of Panama City Beach Florida their is a newly built 'new town' Carillon Beach -- its a wonderful area full of shops, coffee houses, pubs, cafes, etc. and above everyone is a condo for winter rental. The small town square is a fountain with nightly music, so you can sit on your balcony and watch the activity and listen to the ocean and music. Reminded me of your idea with the lofts and condos above the stores in Scranton, well sort of !!!!
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Old 01-12-2009, 09:54 PM
 
Location: wilkes-barre
1,973 posts, read 5,250,161 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScranBarre View Post
In continuing the impending renaissance of our region's largest city, Kildare's Irish Pub has announced that it is leaving Montage Mountain due to the horribly slow traffic at the Shoppes at Montage and is going to be opening a new restaurant in the former Bee-Witched building, roughly across from the Radisson/Lackawanna Station Hotel at the juncture of Jefferson & Lackawanna Avenues in the Electric City. To be quite honest I worry that with Molly Brannigan's and The Banshee both just blocks away that the downtown market will become too saturated with Irish pubs, but then again Scranton is a city proud of its Irish-American heritage (and is proud of its struggles with alcoholism and DUIs, but I digress).

I can't say I'm surprised with their decision. I was at the Shoppes the other day to buy something for my friend at the Sapphire Salon, and you could hear a pin drop. I could look for a few hundred feet in front of me and be lucky to see ONE other person on the sidewalks. From what I've heard most retailers at The Shoppes at Montage have been complaining about slower than expected sales, and I can't say I blame them. Save for the Christmas Tree Shop and Starbuck's I'm often the only person coming in and out of any given store at any given time when I visit, even on weekends. Perhaps enough people in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area are INTELLIGENT enough to realize that creating a faux-downtown out in the suburbs at the expense of driving businesses out of our real downtowns is NOT a good idea? Most people I speak to in my age range do NOT like the Shoppes, and since I was one of the FEW originally opposed to this project I can now feel satisfying to say "told you so" to everyone who thought the Shoppes would be a smashing success. The developer had a grandiose opportunity to rehabilitate an entire city block in Scranton to house these businesses but instead opted to further our region's pandemic sprawl problem by raping Montage Mountain due to its proximity to I-81. I notice that there are still MANY vacant storefronts here as well, and I can only hope that this entire complex falls FLAT ON ITS FACE with the tenants moving into Downtown Scranton to show PRIDE in our area!

Now all Downtown Scranton needs are some lofts/condos, and it can truly be well on its way to becoming an 18-hour city.
I don't know but speaking as a Wilkes-Barre resident, I just find The Shoppes at Montage to far to travel for shopping purposes, especially with all the shopping centers up by the arena. I haven't been there, and wouldn't go there unless I needed something specific that I just couldn't find anywhere else but at Montage. I don't know if the same is true for Scranton area residents, but you will not catch me driving 25 minutes up to Montage, or risking being stuck in a traffic jam nightmare on I-81 to buy the same crap made in China that I can get anywhere else. I think that's that's the main problem with The Shoppes at Montage...it's a little to far away from both cities for an everyday shopping experience. After the novelty of it being new wore off, most people probably decide to just go back to their normal "closer to home" stores. That's my two cents.
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Old 01-12-2009, 09:57 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,606 posts, read 77,287,663 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nkotb View Post
ScranBarre outside of Panama City Beach Florida their is a newly built 'new town' Carillon Beach -- its a wonderful area full of shops, coffee houses, pubs, cafes, etc. and above everyone is a condo for winter rental. The small town square is a fountain with nightly music, so you can sit on your balcony and watch the activity and listen to the ocean and music. Reminded me of your idea with the lofts and condos above the stores in Scranton, well sort of !!!!
That's what I'd like to see. Imagine what they're doing with the 500-block of Lackawanna Avenue with the rehabilitated storefronts/restaurants/galleries in the first-floor with lofts/condos in the upper-floors, and then magnify that by ten-fold, and THAT is what I envision someday for Downtown Scranton---an 18-hour neighborhood where people can live, dine, shop, work, play, and worship all within steps of their front doors. Dan and most others on this forum think people would have to be stupid to want to live in Downtown Scranton, but besides myself I know of SEVERAL others who would be more than happy to have a reasonably-priced 1-bedroom flat above a storefront downtown to call our own. Not all of us appreciate having the automobile saddling us down whenever we need a loaf of bread, want to browse for a book at the library, or want to grab a coffee.

