Sunday, December 16, 2007
A visit to First & Main
Christian Trejbal
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From the RoundTable blog
A wintry vision of the First & Main that could have been recently appeared before me. Redeveloped acres along South Main Street in Blacksburg danced before my eyes like so many sugarplums.
Snow dusted low spots, north-facing slopes and the protected places beneath trees and bushes, waiting for reinforcements to drift from the sky. The temperature persisted above freezing, and cold rain turned the world gray as I wandered pedestrian-friendly avenues.
People braved the wet chill to visit a vibrant marketplace. They traversed the central lawn grasping steaming cups of coffee purchased at the corner shop.
It was easy to visualize that lawn transformed on warmer, brighter days into a concert or festival venue, a place where thousands gather to celebrate the release of a Harry Potter book.
The fresh buildings matched the nearby downtown and surrounding homes. They formed a charming streetscape, craftily concealing the new, strip construction. Ground floors held commercial space; second floors held offices.
I strolled past Ann Taylor Loft, Jos. A. Bank, Chico's and Coldwater Creek. Specialty shops sold toys, knitting supplies and flowers. One store offered only hot sauces and spices.
Restaurants welcomed patrons. A white-tablecloth establishment served Sunday brunch. A juice bar around the corner offered healthy refreshment.
A locally owned grocery store's green walls marked the end of the brick street. Its wares and its tapas bar attracted a steady stream of customers.
Next door, a dozen townhouses, with a dozen more on the way, transitioned into established residential neighborhoods.
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It was mixed-use development at its best. In theory someone could live, work and shop all on site.
And it's not just a dream; it's just not in Blacksburg. The First & Main the town wanted is a few hundred miles up Interstate 77 in Hudson, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
The name is no coincidence. Cleveland-based Fairmount Properties, which built the Hudson First & Main in 2004, is also developing the Blacksburg one.
Fairmount can produce wonders like it did in Hudson.
A few of the stores remain the same, but the Blacksburg project dives toward lowest-common-denominator commercialism without even a pretense of mixed-use. Concerts on the lawn become a megaplex theater. Attractive restaurants become a Sonic drive-in. Unique shops transform into Books-a-Million and a used video game store.
Blacksburg gets a 187,000-square-foot monster -- all clues point to a Wal-Mart Supercenter -- surrounded by pavement. That part of the project is hung up in court for now, but the rest remains on track to open in the fall.
Why the difference?
I asked Adam Fishman, a principal with Fairmount, while he showed me around the Hudson project a week ago.
He said a lot has to do with local government involvement -- or the lack thereof.
Hudson was a public-private partnership. The city built a parking garage. It sold the land, an abandoned industrial site, to the developers at a discount. It provided millions of dollars worth of tax incentives.
Fairmount informally approached Blacksburg for similar assistance but none was forthcoming. The town has not given such economic incentives in recent memory.
At least one town council member was interested in offering denser development than the code typically allows, if the plan were right.
Apparently that wasn't enough for Fairmount.
Developers around the nation earn good money on mixed-use projects without public dollars, but it remains an open question whether Southwest Virginians would embrace such development.
In the future, Blacksburg must at least consider assistance for the right development. There's something appealing about telling developers to earn a buck on their own, but if the town wants some say over the final product, First & Main shows that zoning alone will not deliver.
A second, unspoken factor prevents Blacksburg's First & Main from being Hudson's.
Blacksburg isn't Hudson.
As much as some residents like to believe they live in some Blue Ridge utopia, it remains a small town in a rural region. The shops at First & Main must cater to the local clientele.
Median household income in Hudson tops $100,000. In Blacksburg, even factoring out the students, it's not even half of that.
Look beyond the respective town limits and the disparity grows. Hudson sits amidst wealthy, distant suburbs of a big city. Outside Blacksburg is undeveloped rural land where income is depressingly low.
None of which means Blacksburg shouldn't strive to be as great as it can. Smart development is possible, even profitable.
Many people now point to the original rezoning as the moment of failure. Fairmount promised Hudson but delivered something different. The town should have gotten it in writing.
True, but that won't be enough. Landing a mixed-use, upscale development will take a combination of planning, government oversight and perhaps even public investment.
Christian Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
