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In an ideal world, what kind of retail would you like to see in Shockoe?
02/06/2015 8:52 AM by John M
The Historic Shockoe Valley Foundation asks: “If we could bring in more retail, what shopping options would you like to see?”
TAGGED: Shockoe Bottom
We don’t need any more trendy (and expensive) restaurants, fast-food joints, boozy “clubs,” nail-and-makeup sellers, or (definitely not!) cigs-beer-cheap-phone-lottery ticket “convenience” stores.
But a Martin’s or Kroger or Food Lion supermarket would be a boon to people with limited transportation and no healthy food close by, and to people living in Church/Union Hills and Downtown who aren’t keen about driving several miles for good groceries.
I doubt the store-placement gurus would recommended Shockoe for a supermarket (for numerous reasons). But it would be a great thing for many people (or all income levels) living within a 4-7 mile radius.
Retail Stores:
1) WaWa or Sheetz (24 hour food service!)
2) bulldoze Farmfresh and get a Kroger, Whole Foods, trader joes or Wegman’s
3) Hardware type store
4) A small sporting goods store with fishing supplies, bait, tackle etc
And not really retail but needed food type establishements:
1) Chick-fil-a
2) A good pizza place
3) A good Mexican Place (like mexico restaurant/Plaza Azteca)
4) Sweet Frog type store
5) Donut shop
Sweet Frog would kill it in the summer. Country Style donuts would also do quite well to open another location there for all the business and residential crowds.
And yes, a better grocery store is at the top of the list.
definitely a grocery store – and not a fancy one. just a kroger with normal prices.
A pet store.
I’d like to see the train station developed well as flexible/affordable office with a coffee shop so well done that it would make Amtrak from Main Street more desirable. Also a made in RVA/virginia shop that could appeal to both tourists and locals, and it would be next to a second growlers on tap location. I would not like to see the economic development folks try to force a bananna republic in there. Organic growth, not synthetic.
We do not need any wal-mart, chick fil a, wa wa etc.
The Farmer’s Market should be revamped, to make it as popular as the Forest Hill Market.
Have some of the existing building owners rent vacant space temporarily for pop-up shops to encourage people to shop there until some stable retail can be supported.
@ Daniel There is an excellent Mexican Restaurant down there called Tio Pablo on Franklin Street. Great food and service!
A hardware store a’la Pleasants would be great. There are so many times that we need a small item and end up having to drive all the way to Lowes.
I second the hardware store. Have essentials in the store and be able to order any specialty items.
We definitely need a nice, well lit gas station such as Wawa and Sheetz. We have slim pickings of decent gas stations in the area that keep up their grounds like Sheetz and Wawa do! Also the 24 hour thing would be great..
Chick-Fil-a would be an awesome addition to the area, especially compared to the current selection of fast food (The worst McDonalds in the area and the dime a dozen Subway).
@Queen of Church Hill
Will definitely try out Tio Pablo!
I am totally for the larger Farmers Market (like the Forest Hill one). The one proposed for Chimborazo looked promising, but was shot down from many sides and lacked support. I hear there were some tension/loyalty conflicts with vendors, and the potential threat of the church Hill Farmers market taking away from the Forest Hill market. We used to drive all the way from Mechanicsville to get there, and there are many people from the hill drive to that side of the river just for it!
How about a couple clothing stores, a cellular phone store, an electronics store?
A decent Kroger store!
The Historic Shockoe Valley Foundation is a Matthew Davey creation backing the Shockoe Ballpark.
Definitely a hardware store. It sucks to go all the way to college town’s Lowes for home improvement things.
Bulldoze farm fresh (where everything ironically isn’t fresh) and put a kroger/martins/TJ’s. Close movie theater would be nice.
Radio Shack.
Why all the hate for Farm Fresh? What other grocery chain has even thought about this part of town — or of any neighborhood east of Belvidere? Sure, a larger grocery store would be nice, but Farm Fresh is the oasis in the food desert. In an ideal world, there’d be development along 25th street, too, and in those dozens of little storefronts, now abandoned, that are a lost legacy of entrepreneurial spirit throughout Church Hill. I’d like a dry cleaner at the top of the Hill, a good take-out Chinese restaurant, better bus service, with direct access to someplace other than the transfer plaza. How about some medical offices? How about a High’s Ice Cream, right next door to that Radio Shack?
