Norfolk Stores and Retail and Resturants

[baobabs727]

You can’t lay the entirety, or even the majority, of the blame at the feet of Council. There are several structural fundamentals at play here. 

[baobabs727]

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/urban-outfitters-closes-in-downtown-norfolk/

Urban outfitters has closed. That's too bad.  When it arrived on Granby Street it was hailed as a major coup for Norfolk's downtown.

[vdogg]

On 1/6/2023 at 5:27 PM, Arctic_Tern said:

I thought city council was trying to close Baxter's down too

If it’s a club downtown, you can pretty much assume they’re trying to close it at this point.

[baobabs727]

Recall City Council. Nobody can argue with a straight face that these people are competent or that they have a vision--a free market, creative, dynamic vision for revitalizing Norfolk's downtown. Norfolk's downtown is not healthy. I'm here to tell you that is a fact. I have not been this worried about downtown in well over 25 years.  And I was young then, so I wasn't really in the worrying mode per se.  From retail to restaurant to nightlife, from Waterside District to MacArthur Center to Granby Street, I never thought we'd regress to this point...but here we are. We need to double the residential units. We could start by converting some retail and restaurant to residential. We could also put a whole bunch of units on the MacArthur Center site.  We need a grocery store and a mini Target or something similar. We need to bring more high-paying jobs downtown!  Oh...Did I say we needed a new City Council?  

[BeagleAccountant]

There is a signage application with the ARB for 435 Monticello, the former location of Southern Eats and AJ Gators. Looks like it will become Đông Tây, a Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant.
http://norfolkcityva.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=2170&Inline=True

[baobabs727]

This used to be Bobbywood many moons ago. RIP the late, great Bobby Huber. 

[EJ_LEWIS]

On 1/8/2023 at 8:21 PM, baobabs727 said:

Recall City Council. Nobody can argue with a straight face that these people are competent or that they have a vision--a free market, creative, dynamic vision for revitalizing Norfolk's downtown. Norfolk's downtown is not healthy. I'm here to tell you that is a fact. I have not been this worried about downtown in well over 25 years.  And I was young then, so I wasn't really in the worrying mode per se.  From retail to restaurant to nightlife, from Waterside District to MacArthur Center to Granby Street, I never thought we'd regress to this point...but here we are. We need to double the residential units. We could start by converting some retail and restaurant to residential. We could also put a whole bunch of units on the MacArthur Center site.  We need a grocery store and a mini Target or something similar. We need to bring more high-paying jobs downtown!  Oh...Did I say we needed a new City Council?  

I am mystified by the actions of Chip Filer and the Norfolk city council.  Why are they being so heavy handed with these restaurants and clubs?  No evidence that they can prevent violence that happens outside of their establishments.  Like I said before there is a middle ground between letting the establishments operate like they do now and closing them down because of a single incident.  Put them on probation and see if they can correct the infractions.  Here in DC a club or bar would have their liquor license suspended for a short amount of time so that they can correct the problems uncovered by the city.   Most re-open once the problems have been mitigated.  

[BFG]

On 1/6/2023 at 12:14 PM, BeagleAccountant said:

The worst part of that space is where the kitchen is located. It’s up stairs and Brick Anchor never hired food runners, so their employees would have to run and up down stairs all shift. Not ideal. And it resulted in them having an inability to retain good staff for extended periods. 

I always loved that balcony area but never knew that fact. That’s insane. 

If it’s the same place I’m thinking of, I might’ve had a burger that was pretty good and maybe happy hour, but I can’t recall the service so I guess it wasn’t that memorable. 

3 hours ago, EJ_LEWIS said:

I am mystified by the actions of Chip Filer and the Norfolk city council.  Why are they being so heavy handed with these restaurants and clubs?  No evidence that they can prevent violence that happens outside of their establishments.  Like I said before there is a middle ground between letting the establishments operate like they do now and closing them down because of a single incident.  Put them on probation and see if they can correct the infractions.  Here in DC a club or bar would have their liquor license suspended for a short amount of time so that they can correct the problems uncovered by the city.   Most re-open once the problems have been mitigated.  

I don’t get it either. You now have a vacant storefront that brings in no money, when you had longtime shop owners ready to fix the issues and reopen. Cutting off your nose to spite your face in your busiest part of town is an odd flex. 

[HRVA]

This was just shared on Reddit. Brothers is moving from Plume Street to the former Texas de Brazil space. 
 

[baobabs727]

Meh. Never heard of them. Checked out the website and the Google reviews and while completely uninspired, the plates look pretty nice. Probably something I would eat… but not remember eating.  It’s food. Was hoping for something special there in that once-grand space. Oh well.  

[baobabs727]

12 hours ago, EJ_LEWIS said:

I am mystified by the actions of Chip Filer and the Norfolk city council.  Why are they being so heavy handed with these restaurants and clubs?  No evidence that they can prevent violence that happens outside of their establishments.  Like I said before there is a middle ground between letting the establishments operate like they do now and closing them down because of a single incident.  Put them on probation and see if they can correct the infractions.  Here in DC a club or bar would have their liquor license suspended for a short amount of time so that they can correct the problems uncovered by the city.   Most re-open once the problems have been mitigated.  

Chip Filer is the biggest know-nothing egghead city mgr I’ve ever seen in my life. Have you watched him speak? Total word salad. What a goofball. When will these CC folks understand that you cannot just put a professor in charge of government and expect that, simply because of his purported intellect or knowledge of city planning theory, he will make a good executive. But sadly that is the way these folks think.  

[BeagleAccountant]

10 hours ago, baobabs727 said:

Meh. Never heard of them. Checked out the website and the Google reviews and while completely uninspired, the plates look pretty nice. Probably something I would eat… but not remember eating.  It’s food. Was hoping for something special there in that once-grand space. Oh well.  

