Perhaps you’ve seen examples of this in your town.  A big shopping plaza filled with several big-box stores opens up to great fanfare, then as the years go by, the stores close one-by-one, leaving large, abandoned buildings and deserted parking lots to litter the landscape.

Do you know what I mean?  I’ll use some examples from the largest town near me – Hagerstown, MD (population @40,000).  It’s at the intersection of two major highways, I-70 and I-81.  You’d think that would be a great hub for retail or restaurants, right?  It sure as heck is attracting fulfillment warehouses.  Literally millions of square feet of warehouse space are being constructed locally as we speak – with even more in the planning stages.

Apparently, retail is no longer the darling of the real estate industry.  I’ll just fire off some local examples with plenty of available space.  Garland Groh Shopping Center.  Long Meadow Shopping Center.  Hagerstown Premium Outlets.  Valley Plaza (near the mall).  Not to mention all of the small strip malls that dot the landscape – that other than a vitamin/vape shop, pizza place, and a discount mattress outlet, contain empty storefront after empty storefront.

Sure there are a lot of factors that cause this.  The decline of “brick and mortar” retail (in favor of online shopping), the pandemic, and other factors, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are parcel after parcel of unused, rotting retail infrastructure all over the city.  How does a town fill 100,000 sq. ft of empty space retail space with something meaningful or useful?

For now (at least in Hagerstown), we’re seeing a lot of “musical chairs” when it comes to properties.  The “Ollies” bargain depot moved from the Valley Plaza to the old (and abandoned) “Toys-R-Us” location over by the mall.  “Hobby Lobby” is moving across the street from one location to another.  I don’t know if this really helps anything, because there is no reduction of empty retail space (its just a trade-off of one empty building to another), and it sure does seem like a lot of time and effort just to move across the road in order to provide shoppers a place to buy glue sticks and $400 Christmas trees.

I also have to question some of these retail location choices by corporate executives.  For example, there is a new “Home Goods” store that will be taking over an unused parcel in Garland Groh, but its 100 yards away from a struggling “Bed, Bath, & Beyond” that is in the same plaza (and basically sells the same types of merchandise).  Who did the research on this?  “Black Rock Bar & Grill” Restaurant – where the “schtick” is that patrons cook their own entrees on hot rocks brought to the table?  I don’t know about you, but if someone has the stones to charge me $32 for a rib-eye steak, they can cook it up in the back on a proper grill.  There’s a time and a place to cook on a rock.  It’s called “camping”.

Meanwhile, they can’t build “Dollar General” stores or “Sheetz” convenience stores fast enough and again, I question some of the placements.  For example, on the southeast side of Hagerstown, there are literally three “Sheetz” stores within a two-mile radius.  Three.  That’s a hell of a lot of coffee and beef jerky, if you ask me.  When they built the third one, was corporate worried that people couldn’t find the other two?  Good grief, just look to your left or your right in the parking lot, you can probably see one of the other ones.   

So what can be done?  I’m not sure.  Maybe there needs to be more strategic planning by county and city governments.  Perhaps non-retail uses for some of these spaces can be considered (a.k.a. tear it down and get back some green space or use the land for other things, like more affordable housing).

Just don’t leave too much room – or else someone will try to squeeze in yet another fulfillment warehouse. 

Oy vey.