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Yes you are right on the money. They have to understand in order to remain/become a viable place to do shopping the only way to do this is to offer places that the region does not currently have. Sadly I'm not encouraged by the mayor's take on this that I get from listening to his radio program. He's seems to believe that the future of retail is all online. Not going to bash. We will have new leadership soon so we will see what happens.
But if Charleston and the CTC don't get it together in the next few months the future of regional retail will be the new developments in Barboursville and whatever decides to pickup and move to Southridge...and I'm thinking that will be outside of Charleston city limits so they will be losing tax dollars. Someone should have hit the panic button a long-long time ago regarding the CTC. So much potential here if people will dare to dream and envision like thy once did. Hopefully we can look back in 10 years and call this current time period the lowest of low points.
Yes you are right on the money. They have to understand in order to remain/become a viable place to do shopping the only way to do this is to offer places that the region does not currently have. Sadly I'm not encouraged by the mayor's take on this that I get from listening to his radio program. He's seems to believe that the future of retail is all online. Not going to bash. We will have new leadership soon so we will see what happens.
But if Charleston and the CTC don't get it together in the next few months the future of regional retail will be the new developments in Barboursville and whatever decides to pickup and move to Southridge...and I'm thinking that will be outside of Charleston city limits so they will be losing tax dollars. Someone should have hit the panic button a long-long time ago regarding the CTC. So much potential here if people will dare to dream and envision like thy once did. Hopefully we can look back in 10 years and call this current time period the lowest of low points.
John, I don't think there is any doubt that retail is under attack nationwide, not just in Charleston. The mayor is onto something there. Wouldn't it be true that the type of retail would be more important than just retail in terms of what has the greatest potential. In other words, forms of retail that do not lend themselves to online purchases as opposed to clothing stores and the like? Also, a greater emphasis on service providers than on traditional retail for the space might be warranted.
I would think that with Charleston investing $90 million in rehabbing the Civic Center right next door to the CTC would give the city incentive to explore different options. The last thing they need is a dying shopping mall located right next to that major money outlay, and if they can't repurpose it if traditional retail does take a hike, imagine the expense involved with removing it. Would the CTC make a good location for medical offices, dental offices, and light industry? I do know that they have ample parking available at that location.
John, I don't think there is any doubt that retail is under attack nationwide, not just in Charleston. The mayor is onto something there. Wouldn't it be true that the type of retail would be more important than just retail in terms of what has the greatest potential. In other words, forms of retail that do not lend themselves to online purchases as opposed to clothing stores and the like? Also, a greater emphasis on service providers than on traditional retail for the space might be warranted.
I would think that with Charleston investing $90 million in rehabbing the Civic Center right next door to the CTC would give the city incentive to explore different options. The last thing they need is a dying shopping mall located right next to that major money outlay, and if they can't repurpose it if traditional retail does take a hike, imagine the expense involved with removing it. Would the CTC make a good location for medical offices, dental offices, and light industry? I do know that they have ample parking available at that location.
Honestly the only logical use for that space is retail/services. Like you said, with the Civic Center being overhauled and expanded currently, it would be a massive mistake not to have the mall there. There is 6 Hotels all within sight of the CTC also to factor in, with 3 of them being significant size. The mall desperately needs to attract businesses that will draw the entire region in. Cell phone stores and Cookie Shops aren't going to keep people coming.
Things such as an Apple Store or Dave & Busters would draw people in. Sears could be divided up, but I don't see Dillard's coming in anytime soon.
There is plenty of vacant office space in Charleston. To re-purpose the CTC for more office space would make no sense. Charleston has few attractions as is so this would only end up taking one more away. The CTC is not a large footprint mall but a multi-story structure in the middle of downtown so converting it to industrial production makes no sense either. Tangible retail is far from dead. I travel all the time. Was at Short Pump this weekend. I see it first hand. Retail is quite alive. The problem is that 10 stores of the same thing won't work in the age of Amazon. 10 types of the same restaurants is failing too. Retail has to adapt and is. Charleston needs to adapt along with it. If retail were dead there wouldn't be TWO large developments going in at Barboursville in this economy and in this state.
There is plenty of vacant office space in Charleston. To re-purpose the CTC for more office space would make no sense. Charleston has few attractions as is so this would only end up taking one more away. The CTC is not a large footprint mall but a multi-story structure in the middle of downtown so converting it to industrial production makes no sense either. Tangible retail is far from dead. I travel all the time. Was at Short Pump this weekend. I see it first hand. Retail is quite alive. The problem is that 10 stores of the same thing won't work in the age of Amazon. 10 types of the same restaurants is failing too. Retail has to adapt and is. Charleston needs to adapt along with it. If retail were dead there wouldn't be TWO large developments going in at Barboursville in this economy and in this state.