@Clay street- Radioshack just just filed for Bankruptcy!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2015/02/05/radioshack-cuts-the-cord-after-90-years-files-for-bankruptcy/
Each person is going to have their own preferences but in the overall scheme of things, we need anything not already here! Diversity and not a glut of restaurants and condos as we have now though the idea of a good Chinese restaurant is appealing as long as it is reputable. Things like a larger grocery store, movie theater, clothing and shoe stores, shoe repair, auto parts, office supply store, ice cream shop like Highs, hardware store that also stocks antique reproduction parts. Outside of the movie theater (and antique repo) if you add them all up you can basically get everything listed at a Super Wal-Mart?
Yes, I know. Also: I was joking.
@Gerry
There is medical places on the hill. Vernon J harris medical center on 25… bon secours richmond community hospital, which is just 11 blocks from broad…
If anyone is in the Waynesboro area check out a Chinese Restaurant called the New Ming Garden at 316 Federal Street. It is the way all restaurants of any kind should be run. It is massive, has over 100 different items to choose from, has a made to order Sushi Bar as well as a Hibachi Grill Bar area, and the decor is great. Food is removed and dumped out of steam trays and filled with fresh, never topped off. It is always clean including the restrooms and it has bargain prices. Bring a place like that here!
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/new-ming-garden-waynesboro#gtP291-q4f5y-SfQ39jtNQ
Chinese – what’s wrong with Peking in the Slip???
@34 Lucky Dogz – off topic but that bunny, last I heard, was at Church Hill Animal Hospital and needs a home.
As to this – I agree, there’s Peking in the Slip and also East Villa right down on Main Street. And I have two others I can get to deliver up here.
HARDWARE STORE – yes, agreed, and it seems to have quite a few votes. A number of years ago, there was a push to make 25th more commercial and someone I knew had a job of taking a survey north of Broad for what residents there wanted, and a hardware store was one item. Here we are, twenty years later, and you folks are still saying that. I wonder what it would take to get Pleasant’s to open one. There IS a Pleasant’s down at Laburnum and Williamsburg Road, and they are open seven days a week…..
Mathew Davey –
Is what #22 says true?
“The Historic Shockoe Valley Foundation is a Matthew Davey creation backing the Shockoe Ballpark.”
Just wondering.
To those asking for a movie theater: I wanted one in a warehouse down there years ago, and was told that it’s a very iffy proposition; apparently it’s not a big money maker and there are all sorts of issues – see also the Westhampton is closing. I think we should be glad we have the BowTie and Criterion at MovieLand right now.
Has lost its appeal over the years (Peking). Need something larger that will draw in all day traffic, like the one I posted a link for.
Like the Hill Café use to be one of our favorite places to go to eat and we still do but the quality and portions varies depending who is in the kitchen and they have not won an award for many years now where they use to regularly. The place is duty, worn out, and the bathroom almost nonexistent an sometimes dirty from the drunks. It needs remodeled.
All the pets that people have in church hill and the bottom, as well as the billions of dollars people spend on their pets, I am surprised more people did not jump on that idea.
Peking delivers to the Hill so it’s essentially already “on the Hill” too.
I really wish we could have more local/small/regional businesses. I cringe at the thought of any more big corporate fast food. Fast food should be a good pizza by the slice type place, or a deli – doesn’t have to be expensive or upscale. I would love to see more design oriented stuff – there’s already a bit of that (La Diff, Shockhoe Denim, Ledbury, etc.) Need to expand on that with a greater range of pricing – the area needs more upscale and more affordable options.