What Scranton needs to do though is ensure that its downtown continues to be attractive to ALL income classes in order to be most successful. We don't want a downtown overrun by over-glorified yuppies nor do we want a downtown replete with the ghetto trash I saw today congregating in front of the Mall at Steamtown entrance. We want a mix of all of them. I think it's a TRAGEDY that Mayor Doherty's long-range plans seem to include squeezing out all lower-income people from Downtown Scranton as he possibly can with the closure of Washington Plaza and the impending takeover of Florence/Midtown. Downtown Scranton will need the luxury lofts that will be part of the 500-block of Lackawanna Avenue, the mid-priced condos that will be in the Connell Building, AND the low-income housing projects that are seemingly so oft-maligned by the mayor. I don't like what I see in "rich" downtowns (useless boutiques/gift shops with over priced junk). I don't like what I see in impoverished downtowns (pawn shops, dollar stores, cigarette outlets, tattoo parlors, etc.) I DO like what I see in successfully-revitalized downtown areas with a MIXTURE of all income ranges (convenience stores, barber shops/beauty parlors, grocery stores, pharmacies, organic foods co-ops, bakeries, restaurants, coffee shops, news stands, used book stores, art galleries, etc.) Mayor Doherty seems to desire the former---a downtown based around the "creative class." Most of the council regulars seem to want the latter of the two---a downtown that reflects the nearly 1/4 of the city that is impoverished (even though 1/3 is upper-middle-class, but I digress). I think the city can properly represent BOTH!

The Shoppes at Montage would have been a good idea if it didn't merely serve to suck foot traffic out of Downtown Scranton. There's not one person on this forum that can honestly say that the quality of the stores at the Mall at Steamtown hasn't gone seriously downhill since the Shoppes opened a couple of years ago. Our area can't continue to sustain so many new shopping destinations while our population is stagnant or very slowly growing. They start to cannibalize one another. If it came down to a brou-ha-ha between Downtown Scranton, Dickson City, and Montage Mountain with knowledge that one must fail in order to sustain the other two, I'd seriously hope Montage falls flat upon its face.
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Old 01-12-2009, 10:04 PM
 
Location: NEPA
923 posts, read 3,083,466 times
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I don't think there would be anything nicer than living in an area within walking distance to everything else I need !! I worked in Chicago years ago on Michigan Avenue in a building with garage/drycleaner lower level, bar/restaurant first level, offices for 5 levels, apartments for 6 levels and a gym -- you would never have to leave the building. The only problem with Scranton theres no work close to downtown !!
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Old 01-12-2009, 10:06 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,606 posts, read 77,287,663 times
Reputation: 19071
Quote:
Originally Posted by W-B proud View Post
I don't know but speaking as a Wilkes-Barre resident, I just find The Shoppes at Montage to far to travel for shopping purposes, especially with all the shopping centers up by the arena. I haven't been there, and wouldn't go there unless I needed something specific that I just couldn't find anywhere else but at Montage. I don't know if the same is true for Scranton area residents, but you will not catch me driving 25 minutes up to Montage, or risking being stuck in a traffic jam nightmare on I-81 to buy the same crap made in China that I can get anywhere else. I think that's that's the main problem with The Shoppes at Montage...it's a little to far away from both cities for an everyday shopping experience. After the novelty of it being new wore off, most people probably decide to just go back to their normal "closer to home" stores. That's my two cents.
The problem with the Shoppes is also that the developer deceived us. What's so "unique" and "upscale" about Hallmark, Starbuck's, GAP, American Eagle, Hot Topic, GameStop, Aeropostale, Victoria's Secret, etc., etc. when we have all of these in our area already? My favorite store (and unarguably the BUSIEST store) at the complex is Christmas Tree Shop, and even that isn't keeping with the "upscale" theme that was initially promised. That shopping center is a joke. Talbot's is already in Clarks Summit and Kingston. Ann Taylor Loft as a whole may very well soon be going out of business, just as S & K Menswear did. Guitar Center is cool, but even that would have been much more welcomed in Downtown Scranton. The same with Yankee Candle and New York & Company. I know Summering and a few others on here have said in the past that they like the Shoppes, but all in all when you remove the stores that ALREADY existed in our area and account for the vacant space, what's left? Perhaps a DOZEN unique higher-end retailers/restaurants, if even that? What a colossal waste of open space! What long-range urban planners does Moosic have in its employ to have allowed such a poor development into its jurisdiction?
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Old 01-12-2009, 10:12 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,606 posts, read 77,287,663 times
Reputation: 19071
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkotb View Post
I don't think there would be anything nicer than living in an area within walking distance to everything else I need !! I worked in Chicago years ago on Michigan Avenue in a building with garage/drycleaner lower level, bar/restaurant first level, offices for 5 levels, apartments for 6 levels and a gym -- you would never have to leave the building. The only problem with Scranton theres no work close to downtown !!
I see this happening with Scranton on a much, much smaller scale. We're not Chicago, SoHo, TriBeCa, Brooklyn Heights, Hoboken, etc. by any means, but we most certainly can become a Bethlehem or an Ithaca (save for the uber-liberals of course!) I like the down-to-earth small-town atmosphere that Scranton has, even though it has somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000-72,000 residents. However, there's NOTHING WRONG with aspiring for better things to come as far as making the downtown viable as a place to live too. I was just watching WNEP a few minutes ago and gleamed from ear to ear at their three lead stories---the relocation of Kildare's to the city from the suburbs, the rehabilitation of the Connell Building starting to get underway soon causing a potential traffic snarl along North Washington Avenue, and the demolition of a blighted building along Linden Street to make way for another mixed-use project. Scranton is a city of neighborhoods indeed, and we must be careful NOT to neglect them in favor of the downtown, but on that same token if the downtown is neglected, then visitors and suburbanites are going to have a very negative impression of the city in general, as the downtown is mostly all that they see.
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Old 01-12-2009, 10:14 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,606 posts, read 77,287,663 times
Reputation: 19071
Speak of the devil! A commercial for the Shoppes at Montage just came onto WNEP. LOL! They've been advertising like mad recently. I don't think their sales are meeting expectations. I say boot out all of the duplicate businesses in that complex, give the "unique" ones an incentive to move downtown, and then tear that place back down to restore it to its natural splendor! I can still remember a time when you could sit at a Red Barons game and see deer behind the outfield. Now you don't see that anymore as the mountain continues to develop all of its open space (thankfully it looks like plans for the Lowe's and Target were scrapped).
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Old 01-12-2009, 10:18 PM
 
