I bought a bottle at Black Hand today =).

For anyone wanting to see updates on the Bellevue progress, i have just created a facebook page. We are starting a High Five video social campaign where you can post videos of you and your friends High Fiving in support of Bellevue. High represents the Excellence in Performance and Five represents us wanting to keep it PreK through 5. Please post your support on the site:
http://www.facebook.com/SOSbellevue
Thanks so much for your interest and support!

What I was trying to say is that the volume of retail (I’m talking about community type retail) in some areas is totally out of sync with the rooftops. Carytown/Museum District has three full service grocery stores with a four on the way compared to 1 store for VCU/Carver/Oregon Hill/Lower Fan/Scott’s Addition.

Not sure I believe rooftops matter for destination retail areas like Short Pump Town Center, McArthur Mall, Williamsburg Premium Outlets, Tyson’s Corner, or Stony Point Fashion Park. The retail follows rooftops theory doesn’t explain Tyson’s corner or the Williamsburg Outlets or even the Pro Bass Store in Hanover.

Also, when you look at retail jobs as a portion of total employment base by county, under 10% of all jobs in the city are in retail stores, compared to over 30% for Chesterfield and over 20% for Henrico. What that tells me is the city could use for retail stores.

Would be nice to get an update on the companies that WERE start up’s though. Shoot, it would be nice to be updated on all of them really, not because of distrust, but feel good news always makes us….feel good!

Buddy”little-red”Corvette, as Sartre said of Freud, you’re “a bag of wind.”

And Trish, Metallica has sucked since the 80s. Please don’t quote them when the grown ups are talking.

I’ll try to follow up on this, sooner or later.

The people who live in the East End need food too. Where are they getting it from? The closest big grocery stores are the Food Lion on Mechanicsville and the Food Lion on Williamburg. I don’t see why a Sav A Lot or store like that couldn’t open up where the Community Pride used to be. How the city can help is by cleaning up that property, which looks like a pile of rubble.

I’m sorry, but I’m not liking the tone of the “we need to change who lives in the East End” attitude of some of these posts. Then you wonder why there’s tensions and nobody can get along. People who have been living in a community don’t like to be told to get out and move away so suburbanite transfers can have their big box store like the people in Short Pump. If you like Short Pump big box stores so bad, go back to Short Pump.

The SEED grants were made with private money. What’s your concern? You know how long it takes to get new businesses open in this city. From what I hear, all those businesses are coming along just fine. Maybe not as fast as you’d like, but that’s the way it goes ’round here.

I always find something ironic about ads for an incumbent politician on abandoned buildings, particularly commercial ones…

#20 You must be joking right? The reason Short Pump was developed was because of the housing that was in place and projected to be built. These communities…Wyndham, for one example north of broad, was on the radar screen. And, development continues…housing. The housing was developed for a higher end demographic and therefore, the retail followed. The very same is true for western Chesterfield. If you’re making your determination by simply looking for houses along the main road…take a drive down the side roads and you’ll find your answer. There are dozens of subdivisions off of Midlothian Turnpike with more on the way. Therefore, Westchester Commons, etc.

Unless the city is up for subsidizing retailers or very aggressive about recruiting them, what’s stopping them from putting their across the city line? Less hassle, lower taxes, and you still serve essentially the same customer base.

Looks cool I’m looking forward to trying it.

And why isn’t that store still there? That’s probably a big reason. If the store was doing good business, it would still be there. If it wasn’t, why would the next one be different. Not saying I am not hoping for this to work (because I am), just pointing out that not many grocery chains are clammoring to build in a spot like this.

Are you just trying to pick a fight or can you seriously not tell the difference between Martin’s / Food Lion? The latter has lots of overpriced organics, expensive specialty brands, etc. Not something that a shopper with a tight budget would want to splurge on.

I agree that it would be nice for all of us if we could get some fresher produce in here. Just don’t think there’s enough folks in the greater Church Hill area that are willing to pay extra for specialty brand stuff that it would make the margins that the suburban chains want. Food Lion can do lower margins so folks with a tight budget can get more.

Kroger does have a few non-suburban stores around here but unless I am mistaken, none are ones they built themselves. All were picked up on the cheap from Hannaford’s when they were first breaking in.