The amazing transformation of 363 State St to a Dollar General

[GR_Urbanist]

14 minutes ago, mpchicago said:

How about, can they require some revisions?  Find it hard to believe they would grandfather this mess, but considering what was planned for this corner, and what is coming to this corner, nothing would surprise me. 

There really isnt anything they can do honestly.

What is being presented amounts to basic exterior maintenance in any other context. They are merely cleaning up the existing exterior. A new paint job, replacing the roof shingles, replacing some lights, and tacking on a new sign is all that I see.

[wingbert]

[x99]

On 6/28/2017 at 2:55 PM, GR_Urbanist said:

There really isnt anything they can do honestly.

What is being presented amounts to basic exterior maintenance in any other context. They are merely cleaning up the existing exterior. A new paint job, replacing the roof shingles, replacing some lights, and tacking on a new sign is all that I see.

Yeah.  Not exactly what was originally rumored to happen... You're right there is nothing they can do about it, although HPC probably has some sort of jurisdiction over the sign.

The only thing I can figure is that Dollar General pulled the raw demographics data and said, "why bother?"  It is possible/probable they do not exactly understand where they are building this store.  On paper, the demographics drawn from census tract data are horribly misleading.  What happens is that you have an area that runs from College all the way over to Jefferson bounded by Cherry and Fountain, and another from College to Division bounded by Cherry and Wealthy.   You wind up with a bizarre scenario:  A median household income in much of the district that ranges from $15,000 to $20,000.  Meanwhile, the median home value runs from $240,000 to $310,000.  Hmm... South of Wealthy you get a better picture of what is happening.  Between Wealthy and Pleasant bounded by College and Jefferson, the median income rockets up to $43,000 with a median household value of $136,000.  Now that makes more sense, with annual income around a third of the cost of a house.  Except, the houses are actually worth more like $240,000 on average.  So how does income go up while the house value drops like a rock?  It's all about the western boundary.  North of Wealthy, there are almost no houses west of Lafayette, so the home value is more accurate.  South of Wealthy, everything west of Lafayette drags down housing values by almost half.  If you look at the broader picture of things, housing values typically run from about 1/3 to 1/2 of the housing values.  That puts the actual average household income in Heritage Hill between $70,000 to $150,000 (for single family residences).  

Where the western boundary lines are drawn from the census tracts results in an extremely misleading picture...  Retailers just see a very depressed area with no money.  What gets lost in the census tract boundaries are the probably a thousand plus households with very high disposable income.  The low income housing just wipes it all away...  

[EastownLeo]

Add the beauty begins.

[thebeerqueer]

WOW! What a transformation. I'm shocked. 

[GRLaker]

18 hours ago, EastownLeo said:

Add the beauty begins.

[mpchicago]

What a F'ing joke.

[arcturus]

They just opened next to Horrocks.  Talking about a tale of two cities.

[scottythe1nonly]

They chose beige.  At least it matches the Plaza Tower downtown.  

[x99]

Exciting, isn't it?  I had high hopes for this, but this is just a f'ing dumpster fire.   I wonder if they even realize they slapped this into one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the entire city.  Probably not. The demographics suck because of an unfortunate census tract, and the neighborhood does zilch to market itself.  There ought to be a neighborhood campaign not to patronize this junk.  The lack of effort into the facade is insulting.  

[GRDadof3]

4 hours ago, arcturus said:

They just opened next to Horrocks.  Talking about a tale of two cities.

A block to the East of State St, the housing values are way higher than the area around Horrocks. That area of Kentwood got overbuilt with cheap homes and too many apartment complexes.  Or maybe you were being facetious.

x99 is right though, State Street doesn't really reflect the area around it, and now it's filled with LIHTC apartments, a low income healthcare facility, a park that is overrun with homeless, and now a Dollar General. 1 step forward, 2 steps back. 

[GR_Urbanist]

The church for sale across the street would make a nice payday loan shop.

