On Friday, June 13, 2003, at 07:05 AM, Mark Snyder wrote:
However, you've failed to ever give an example of how that works to make big
box retail preferable. So far your examples have been, a lumber yard, a post
office and building Ford Ranger trucks. None of those are examples of big
box retail and none of those uses are likely are going to be at West
Broadway and Lyndale. So again, why should only big box retail be considered
for that site?
That's because the issue here is size, doesn't matter that much what use the big box is put to. And yes, we should try to get a big enough retailer or whatever into the Target site that they'll have some economies of scale and be able to pass those savings on to consumers.
Yes, the 11th largest grocer in the nation (which sounds more like "big"
than "medium" to me) AND leading food distributor (which is definitely big).
And you only know that now because Chris went to the Supervalu web site and
checked and then called you on it. Since it was a whole week ago, maybe you
need to refresh your memory:
http://www.mnforum.org/pipermail/mpls/2003-June/024698.html
Chris, I'm beginning to believe that anything bigger than the smallest co-op in town is a "big box" to you.
Can you cite any references that say all small businesses only provide
low-wage jobs and no benefits? And do you have any references to support
your apparent claim that big box retail would offer anything better? Target
pays their employees, what, $8 an hour? That doesn't sound too livable to
me. And just how many big box retailers are unionized, anyway?
They tend to. BTW, a lot of the CUBs and other stores you call "big box" retailers are unionized.
It does. That's the whole point of "fair trade" coffee. It cuts out the
speculators that exploit the farmers. A fuller explanation of how this works
is available at the Peace Coffee (voted best coffee for 2003 in the City
Pages!) web site: http://www.peacecoffee.com/fair_trade.htm
I don't see any great rush to pay $9 a pound for coffee...
I'm not going to diss Marigold Foods. I've toured their facility and they
run a respectable operation. So the problem is not them, it's what they get
to work with - milk that comes from cows that are penned up, fed loads of
antibiotics because they're surrounded in filth and given feed laden with
unnecessary hormones instead of grass.
So you prefer the cows be allowed to run wild and be hit by cars and trucks and such? BTW, you're making rather sweeping and probably inaccurate generalizations about milk that literally comes from hundreds of farms.
By the way, Cedar Summit Farms does not ever use feed. Even in the winter,
the cows are fed grass that was harvested during the growing season. And the
rotational grazing method is a sustainable practice that maintains the
quality of the land.
Farm land is going for about a $1000 an acre- how many acres does this grazing take?
By the way, I don't drive out to New Prague to buy my milk, either. I get it
at the Selby-Dale Mississippi Market on my way home from work.
A farther drive from the northside than CUB, and how much does this super milk sell for?
Lastly, Dyna claimed that I was proposing to "carve up the Target site" and
that would be inefficient. Actually, being the green-minded fellow I am, I
envisioned a creative developer would find a way to renovate the existing
building into a facility that could support a number of small or
micro-businesses. Take that 83,000 square feet of floor space and divide it
up into a range of sizes among 50 or 60 spots since someone selling jewelry
On the Northside?
probably doesn't need the same amount of space as someone running a bike
sales and repair shop.
New bikes are so cheap that there's no money in repairing them much. Same with PCs. BTW, it isn't safe to bicycle in much of the Northside anyway.
There could even be space set aside for community use
since I heard that was an idea that came up after Target announced they were
closing the store.
We have plenty of "community use" spaces on the Northside already. We need jobs instead.
People ask "why couldn't these shops locate in any of the individual vacant
spaces along Broadway?" and the answer is by combining them under one roof,
they'll save on overhead, they'll benefit from the existing parking
available and the greater visibility and access that comes with being
located at a major intersection and they'll benefit from the group marketing
opportunities. In other words, such a development helps reduce the barriers
that have kept folks from opening small businesses and thus helps improve
their chance of success. Perhaps that's part of why businesses in the
Mercado development have managed to do well during a recession that has seen
small businesses (and large ones) dropping like flies in the last few years.
The Kodak and other buildings could satisfy your requirements without carving up Target and denying Northsiders access to an affordable retailer.
hanging on in Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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