Meadow Glen Mall Redevelopment | Medford

gooseberry said:
Oh snap. I'm going to have to swing by for some orange chicken at Panda Express before it goes away.
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This JUST came up on my feed:
Btw, the Pru has a Panda Express.

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Yeah, but I don't see how it's a win for the landlord, who can now collect rent from many different tenants.
 
Ron Newman said:
Yeah, but I don't see how it's a win for the landlord, who can now collect rent from many different tenants.
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Diversifying your risk of deadbeat tenants is not what drives the economics of retail real estate. Rather rents to the landlord are tied to their tenant's sales, so it is a dollars-per-square foot business.

If you are a *high end* mall, then, yes, you want a high-end boutiques. But diversity is a by-product of assembling unusual boutique-y high-end stores (as at Chestnut Hill) with the key anchor these days being an Apple store. And then you have one store per high-end brand (like Coach).

Except for clothing (which Macy's, Kohls, TJX and Old Navy can still compete in), all the middlebrow small-size merchandise have gone to Target or your Supermarket, or, for unusual items, Amazon. And Apple, Amazon, and Walmart are also killing BestBuy and Toys R Us and the video game store.

Just a little ways out Route 16 in Everett, Gateway Center has already collected all the middlebrow stores that still work: Home Depot, Michaels, Bed Bath & Beyond, Costco, PetsSmart & Target.

At the low-margin, high-traffic, hard-to-ship, weekly-chore-shopping end of things for both low and middle income folks, it is going to Target, Walmart and super-super-markets like Meijer (in the midwest). I suspect also that union work rules keep our supermarkets a little older, smaller and more expensive.

The Meadow Glen stores just aren't busy enough to pay the landords full value, and don't offer the kinds of discount prices that a Medford/Malden/Somerville demographic wants to make a paycheck stretch farther.

The landlord's choices are disinvestment (let the place fall apart or become a building 19...which is the same thing) or scrap the place and build something that can actually move carfuls of stuff for as many hours of the week as it can.

From my visits, the food retailers and Kohl's seem to do OK, but everything else is depressingly un-busy. And you get a downward spiral: low foot traffic -> low sales per square foot -> fewer inventory turns -> higher costs of inventory and labor -> inability to compete on price or variety -> low foot traffic (and rents falling all along the way).

So if you're a landlord, you'd rather build Walmart (or similar hyperbox like Ikea or super Market Basket) one big box. And locals will vote for it with their wallets and shop there like crazy.
 
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Nice analysis Arlington...there's certainly a large population in the area that would love a Walmart and if it carried a large food mart, would strike a blow to Stop and Shop's hegemony.
 
Yuck. If we're going to have a big box, Wegman's would be a much better fit than Walmart. It would also be more meaningful competition to Shaw's and Stop & Shop.
 
Ron Newman said:
Yuck. If we're going to have a big box, Wegman's would be a much better fit than Walmart. It would also be more meaningful competition to Shaw's and Stop & Shop.
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What do you mean by "fit" that Wegman's is better?

As noted, my belief is that the best "strategic" fit choices for the average household near the Meadow Glen site are either Walmart or Market Basket--good for larger households and lower incomes, wanting to *fill* a conventional shopping cart. Very South Medford/South Malden/Medford Square/West Everett/East Somerville. Market Basket would be filling the gap between its Burlington, (central) Somerville, and Chelsea Stores (places they like and that like them back).

I think the locals would tell you they want a Walmart or Market Basket to hit Shaw/Star/S&S with lower prices. Price, price, price. Wegmans and Whole Foods have staked out positionings so that they feel less of that price pressure.

Whole Foods is at an extreme: higher pricewise and "leftward" (organically),and caters to the high-income, small-household, closer-in urban type, that does not fill a shopping cart (or even one of those "stand up" carts) and so WF has pounced to put another store in Arlington.

From a demographic fit, Wegmans backs off the Whole Foods point just a little so it can come in just "above" Star/Shaws and aim at higher incomes, bigger families, but an emphasis on "big and fresh" instead of "selected organic" If Wegmans thought Northborough was ideal, I see them looking for more "Northboroughs" and don't see how Medford fits that bill.

If you haven't been, you should check out one of the newer Market Basket stores (Burlington or Chelsea, but preferably Chelsea) to see what a great fit Market Basket is with its local demographics.
 
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This location is only two miles from Davis Square. A Wegman's here could draw from West Somerville, North Cambridge, West Medford, and East Arlington.

(Isn't the next Wegman's coming to Route 9 at the Brookline/Newton border?)
 
