Big box, short life

Communities increasingly worry about big-box stores because mammoth warehouse-like retail emporiums tend to be cheaply built and are prone to abandonment after several years. “Across the country, 245 former Wal-Marts sit empty or partially empty,” and 87 more Wal-Marts will be closed this year, The Washington Post reported Jan. 20. The Lowe’s chain “currently has 30 empty big boxes across the country,” the Post said. The blight of empty stores has become so widespread that Prince William County, Virginia, is considering “a ‘poison pill’ provision that would require retailers to take down a store if it is left empty for a certain length of time,” the Post noted. The University of Miami’s Charles Bohl says “financiers are talking about reuse of Wal-Marts as warehousing,” which is far from what most communities expect when a new Wal-Mart is built. “There should be something like a Superfund for after they leave,” Bohl told the CNU Council. “The entire nation of England has decided not to go with big-box,” Andres Duany noted. The experiment with edge-of-town retailing produced undesirable results, he said, and England has opted for “retail on High Street instead.”