The student-run Wesleying blog broke the news today that there is apparently a multi-store, 10,000 sq. ft. building in the development phase on the North side of Washington Street, somewhere between High Street and Pearl Street. A building of that size and the accompanying parking would require multiple lots and demolition of existing structures.
You can read about it here:
http://wesleying.org/2012/11/10/administration-mulls-bookstore-relocation/
and here:
http://bookstorerelocation.blogs.wesleyan.edu/
5 comments:
Thanks for this, Jen.
It would be good to know if anyone in the downtown business district and adjoining neighborhoods has been asked to join a discussion about this plan.
Anybody?
Opposed!
We live in an abutting lot to the proposed development and the
city told us in late October that they had no information about the proposed development.
NEAT (North End Action Team) was invited to participate in the conversation. The proposed development is in the area that our organization represents.
This is the only agenda item at our December monthly meeting. Neighbors and residents will hear about the development, have time to ask questions and discuss the pros and cons.
Our meetings are public and anyone is welcome to attend. I can post more details as we get closer.
We live on the block that would be potentially developed and were approached in April 2012 about selling our property - this hasn't happened overnight.
Why do we want to re-zone and demolish a historic residential area (something we can never get back once its gone) when we still have empty stores on Main Street and further down on Rte 66 in the shopping plazas (areas that are already commercially zoned)?
The type of retail that has already been secured (Starbucks and Chipolte) will bring significant increased traffic to an already highly trafficked area.
And make a BOOKSTORE as the anchor? Did we just trip back in time to the 1990's?! In case you haven't noticed, bookstores are a dying breed...the last remaining national chain, Barnes & Noble, is struggling to survive because people don't buy CDs, DVDs, magazines, newspapers and paper books anymore...everything is digital now. So what happens a year or two from now when the big bookstore closes shop, and we are left with another empty store front?
Outdated, short-sighted and lacking any understanding of what makes Middletown and Wesleyan unique (and therefore special) from other metropolitan areas! Shameful.
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