Ron Newman said:
This location is only two miles from Davis Square. A Wegman's here could draw from West Somerville, North Cambridge, West Medford, and East Arlington.

(Isn't the next Wegman's coming to Route 9 at the Brookline/Newton border?)
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Well, that's my point: Whole Foods has already saturated the market "above" Shaw/Star/S&S by actually having stores right *in* North Cambridge (Alewife), West Medford, and Arlington Center. Why entice the smart-growth bike-pathing auto-phobes of Cambridge and Arlington to take a longer drive over to Meadow Glen?

Supermarket work best if they are for the locals. Its clear that Medford is not Wegman's kind of local.--certainly not if Whole Foods is already *more* local.
 
Have to agree with Ron. A Walmart here is depressing - hopefully McGlynn apposes it. The two that I've been to around here (Lynn & North Reading) were extremely depressing.

That said, when I lived in Medford, many of my neighbors (I lived at Fellsway and Rt. 60) went to Chelsea for the Market Basket, bypassing Johnnie's, (which is/was at that very intersection) two Stop & Shops, a Shaw's and a Target Greatland.

With the development of residential at Wellington, I was actually hoping that this entire area would be built up as mixed use so that eventually Wellington would serve a densely populated location rather than exist as such a commuter station. Perhaps this would justify a stop on the loop if one wasn't already planned.
 
Meadow Glen Mall is a perfect location for anything. This mall has been the same since the 80's with minimal upgrade.

I don't know the ownerships history but I think this location is a stellar location for anytype redevelopment. Ownership never made any real structural changes to the building over the last 3 or 4 decades tells me they never had to worry about their cash-flow.
 
nico said:
Have to agree with Ron. A Walmart here is depressing - hopefully McGlynn apposes it. The two that I've been to around here (Lynn & North Reading) were extremely depressing.
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The urban visionary inside us can be depressed by grittiness, but try to get in touch with the little Jack Kemp inside and see working class people improving their lives by voting their pocketbooks in favor of what amounts to a 7% raise (saving ~20% on ~33% of their income).

nico said:
With the development of residential at Wellington, I was actually hoping that this entire area would be built up as mixed use so that eventually Wellington would serve a densely populated location rather than exist as such a commuter station. Perhaps this would justify a stop on the loop if one wasn't already planned.
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Wellington's faregates are a 1 mile walk from the south door of Kohl's, so the Meadow Glen site quite a bit (in walking time) beyond the "standard" radii for TOD, which range between 1/4 mile and 3/4 mile. 1/4 mile suggests the MBTA parking lot and air rights over the railyard, while the 3/4mile embraces Kappy's, the Wellington Circle Plaza and out the MVP as far as the Cambridge District Court building (but not beyond). There's lots of real TOD redevelopment that can happen within 3/4 of a mile (that is hard to "jump over" in order to get to Meadow Glen).

That said, the area already has successful tall apartment buildings, and you could easily have more fronting the MVP while having the big box "in back"--but it won't really be served by Wellington T.

[edit]FWIW Google Maps says its .7miles to the Target in Everett and .9 to the Costco.[/edit]
 
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The urban visionary inside us can be depressed by grittiness, but try to get in touch with the little Jack Kemp inside and see working class people improving their lives by voting their pocketbooks in favor of what amounts to a 7% raise (saving ~20% on ~33% of their income).
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Hey, I *like* grittiness and saving money -- that's why I'm a fan of (locally-owned) Market Basket. But we don't want or need Walmart here.
 
Ron Newman said:
Hey, I *like* grittiness and saving money -- that's why I'm a fan of (locally-owned) Market Basket. But we don't want or need Walmart here.
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We? If "here" is Archboston, I agree. If here is Meadow Glen, I disagree.

[Edit]Using Environmental Justice populations as a proxy for "would really prefer a Walmart" and looking at a Map with Environmental Justice Popluations, I'd conclude that Meadow Glen is halfway between two better locations: Malden Center and Mystic Ave/Sullivan Square, but as such makes a pretty good place for a Walmart too. Focus on the Yellow, Olive Green, Magenta and Dark Blue.[/Edit]
 
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Arlington said:
The urban visionary inside us can be depressed by grittiness, but try to get in touch with the little Jack Kemp inside and see working class people improving their lives by voting their pocketbooks in favor of what amounts to a 7% raise (saving ~20% on ~33% of their income).
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Seriously? I try not to be rude to people on the internet, but it sounds like you're buying into Walmart's "Save Money, Live Better" slogan. The idea that big box stores have helped the working class is ridiculous. All they've done is kill small business and drive more and more manufacturing to Asia.
 