Just saying, since the area is developing a theme.

[wingbert]

On 9/29/2017 at 7:04 PM, GR_Urbanist said:

The church for sale across the street would make a nice payday loan shop.

Just saying, since the area is developing a theme.

I'm wonder if The Velvet Touch decided to move there if people would sit up and take some notice of activity in their neighborhood.

[Morris]

Our great little store is opening up on 10/28! The first 50 people will get a $10 gift card! 

You have to come at 8am, and see all the wonderful Section 8 people from the Stuyvesant Apartments in line, that will frequent this store, since there is not a single store within walking distance.....

You will love the renovations that they done, the glass in the front windows, etc....

What do people expect from a place that is next door to a place that doesn't cut their grass, weed their garden out front, or even pick up their trash by their dumpsters!  

At least this is an improvement that was there before, with no trashy peeling paper billboards for beer and liquor out front, trash everywhere in the parking lot, broken and or scattered  liquor bottles everywhere in the neighborhood and the park across the street, bums coming up from the missions, and drinking in public, asking you for change and a stench that hits you like a brick wall when you walk in the door!....this is an improvement hopefully for the better....and yes, better than yet another apartment building with very limited parking....

How many of you rode your bike all this week, and not a car????

I would love to put 40 cars on your street every night....

This is my opinion of the new store, and hope to meet all you in line tomorrow!

 

[GRLaker]

22 minutes ago, Morris said:

Our great little store is opening up on 10/28! The first 50 people will get a $10 gift card! 

You have to come at 8am, and see all the wonderful Section 8 people from the Stuyvesant Apartments in line, that will frequent this store, since there is not a single store within walking distance.....

You will love the renovations that they done, the glass in the front windows, etc....

What do people expect from a place that is next door to a place that doesn't cut their grass, weed their garden out front, or even pick up their trash by their dumpsters!  

At least this is an improvement that was there before, with no trashy peeling paper billboards for beer and liquor out front, trash everywhere in the parking lot, broken and or scattered  liquor bottles everywhere in the neighborhood and the park across the street, bums coming up from the missions, and drinking in public, asking you for change and a stench that hits you like a brick wall when you walk in the door!....this is an improvement hopefully for the better....and yes, better than yet another apartment building with very limited parking....

How many of you rode your bike all this week, and not a car????

I would love to put 40 cars on your street every night....

This is my opinion of the new store, and hope to meet all you in line tomorrow!

 

Have to throw the plebs a bone every once in a while I suppose 

[Morris]

I went in the first day, and the store looked almost like the original Clarks of old, except no meat counter, and no produce. It smelled new and clean, with a new interior. I talked to a male customer that was buying food, that lived down the block, and he commented that he wouldn't even walk into the old liqueur store, it was that nasty....There were a couple of women shoppers with kids, buying mostly food, the store seems it will serve the neighborhood well, with adequate parking, and hopefully a management that will care for the property, in and out. I could see one of these types of stores, in the downtown area, with the growing population there, but in an existing  storefront, with some meat and produce.

 

I am not going to comment on the other possible outcome of this property...too many negatives and not any positives........

[GR_Urbanist]

This thing is a monument to NIMBYism and mediocrity at best. An embarrassment for an area that is trying to sell itself as being a bit more upscale than 28th street in Wyoming.

Spin it however you want to convince yourself otherwise, but working to destroy a great project that was in-line with the vision people had for State street as a lively, populated corridor, between downtown and Uptown, and instead ending up with a dollar store moving into the same existing mediocre building with just a new coat of paint, is nothing but a complete failure. Everyone sees this. There is no selling it any other way. Just because it is a step up from a liquor store is no fig leaf.

People were aiming high, things were approved, and the legs were kick out from underneath.

But it has lots of parking?.....yay! And from all of the times I driven by it, it has PLENTY of spaces available because no one is really going to this place, because people WERE NOT LOOKING FOR THIS. It isnt filling a need, the building looks hideous and low-rent, and it isnt even a real dollar store to boot!

