Watkins Centre

[evanf]

So the Main St part of Watkins/Westchester is almost all vacant. The way they have the fronts to the building boarded up looks like they know it will not be leased out anytime soon. I just drove through there today and I can't help but say what a missed opportunity. The Main St pedestrian part (which is way too small) will never make it. They built it so far away from the movie theater???? Did it not occur to them that foot traffic would be great to have around the movie theater and the pedestrian part? Shouldn't they have been linked? The theater front could have easily have been by the Books A Million without having the theater parking lot b/w the two.

Plus, the pedestrian part is way too small so that you really won't have people walking around the entire complex. I mean who wants to drive to Westchester, park your car and then drive to the pedestrian section??? I don't know why they didn't configure the parking lot better and have ALL the shops within a pedestrian friendly area? If the stores really wanted parking directly beside them they could have had mutiple entrances. They blew it.

[NYCJSW]

Just driving by it on 288 makes me want to puke. The first thing you see is that ginormous shopping center sign (I though they were going for mixed-use village??) I don't understand how people can get away with this today. Do the developers know anything about sustainability?? Cheap = little investment, little profit = poorly planned = angry people = problems = money from taxpayers = more problems for planners. Don't they get that?? It's like they've been living in a strip shopping center their whole lives and that's all they know. When is someone going to create a real destination, with something other than just shopping and spending money?

[evanf]

Well, if you want to puke just driving by it on 288 you better not take a closer look. Driving around it just pissed me off. I can't believe all the talk when this thing was being planned about mixed-use, high end and pedestrian friendly. It is almost like the developers pulled a fraud on the county. What a great location it would have been for something special. Like I wrote before - Fairfax Corner (Fairfax, Va) and Legacy Village (Cleveland) are what we should have gotten. The little token pedestrian part is so small it won't survive.