gooseberry said:
[...] I try not to be rude to people on the internet, but it sounds like you're buying into Walmart's "Save Money, Live Better" slogan. The idea that big box stores have helped the working class is ridiculous. All they've done is kill small business and drive more and more manufacturing to Asia.
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Within "easy" distance of Meadow Glen, there are 10,000 (by walking) to 30,000 (by transit) to 50,000 (by car or as Medford taxpayers) who may benefit from Meadow Glen's redevelopment. For the working class, every time they trade their work for wages, or their pay for products, there's a chance to make their lives better. Let's look together for what's best for them:

If you have a plan to bring manufacturing jobs back to the area, sure, that'd be my #1 for the site, even though nearby brownfield sites with better rail, barge and utility access would clearly be more suited. Is there a scenario under which manufacturing jobs would come and improve their lives?

Office development could be better than retail, but its not an "office job" kind of area--not for the workforce, anyway, and if it were, we'd already see it going on at River's Edge or at least see the Century Bank tower fully leased out--but we don't see either of those things. The offices being built these days are bio-research and are logically clustering at Kendall/Lechmere.

We could put residential there, and that would improve the lives of the *new* people, but the *exsting* neighbors seem to complain loudest about traffic and school crowding and whatever else thy don't like about the "new people" I like residential long the MVP, but locals may not.

So that leaves retail.

Retail aimed at rich customers, like a Neiman Marcus or a Rolls Royce or Yacht dealer might employ 20 salespeople and 20 mechanics at (perhaps) excellent wages, but even with crazy multiplier effects, you're only going to improve the lives of maybe 200 people.

Retail aimed at Yuppies and Hipsters ("Davis Square") might similarly employ 40 to 100 people, but if "nobody" from the neighborhood shopped there, you're at best improving the lives of 400 to 1000 people and adding car traffic that'd be avoided if sited the store on, say, Mystic Ave.

But site a store that the *locals* shop at you can improve their lives, even if it were a magical vending machine that employed nobody at all. Its an improvement over whatever other place their dollar is steered from. We know it is "better" because they are free to choose what's best for them. The more they vote with their dollars, it is because they're finding that they're better off with each dollar they spend. Every dollar spent at 20% lower prices works like a micro-raise in income. If a big box can do that on the full spectrum of purchases that aren't Housing and Transportation, then its like getting a micro raise on about 1/3 of income.

Target and Costco are already doing that 2 miles away, so they're not coming to Meadow Glen. I can't think of anyone better than Market Basket, Walmart or IKEA, but I welcome anyone giving specifics on how we can improve the lives of the 10,000 to 50,000 neighbors.
 
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good post...

From an urban planning point of view, I think whatever goes there just shouldn't be one story. you can have a large footprint store (market basket, walmart, costco, etc.) but in this area, with housing prices going up and being one of the largest expenses for any family I think the more supply the better. Have a giant centered strip mall, even with an internal concourse if you like, but have some varied facades that go up 5-6 floors with maybe a garage or separate residents space not in the consumer lots.

This is obviously the natick model, but I think it would be much more successful here. Its one thing to try and sell $1M condos and a fake urban experience to people in the suburbs, its another to maximize the utility of a space in a working class city near Boston with $1k/month apartments.
 
^ This. There are so many areas in and around Boston where single story big box stores and their lots are sitting on good real estate. I'd love it if we could attract developers who'd re-develop them with a more mixed-use purpose in mind, either housing or commercial. Keep the big retail in the footprint, but utilize the airspace over them!

Honestly, I feel the same way looking at one story retail in Allston/Brighton and in Cambridge and Somerville. Add a few stories to those suckers!
 
choo said:
good post...From an urban planning point of view, I think whatever goes there just shouldn't be one story. you can have a large footprint store (market basket, walmart, costco, etc.) but in this area, with housing prices going up and being one of the largest expenses for any family I think the more supply the better
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Thanks! We agree. Housing supply = housing affordability (for tenants...landlords will have to be outvoted). I'd love to have residential-over-retail wrapped around parking on the MVP end. Station Landing has succeeded the way urbanists like you knew it would and like locals thought it wouldn't ;-) 1 mile to the T isn't good for work trips, but is good for "arts & sports" trips into Boston.

I'm an autophobe, so I don't like admitting that Meadow Glen is close to I-93 ;-) Let's point instead to how close to the HOV Lane entry point and hope that it becomes a place for HOV slug lines to form.
 
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