I agree! The new management at the CTC needs to look at there current types of businesses that make up the roster, and find retail and restaurants that don't duplicate existing tenants. I can thing of a whole host of stores and eateries that would compliment the existing ones and would draw the region into downtown. Apple is an obvious choice, as it would draw from a very large area. People that have Apple products like the convenience of having a service center and store close by instead of over the phone business. A store like Eddie Bauer or North Face would be unique to the mall as well. As for restaurants, something needs to replace Five Guys vacant front. How about a BBQ place (Like Cookout or Dickey's), because there isn't anything like that anywhere downtown with the exception of maybe a food truck.
Other smaller stores could be; Urban Outfitters, Brookstone, Maurices, LL Bean, Williams & Sonoma, Crate & Barrel (smaller store format), American Apparel, Box Lunch Gifts, Oakley, Microsoft Store, Louie Vuitton, etc...
Now for Sears, I am all in favor of finding a replacement to take the entire space. The problem is, I don't think it will happen. Dillard's has to be off the table because it would cost them an incredible amount of money to turn a former Sears into a "nicer store". Belk or Bon Ton is more likely, but I don't see them taking a chance like that. Boscov's like others have mentioned would be unique, but don't really have a presence in our direction so their distribution facilities might be too far away. Nordstrom Rack would be great too, but I heard that they are having financial problems. A smaller IKEA I'm afraid would never happen as the regional population is too small and income levels are too small. No other large retailer would be able to encompass the space properly like Wholesale or Big Box.
That leads me to suggest breaking the space up into mid-size stores. The current state of the Sears structure would need to be altered and possibly added upon, but I believe that given the right floor plan and exterior renovation, the CTC could make an excellent "Lifestyle Corner".
Level 1:
I like the idea of Trader Joe's making a home on the first floor along with a restaurant that would have both inside and outside entrances (Cheesecake Factory/ Capital Grill/ PF Changs/ California Pizza Kitchen/ A brewery/ etc...). The restaurant would be beside The Chop House, and would have alfresco style dining and would require an exterior renovation similar to the Court St. side of the mall (Five Guys/Qdoba). That would leave plenty of room for a Trader Joe's with access to the pull in lane and level one parking spaces in the adjacent garage. Of course the whole outside will receive renovation to match the concept.
Level 2:
The second level will require re-configuring the location of the escalators and elevator to the 3rd level, preferably right in front of the 2nd level mall entrance. That way the second floor can be divided into two equally sized(or at least appearing that way) spaces. This is where you welcome a combination of the following; Old Navy, H&M, LL Bean, REI, Barnes and Noble (kick BAM out haha), Crate & Barrel, The Container Store, Urban Outfitters, etc... You could also just use half of the space, and make the other half a higher ceiling for the street level restaurant. Another thought would be to add some kind of entertainment venue on this level, like an escape room.
Level 3:
With the third level you could have either one large tenant or divide equally based on the escalator location. I like the idea of having 2 more tenants there as well. On the Clendenin St. half I could see a gym like Planet Fitness, Gold's, or LA Fitness with a glass overhanging window that would wrap around that half of the building. The whole exterior of this level would be glass in order to offer a more contemporary feel to the space. The treadmills could be facing the windows so that runners could look to the streets below (Quarrier and Clendenin) as they workout. The gym would have a smoothie bar at the entrance beside escalators. On the other half, I'd put a Dave & Busters. Now both of these venues would be smaller footprints of their existing concepts, but that would probably work better for our market size anyways. Also remember that one tenant could utilize the whole space as well. The fitness center would encourage downtown living "hence lifestyle concept". Dave & Busters I believe would be a huge success!
Other Notes with this:
Expansion is possible towards Quarrier St. because there currently is a truck loading area there. With that removed, you could add a 3 story atrium that allows access to all 3 levels and tenants from Quarrier street. It also could allow for a couple other smaller stores/restaurants/cafes etc... Also, the empty Sears Auto lot could compliment the project as well with some mixed use that ties into this development. This is where I'd love to see some apartments downtown. Or that lot could turn into an Imax theater, Alamo Draft House, Aquarium, or other type of tourism venue. I honestly believe all of this is possible (even in a city like Charleston) with the right leadership!
Last edited by Chriscross309; 07-16-2017 at 12:15 PM..
There is plenty of vacant office space in Charleston. To re-purpose the CTC for more office space would make no sense. Charleston has few attractions as is so this would only end up taking one more away. The CTC is not a large footprint mall but a multi-story structure in the middle of downtown so converting it to industrial production makes no sense either. Tangible retail is far from dead. I travel all the time. Was at Short Pump this weekend. I see it first hand. Retail is quite alive. The problem is that 10 stores of the same thing won't work in the age of Amazon. 10 types of the same restaurants is failing too. Retail has to adapt and is. Charleston needs to adapt along with it. If retail were dead there wouldn't be TWO large developments going in at Barboursville in this economy and in this state.