Tony Brothers owns the restaurant. If you watch NBA basketball, you'll recognize his face. He's at a lot of ODU sporting events as well:
https://www.pilotonline.com/food-drink/vp-db-tony-brothers-restaurant-20210129-62x4kgfda5es5li6uxo3ne4mma-story.html

Edited January 11, 2023 by BeagleAccountant

[EJ_LEWIS]

Another thing empty storefronts like what was seen on Granby St. in the 1980s only leads to more crime.  

[mintscraft56]

Well, this sucks... Idk what to say anymore. 

How many people are gonna want to set up shop in an unattractive ghost town looking street? 

It's a domino effect! 

We would be lucky to get a mc donalds down there if need be!

[BeagleAccountant]

Birds and Bourbons (restaurant) has applied for a CUP at 116 Granby Street.  This is the former location of Norfolk Smoothie, Pop Culture and Granby Street Gallery. Looking on facebook, it looks like Birds and Bourbon is already operating in the space.
http://norfolkcityva.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=2173&Inline=True
 

Edited January 12, 2023 by BeagleAccountant

[zeppelin14]

California Pizza Kitchen in the mall is also closing...

[baobabs727]

11 hours ago, zeppelin14 said:

California Pizza Kitchen in the mall is also closing...

Not good 

[BeagleAccountant]

3 hours ago, baobabs727 said:

Not good 

For the folks who want the mall site to be re-developed, isn't the mall failing a good thing?

[mintscraft56]

43 minutes ago, BeagleAccountant said:

For the folks who want the mall site to be re-developed, isn't the mall failing a good thing?

Yes. But also no, because as we push for mall redevelopment and the re-institution of the street grid, we still dont know when it will happen. Stores closing in the mall just lead it to become a dead weight for downtown until they actually decide to do anything with it. However, stores closing also makes it easier for the city to realise the issue and solution here too. 

[HRVA]

57 minutes ago, BeagleAccountant said:

For the folks who want the mall site to be re-developed, isn't the mall failing a good thing?

I’m not confident the mall will be redeveloped. At least not in the way we would want and especially not as quickly as we would like. So I’d prefer the mall find some way to stabilize. 

This hurts a little more than B&N or other interior closures as the vacancy is visible from the street. Hopefully it’s a short lived vacancy like Texas de Brazil but also Max & Ermas has been empty for 7 years now. 

[Si7i]

10 minutes ago, HRVA said:

I’m not confident the mall will be redeveloped. At least not in the way we would want and especially not as quickly as we would like. So I’d prefer the mall find some way to stabilize. 

This hurts a little more than B&N or other interior closures as the vacancy is visible from the street. Hopefully it’s a short lived vacancy like Texas de Brazil but also Max & Ermas has been empty for 7 years now. 

I agree, of all the redevelopment projects I actually don’t have much faith in the mall’s redevelopment looking at market trends. Retail is way to saturated in the Hampton Roads area. Office space conversion is also highly unlikely because of declining demand. That mall has also unfortunately been plagued by very bad management. They should have focused on a mix of entertainment options inside the mall not just retail. There has been close to zero reinvestment into updating the structure and bringing it up to date to attract more people. Tearing down the mall structure and leaving the parking garage and developing livable space on top is the only option currently unless the city replaces it with an entertainment venue such as an arena or pulls a large scale employer or developer which is unlikely.

[Arctic_Tern]

2 hours ago, BeagleAccountant said:

For the folks who want the mall site to be re-developed, isn't the mall failing a good thing?

I fall directly in this camp but with Military Circle about to be redeveloped it would be better if we have these large projects more staggered. Going to be hard to instantly fill a brand new MC and Macarthur space

[baobabs727]

2 hours ago, HRVA said:

I’m not confident the mall will be redeveloped. At least not in the way we would want and especially not as quickly as we would like. So I’d prefer the mall find some way to stabilize. 

This hurts a little more than B&N or other interior closures as the vacancy is visible from the street. Hopefully it’s a short lived vacancy like Texas de Brazil but also Max & Ermas has been empty for 7 years now. 

Absolutely agree and have said so before.  Stabilization is key because we are likely looking at many years to redevelopment--if ever.  Personally, I do not like the prospect of losing the East Coast Flagship Dillards, thus leaving the entirety of Norfolk with ZERO department stores.  I also don't like the thought of losing the Regal 18 movies, thus leaving Norfolk with ZERO megaplexes.  One could make a good argument that no real city lacks either one of those amenities...and certainly not both. Losing Nordstrom, California Pizza Kitchen, Kincaids/Texas de Brazil, etc., was already bad enough.

[Kevin Cheph Randall]

I actually think the mall will fine in time, its a lot of residential development is coming, people will need a place to congregate and shop. It will also be within walking distance of a lot of Norfolk's new development.  Crime will be coming down fast as well with the demolition of the housing projects. I cant see why it wouldn't survive it will be within walking distance of a couple thousand people no other local mall is within walking distance of a couple hundred. Norfolk can use more local culture, Selden Arcade is what Macarthur should go for IMO, more local shops, more actual local culture/ arts.  Or maybe a indoor amusement park, you have a lot of cruise ship tourist gives them a perfect location to spend a day. Get rid of 3/4 of the parking decks, build more apartments. 

[HRVA]

Not the location this forum was hoping for a new Target. The former Kroger at Wards Corner is being considered and has been in discussions for around two years. If this becomes a reality, I hope Kotarides pays the Vice Mayor a finders fee  

https://www.pilotonline.com/business/consumer/vp-bz-target-little-creek-0120-20230119-ovnam3p4e5awdaqm7wlii2e53i-story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Don't Miss&utm_content=7161674157942&lctg=57365121