Bellevue Center Still Has No Future
I missed out on last night's meeting about the fate of my neighborhood mall. Apparently, I didn't miss much:
If you haven't been to Bellevue Center in a while, most major national retailers have been replaced by a dozen-or-so Finders Keepers consignment stores, offices, a baseball academy, a church, and several locally owned specialty shops. While I think that a local art, exotic pets, or sports memorabilia store is much more interesting than an Eddie Bauer or a Hollister Outlet, the people of Bellevue aren't exactly flocking to their neighborhood Oriental gifts store.
Rumors about revitalizing the mall have captured the imagination of Nashville's west suburbs for years, but none have come to fruition. Wal-Mart pulled out and Target opted to open a new store a few miles away on Charlotte Pike. Rumors of appending an elegant outdoor walking mall to the existing indoor mall are exciting, but they come and go. And while I don't doubt that any of these never-to-be-realized "solutions" would have put more cars in the mall parking lot, I'm not sure they would have increased traffic inside the mall itself.
I have no idea what Bellevue Center can or should do to warrant its removal from Dead Malls.com. While patronage has decreased as big-name retailers have fled, in the seven years that I've shopped there, the mall has never been busy, and shoppers have always been outnumbered by mall-walkers and families (like mine) taking advantage of the Kid's Zone. Maybe Bellevue just isn't a mall community. Maybe we're a shop-online-pick-up-some-things-from-Home-Depot-and-make-the-occasional-trip-to-Green-Hills-when-we-want-to-be-fancy community.
About 100 people packed the Bellevue Middle School auditorium to hear what representatives of the mall’s owners and area Metro Council members had to say about the center’s future — which could include a sale to new owners.
But no one at Monday’s meeting revealed exactly what’s in store or how soon new owners might materialize for the property.
If you haven't been to Bellevue Center in a while, most major national retailers have been replaced by a dozen-or-so Finders Keepers consignment stores, offices, a baseball academy, a church, and several locally owned specialty shops. While I think that a local art, exotic pets, or sports memorabilia store is much more interesting than an Eddie Bauer or a Hollister Outlet, the people of Bellevue aren't exactly flocking to their neighborhood Oriental gifts store.
Rumors about revitalizing the mall have captured the imagination of Nashville's west suburbs for years, but none have come to fruition. Wal-Mart pulled out and Target opted to open a new store a few miles away on Charlotte Pike. Rumors of appending an elegant outdoor walking mall to the existing indoor mall are exciting, but they come and go. And while I don't doubt that any of these never-to-be-realized "solutions" would have put more cars in the mall parking lot, I'm not sure they would have increased traffic inside the mall itself.
I have no idea what Bellevue Center can or should do to warrant its removal from Dead Malls.com. While patronage has decreased as big-name retailers have fled, in the seven years that I've shopped there, the mall has never been busy, and shoppers have always been outnumbered by mall-walkers and families (like mine) taking advantage of the Kid's Zone. Maybe Bellevue just isn't a mall community. Maybe we're a shop-online-pick-up-some-things-from-Home-Depot-and-make-the-occasional-trip-to-Green-Hills-when-we-want-to-be-fancy community.
posted by Tinley | 8:03 AM
5 Comments:
i like the outdoor walking area, but i figured you'd just take down the mall as it currently exists. seeing that i am on the clear otherside of the county i am sure to never grace whatever gets put together. good luck josh
The death rattle of that mall has been going on for years. Put it out of its misery and build something useful, like another Wal-Mart... people shouldn't have to drive more than two miles for a Wal-Mart... it's unconstitutional.
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of inexpensive goods sold to the masses under bad florescent lighting."
The thing to me is that the whole idea was badly planned.
Bellevue and Cool Springs both opened at the same time. Bellevue styled itself as an upper crust mall. Abercrombie, William Sonoma, etc. The problem was that it was built in an incredibly bad place. It's surrounded on all sides by residential development and has no real room to expand.
Cool Springs was built on a plain with plenty of room to expand in all directions. Lots of restaurants, lots of satellite areas. A Barnes and Noble.
And what happened was that when people in Bellevue needed to make a quick run for something, they ran to Bellevue. When they wanted to spend several hours shopping, driving 20 minutes to Cool Springs was no big deal. So the "higher end" stores moved from Bellevue, and the "regular mall" stores moved out completely.
Can this be solved? Without really compelling reasons, people aren't going to change shopping habits that have been ingrained for over 15 years now. I say demolish it.
There has to be an alternative to tearing it down. I don't know that the Little Dork could survive without the Kid's Zone, nor could we.
I didn't live in Bellevue when both malls were built, and so I opted for doing my Banana Republic shopping there rather than fighting the traffic to Green Hills. I'd guess that there were a number of people who like myself found Bellevue more convienient than either Green Hills or Cool Springs.
You have to factor in a few other things. People were moving out of the area for some time. They've only recently began to be replaced by us hipsters and immigrants (our house has both!), younger folk who are increasingly doing mall buisiness on their computers rather than doing the Dawn of the Dead mall walk.
Also, if you're going to put in a popular, moderately upscale store like West Elm or Coach or whatever, why would you put it in the place with the lower growth rate?
Just wait until the cyclical housing market turns once again and more hipsters and their disposable income start to forget about downtown lofts and head out to Bellevue with the 15 minute downtown commute. The new Target/Dick's super strip mall area is a sign of the impending growth in the area. Stores will be looking to expand probably and the mall might look okay to some investor.
PLEASE........ the very LAST thing we need in Nashville is another Wal-Mart. Wal-mart is destroying the retail shopping centers like Bellevue Center.
Best idea at this point would be to develop the property into an office center/shopping center or medical/shopping center.
Whatever development comes to the property, it would be best to try to integrate the existing mall structure rather than knocking it down.
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