You are correct retail is not dead and is in fact very far from dead. Bad retailers and overbuilt malls and centers are dead. Now that Charleston has seen Kanawha Mall and Saints Albans Malls repurposed leaving Town center as the Mall for 50 miles with 350,000 around it, CTC is not going to die. It will face competition from shopping centers but they are not going to attract exactly the same buyers, or shouldn't if the respective management is smart.
Ecommerce has plateaued at 8% of all retail sales. Even if it were to grow 25% over the next ten years it would still only account for 10% of all retail sales. But the big chains are not sitting on their hands - well, some were but they are all but dead, such as Sears. Chains like Dillard's, Belk, Marshall's JC Penney and Kohl's have found a solution and all of them have turned the corner and are looking not only at black ledgers but ledgers that are getting better and better each quarter.
Now that most of the over built malls are gone, those left are doing very well. CTC is a cash cow and is the region's premiere shopping destination even if we locals nit pick it to death. Most of that is because we can see the management company for what it is, a leech sucking the money out and putting not back into the Town Center.
Most of the best Malls mix the in-door and the out-door shopping venues into one mega footprint. Unfortunately CTC does not have any room to do that being hemmed in downtown by the Civic Center, 5 hotels, government and office towers. The only avenue for CTC to grow in this fashion is by jumping one or more streets and that is kind of tough since all of the streets in the CDB are high volume. Skywalks could come into play and are used in many cities for that reason but the appeal is just not the same as walking unimpeded along a pedestrian walk from one end to the other.
For several decades the city has tried to promote an out-door concept around Capitol Street, but it has had at best minimal success. The problem is that unlike a typical out-door center where there is single management organization, Capitol Street is a collage of competing owners, most of whom live out of state or worse the property is buried in an unbreakable trust and all that matters is the piddling annual profits. If someone can solve that problem, CTC will be an anchor one end and the Historic District on the other. I recommend Imminent Domain and the liberal use of a bulldozer but no one listens.
Of course the connecting shopping center, St Marks, the old Federal Building and most importantly the Transit Mall, need to go. We might be able to keep St Marks and maybe the old Federal Building but the other two are non-negotiable. The city is in the process of dumping a ton of money on the transit mall so this will not happen any time soon.
Checking off my 'to-do' list today I was headed out to Charleston Town Center for a few errands. I generally do not spend a lot of time in the mall but today was a bit different. The mall itself was what I would call running at light traffic levels, but both Macy's and J C Penney's had lines at their register stations. JCP was the worst of the two but it was pretty even. I had a return to take back and decided to do a bit of casual browsing. When I went to pay I found I was number 7 in line one side and the other side had just as many. I thought, I would head down stairs to pay and when I got there they had lines as well but they had 3 at that check out station.
I asked the older lady if this was normal and she said in the last year it was getting to be normal. I said it is 5:30 PM on a Monday and this is normal? She said the weekends were busy, this was just normal. She said it was a huge change from her previous place of employment - Sears. She said they never had customers. I was surprised by the business level in both Macy's and Penney's.
We then ended our trip at Chili's and boy were we sorry. I have never been to a dirtier restaurant in my life and I have been in some real dives. But, there the staff outnumbered the diners by 2 to 1. The girl that took us to our dirty table was on her cell and her hair was in some sort of curlers. Maybe they were supposed to look like that but they looked like old fashioned hair curlers that had been melted. They were multi colored but they matched nothing she had on. She did not talk once to us.
Our waitress was bulged out pregnant and spoke with a back holler twang and word choice that made you wonder which family member was her baby daddy. She was good at her job I suppose although she never got the drinks correct. The food, which used to have a nice presentation looked tossed on the plate and everything was poor at best in taste. We opened our little packets that contained the cutlery and fork and everything was dirty. The windows have a cheap looking peel and stick sun screen on them and all of them were smudged with greasy fingers and cut many times over leaving them with scratches.
As I said the table was dirty, the seats were dirty and the floor beneath had trash in it. I thought maybe she just seated us a table that needed to be flipped for new service, but they all looked like that.
Finally, after enduring bad food and an environment one should only find in some 7th century movie we tried to use the automated checkout on the table. It was sighted at one corner pointed out to the aisle. We moved it and started a loop of resetting itself. Finally, the mommy-to-be waitress stopped by and said don't move it if you want it to work. It has battery problems. We gave her the check and she came back a few minutes later, we signed the check and left.
Chili's was one of those places I used to enjoy stopping in, but I will not be going back to this one.
Sears closing was bound to help the competitors. I would think that is perfectly normal.
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Trip to CTC on 7-17-17