The thing I would most like to see that doesn’t seem to work here, but I hope will someday – is the idea of small and midsize stores dedicated to a wide/specialized range of just a few items. In bigger cities, stores like this seem to be able to compete on price and quality with larger chain places. Affordable and local should not he mutually exclusive
@ 36 Ray – C. Wayne Taylor is correct about the Historic Shockoe Valley Foundation being a Matthew Davey created front for the Shockoe Stadium. While it may be listed as a non-profit organization (anyone can get a non-stock status from the State Corp Commission), it is not a “Foundation” in the true sense of the word, does not have its 501(c)(3), and does not have a legitimate Board of Directors. While I don’t suggest anyone waste their time visiting Mr. Davey’s website, if you do go there you will see lots of stadium graphics and not one name listed. It is quite disingenuous, but not surprising, for Mr. Davey to post on this thread as if he has nothing to do with the HSVF.
Overhaul the 17th Street Market into a TRUE farmers market. A supermarket would be good, but sorry, Wegmans would never come here. All of its stores are massive, about the size of a Walmart SuperCenter. Trader Joe’s, however, would be a good fit as its stores are generally pretty small.
Another vote for a Kroger, or trader Joe’s or whole foods.
I would love to see the space as a pedestrian mall, much like Pearl Steer in Boulder CO. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Street_Mall
I think this area could be pretty similar to Georgetown’s commercial spaces. Lots of retail shops, grocery stores and work space. This area has huge potential. I think a few more high density residential buildings would also be required so that there would be enough people close by to support that type of retail but I could be wrong. I think that someday Shockoe could be THE entertainment destination in this City. I also think we could dramatically improve traffic to Church Hill with some significant infrastructure changes so that residents who commute via car can circumvent Shockoe through the areas around the Leigh St. bridge/Venable St. area. Heck there used to be a viaduct that connected Marshall St. to the Hill that by passed the bottom, so it’s been done before. Sorry, I got off topic.
I would love to see a mix of well known retailers as well as locally owned retailers and think the area lays out perfectly to become a great pedestrian mall with a mix of residential and office space as well. We have such talented and creative people in this City and especially in the East End that I think together we could work to make this area awesome!
Casting another vote for a grocery store like Kroger’s!
Sorry, but “neighborhood” hardware stores are long gone. They simply can’t compete with the big guys, and they cant survive on selling nuts and bolts to homeowners who suddenly need a widget.Harper hardware was at 18th and Broad for years, but only survived as long as they did by selling mostly to commercial contractors. Pleasants is barely hanging on. And without the support of Sauer’s, they would have folded long ago. Besides, both Lowes and Pleasants are just down the street anyways…..
I vote for a big shiny WaWa or Sheetz.
Yeah, agree with #47. Harper Hardware only held on for so long because of the contractors and it got slower and slower for years, until they finally sold the building.
If you need plumbing stuff, you can go to the Ferguson supply store next to The Market. There is also Old Dominion Electrical Supply place next to East Villa Chinese place. They have tools and other supplies like batteries and generators, etc.
The Flood Zone is going to be office space, from what I’ve heard.
If there can be greater review of ABC licensing in the Bottom it would help, in my opinion.
@ The 424
I am not familiar with the history as to “why” these mom and pop hardware stores are or did not survive but keep in mind two things 1) the area is building up and 2) the big chains do not carry restoration parts for older homes like Harpers did (Pleasants doesn’t either) Plus, those box stores like Lowes and Home Depot are a joke. The people working there haven’t a clue what they are selling – IF you can even find anyone to ask.
@ Eric, @ The 424
I routinely have to order things from specialty catalogs/websites for precisely the reason Eric just described. Installing most of the finished products that they sell at Lowes or Home Depot would be a disservice/downgrade for the typical home in the city. Good luck finding stabilizer rods for casement windows, acceptable quality natural fiber rope/felt filler for repairing old hardwood floors, period appropriate bathroom fixtures, etc. (Of course, they may in fact have some of these things, but as Eric pointed out, there’s no one working there who can help you find them!!!)
I think lots of these sorts of specialty places actually do very well, but they have to know how to market themselves and sell online as well. Also – seems like run down/underperforming real estate is a great place to start just such a business, if the physical storefront can effectively serve as a warehouse for the online storefront. What does retail space even rent for in Shockhoe Bottom?