So "embrace the suck" if it makes you feel better, but embrace it alone.

[x99]

8 hours ago, GR_Urbanist said:

This thing is a monument to NIMBYism and mediocrity at best. An embarrassment for an area that is trying to sell itself as being a bit more upscale than 28th street in Wyoming.

Spin it however you want to convince yourself otherwise, but working to destroy a great project that was in-line with the vision people had for State street as a lively, populated corridor, between downtown and Uptown, and instead ending up with a dollar store moving into the same existing mediocre building with just a new coat of paint, is nothing but a complete failure. Everyone sees this. There is no selling it any other way. Just because it is a step up from a liquor store is no fig leaf.

People were aiming high, things were approved, and the legs were kick out from underneath.

But it has lots of parking?.....yay! And from all of the times I driven by it, it has PLENTY of spaces available because no one is really going to this place, because people WERE NOT LOOKING FOR THIS. It isnt filling a need, the building looks hideous and low-rent, and it isnt even a real dollar store to boot!

So "embrace the suck" if it makes you feel better, but embrace it alone.

I usually agree with you, but pretty much every paragraph of this was questionable, so far as anyone who knows anything about this project and what the "people" wanted is concerned.  The microunit project had zoning approval and HPC approval.  THAT IS ALL IT TAKES TO BUILD SOMETHING.  So who "kicked the legs out"?  I don't know that it has ever been discussed, although I do see to recall Ted Lott posting that it had nothing to do with NIMBY anything.  If I had to guess, I would guess it was bankers who tend to kick the legs out from under a lot of stuff.  

The only thing wrong with this store (beyond appearance) is people who are too snobbish and arrogant to go into a store that sells everything they wanted just because it says DOLLAR GENERAL on the door.  The "neighborhood" wanted a neighborhood store.  It got one.  No, it is not beautiful, but it is a clean store that sells things people actually need other than liquor.  I considered boycotting it.  But that's stupid.  Instead, shop there and comment about how awful it looks and how it needs windows.  That's a better route, probably.  

[GR_Urbanist]

Well someone has to support this trainwreck. I'm not.

Remember Clark's was a neighborhood store too, and people " too snobbish and arrogant to go into a store", even a liquor store, spoke to the standards people set for what they would patronize at this location. And we also find out that a Dollar General store doesn't measure up either. It is ridiculous to demand that everyone start shopping there because they sell stuff that checks off boxes. Just like you, for instance, arent a fan of cheap building materials, even though the cheap stuff forms the same four walls and roof as fancier stuff, people tend to not like cheap brands for the same reason.

And no, I dont buy that we went from the plans submitted to a Dollar General just because some financing stars didn't align. That is waaaaay too much of a leap. The opposition to this was well known, and from what I recall, there were plans to go to the state to stop this, and I think this was Lott just saying "to heck with this" and pulling out and handing it over to DG. He also has PR to think of, so he isnt going to publicly tell people off for wasting him hours, and thousands of dollars, when he knows he will have to go through future projects in the same town.

We were also told by apologists that Dollar General was going to really make a big effort to make it look "nice" too. That also did not happen. Not one iota. If they had done real exterior renovations, I would at least give them deserved credit, but they did nothing, because this brand does not care about the places it locates. Look at their store on Burton in Wyoming or their West Side location. People around here at least want to see some effort after Clark's. And like you said "it's not beautiful", so we can all agree that it looks like crap. People over here generally congregate around the nicer-looking places to the east because of aesthetics. That is basic urbanism when you see that. DG is the exact opposite of that, and thus you dont see people going there.

So yeah, the disappointment, and resentment is real, and people simply aren't excited about this result, after years of patiently waiting Clark's out, and most will carry on as if Clark's didn't leave.

This wasn't what I was looking for, so I'm voicing that by now rewarding this absurdity with my business.