Pressure them, and your elected representatives. Force them to spend the extra bucks to design something to fit in an urban setting if they want access to the market.

How’s that a relevant fact (supposing the stats are valid) in this case? The number of retail jobs that exist in Mid-City at the moment is zero, unless you count the jobs funded a smidgen by the selling of mugs and the occasional coffee grinder or something at PJ’s.

It’s better to have sales tax revenue go to Orleans Parish than Jefferson Parish. And it’s hard to get things done if you have to drive out for all your needs (I am thinking back to October 2005, when Jeff Parish was up and running and our mayor was still ‘deciding’ whom to invite back, by zip code). That being said, I don’t personally see why we’d need a Target *and* a Bed, Bath and Beyond in the same strip. I don’t think a Dick’s Sporting Goods (whatever its name is) is as important as an IKEA (cheap furniture, good for college students and other temporary transplants; also, destination retail, inspiring those outside the parish to shop inside it).

A cursory overview of Victory’s other outlets, though, doesn’t show one Target as anchor. As I recall Target was once scouting out the shuttered Lord & Taylor, pre-K, and Victory’s rolodex strip mall building seems pretty basic in concept, it looks to me like someone else behind the scenes is doing the negotiating. Ergo, it’s not the developers who are dividing you, it’s the businessmen behind the politicos. Know your enemy if you’re going to fight him, hey?

So, to move forward, to frame as you ought: for the moment, yes, we are accepting that money is being shifted about from an existing pool. We just want that pool to benefit our city, and that means first benefitting its citizens. No local outlet is going to create a Target-like store, and people do need some convenience of restocking while they navigate all the other minefields of recovery. (I speak as one who’s made a point of supporting the local boutiques instead of hitting the sales at Dillard’s like I used to do.) But these are the concessions we want from you, landscaping, investment in elderly housing/rent control alongside the linear park (if property values are going to go up, you need to ensure fairness in who can afford to live near your ‘Corridor’), investment in local upstarts, etc.

Stay flexible. Use Solomonic wisdom.

No one seems to question the “fact” that we need these things. The only question seems to be where to locate them and how aesthetically attractive or compliant to the urban grid we can make them. Unfortunately, if we accept the PR that we “need” them as a part of our economy, we are already on the slippery slope and the developers can then begin to divide us and play us off against each other.

There is a tremendous body of evidence all across the country suggesting that the rumored tax gains, employment, improved quality of life, etc. fail to materialize. See for example http://www.ilsr.org/mm5/merchant.mvc or the many reports at http://staylocal.org/info/. A recent national study indicated a *net decrease* in retail jobs in counties across the country that embraced big-box retail. Yes, less jobs — not more.

And if we think about it for just a moment it makes sense: Never has economy grown through *retail* spending. You can’t do it. The money has to come from somewhere. Increased retail development just shifts existing money around. And in the case of corporate-owned out-of-state retail, it shifts that money our of our community and back to headquarters.

As we debate the specifics of this or that proposal, lets not forget to question the fundamentals upon which the edifice is erected.

This has been true in the past. But other cities have shown that if forced (and if profitable enough for them) developers will make an effort to adapt to the urban environment. And some retailers are seemingly more willing to do so than others…one being the rumored Target:
http://www.newurbannews.com/TargetInsideOct05.html

I’m not so much worried about acquiring new green space as keeping what we have. Getting the Lafitte bike corridor would be nice, but I’d be worried about keeping the Jeff Davis path. Since I wasn’t at the meeting, I don’t know what was discussed. I can say that I tend to roll my eyes at parking concerns, but take traffic concerns very seriously. I’m afraid that the Jeff Davis neutral ground would go the way of the Carrollton Ave. neutral ground if this went through — one added traffic lane at a time. Before Katrina, there were occasional efforts to narrow the one remaining mile of S. Carrollton Ave. neutral ground. On Jeff Davis we’d get the same pressure without the streetcar to end all arguments.

I would absolutely say that “plan B” is to “scare” the neighborhood, but “plan A” is a sort of trail balloon as well. At this point, from what I understand, the property is far from being completely secured by the developer. Any “plan” at this point is simply a tool. The real plan at this stage is nothing but numbers: lease-able area, required parking, expected rents, etc…exactly what the physical structures, layout and integration to the neighborhood will be has yet to even reach the conceptual stage. Sure they can gin up some flashy renderings, but at this stage this is a game of measuring reactions, feeling out the climate, and what the reactions might be, even by feigning ignorance.

But this is not bad. This means there is time. While the fact that this is going to largely involve private land, land and zoned light industrial, the neighborhood does not have very many levers, might limit things, all is not lost. It appears there is actually a pretty responsive councilperson involved. There is a physical, however flawed it might be, plan on the table, which can be pointed to. And the value of the land, the expense incurred in acquiring it, makes the wost case pretty unlikely. And the fact that they are talking, is a very good thing.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/neworleans/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1175666916171250.xml&coll=1