Location: Sunshine N'Blue Skies
13,321 posts, read 22,583,014 times
Reputation: 11694
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkotb View Post
ScranBarre outside of Panama City Beach Florida their is a newly built 'new town' Carillon Beach -- its a wonderful area full of shops, coffee houses, pubs, cafes, etc. and above everyone is a condo for winter rental. The small town square is a fountain with nightly music, so you can sit on your balcony and watch the activity and listen to the ocean and music. Reminded me of your idea with the lofts and condos above the stores in Scranton, well sort of !!!!
Here in Myrtle Beach they made a town in a town with the Market Commons. I will have pictures of the area soon. It is a blend of high-end stores, movie theaters, restaurants,lofts, townhomes etc.
They have put a walking park area with a nice lake in the middle.
I put pictures on here last year. But, Wow........they have finished and it is fantastic. It is so impressive. Beautiful walkways, beautiful store fronts.
I think about all the people who want to live and walk in their own home area...........this fits the bill. Everything from buying a book at Barnes and Nobles, to attending a movie, to shopping for groceries........is just steps away. Now this plan worked, and worked well......
Hard Rock however has closed before one year was up.......I saw it coming before the doors were open. Poor planning on that........for sure.
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Old 01-12-2009, 10:28 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,606 posts, read 77,287,663 times
Reputation: 19071
Quote:
Originally Posted by Summering View Post
Here in Myrtle Beach they made a town in a town with the Market Commons. I will have pictures of the area soon. It is a blend of high-end stores, movie theaters, restaurants,lofts, townhomes etc.
They have put a walking park area with a nice lake in the middle.
I put pictures on here last year. But, Wow........they have finished and it is fantastic. It is so impressive. Beautiful walkways, beautiful store fronts.
I think about all the people who want to live and walk in their own home area...........this fits the bill. Everything from buying a book at Barnes and Nobles, to attending a movie, to shopping for groceries........is just steps away. Now this plan worked, and worked well......
Hard Rock however has closed before one year was up.......I saw it coming before the doors were open. Poor planning on that........for sure.
I realize those sorts of developments aren't for everyone though. I know a lot of people move to NEPA from other areas to get "more bang for their buck" in terms of elbow room and room to roam a bit. More power to them. Then again people like me who WANT the option to live somewhere where we CAN wake up in the morning knowing that we don't have to fire up the 'ole SUV all day because we have everything we need within a mile's walk around our home from work to worship to a park to a movie to a library to a restaurant SHOULD have that option available to us in NEPA, and it would make most sense for that to be Scranton, since it's already the area's largest city with the infrastructural roots (sidewalks, bus routes, utilities, vacant buildings, etc.) already in place.

What you and nkotb are referencing is what those of us who are urban planning junkies call "smart growth." This is when new development attempts to mimic the designs of older and more well-established communities by offering people places to live NEAR to other zoning types so that they CAN walk/bike to conveniences. The only thing roughly familiar to this in NEPA would be Yalick Farms in Dallas, where the condo clusters going up are going to be adjacent to dozens of storefronts, restaurants, etc. at full build-out in a couple of years. Unfortunately that subdivision is once again "self-contained" though and is far isolated from Wilkes-Barre for other amenities (movies, ethnic restaurants, etc.)

Before World War II and the advent of the automobile as we know it we had places like Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Scranton, etc.---places where people lived near enough to workplaces, churches, banks, offices, stores, etc. because they had to. From the post-WWII era to the recent gas price explosion in the early-to-mid-2000s, our nation has fallen off the rails to becoming SO dependent upon the automobile that most of us would be LOST without it! Thankfully now that people DID see that gas prices are quite capable of exploding upwards at a moment's notice they are becoming more and more open-minded to the idea of living nearer to amenities. In a sense even though the new shopping options that will soon be under construction near my own home in Pittston will be a couple of big-box stores and smaller chains, I'll still appreciate being able to walk to them.
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