Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Movie theaters in corn fields and empty grocery store shells: Time for a more proactive Economic Development Council?

This is a four year-old picture, but nothing has changed. Located across from the Northwestern Mutual campus on 27th and Drexel; 1.200 employees headquartered across the street(!) couldn't keep a restaurant in business here.

Communities can be shaped by choice, or they can be shaped by chance. We can keep on accepting the kind of communities we get, or we can start creating the kind of communities we want.

— Richard Moe, National Trust for Historic Preservation

After enduring fairly alarming comments by fellow commissioners at Thursday's meeting, I'm compelled to prepare a presentation for the next gathering of the Economic Development Commission on how principles of Smart Growth drive economic development and sustainability.

Our discussion -- held with three members absent -- regarded possible incentives for developers wanting to build in Franklin. I am generally against subsidies; however, I brought up the idea of offering certain incentives in exchange for "placemaking" considerations by a potential builder or developer. Locating in the City Civic Center district, for instance, rather than out on the outskirts of town; adding neighborhood-access amenities; creating an innovative site plan; revitalizing an empty property; etc.

More than one of my fellow commissioners disagreed out of hand, riffing on the "Business will tell you where it wants to go" mantra. In other words, Let the chips fall where they may; let developers build where and how they see fit.

And how's that worked for us so far?

Well, Franklin's unofficial motto remains "there's no 'there' there." So much for a "sense of place."

The city budget shortfall, strained by the demands of sprawled infrastructure, requires service cut after service cut - including possible public safety cutbacks.

We have a newish movie theater complex built out in the middle of a cornfield in proximity to... nothing. Go catch a flick - then get back in your car.

The city is dotted with roads that end with no rhyme or reason. "We're waiting for a developer to eventually ..."

We've allowed a regionally-owned grocer (Wyndham Village Sendik's) to be driven out of business in under a year.

There is no "support local businesses" initiative in place.

The former Sentry grocery store, a huge building, is vacant. Walgreens next door is threatening to tear it down to facilitate a drive-thru window.

Children who live less than the length of a football field away from Pleasant View Elementary have to take a bus to a building they can see from their back yard. The school is nearly 50 years old, and the problem has yet to be solved.

Franklin is home to a single coffee shop, Moondance (with great food, by the way), which is unfortunately located on 27th street rather than "inside" the city.

Franklin's single "inside the city" local coffee shop and meeting space, 5-Star, remains vacant next to an also-vacant martini bar in a brand new building.

The "City Civic Center" is devoid of any manner of "third place" development that would augment and invigorate the Public Library and/or spur further investment there. (I had to actually debate my fellow commissioners in order to simply pass a motion, at the mayor's request, recommending that the city consider a vacant site next to the library for a coffee shop/co-working facility concept I'd advocated. Even though the concept originated in the EDC (via me), there was still one "nay" vote and an attempt by a commissioner to add a superfluous "spend no money on this" amendment to a mere recommendation to the council motion!)

And on and on ...

The simple truth regarding "business will tell you where it wants to go" is that any land a developer happens to own or have access to is always the best place to build, as far as the developer is concerned (see Shoppes at Wyndham Village). The developer then hires a site consultant to work backwards from the fait accompli. 

That's why we have a movie theater in the middle of a corn field, and why we had two Sendik's grocery stores within spitting distance of each other.

And why, in Franklin, we have none of the multi-use public space amenities and "third places" that are on the wish lists of home buyers and businesses looking to take root.

In their well-regarded book on local economic development, Planning Local Economic Development: Theory and Practice, authors Edward Blakely and Ted Bradshaw note that “industry and business regard livability as an important locational factor.” and that local governments need to “identify their quality of life attributes, build on them and effectively promote them to the business community.” *

That means "incentivising" developers to think outside their strip-mall comfort zone (again, see Shoppes at Wyndham Village) so they'll work with the city to create inspiring, interconnected places and spaces that will, in turn, attract further investment. That's how you strengthen the tax base and lower your citizens' property taxes.

The current economy places great value, for instance, on proximity and clustering. Placing jobs, homes, shops and recreation in walkable proximity increases business opportunities, helps create a much-needed sense of place, and can attract talented workers.*

Failing to invest in acknowledged quality of life attributes like walkability and placemaking can have dire consequences for a local, state or regional economy. In 2003, for example, the Brookings Institution found that Pennsylvania’s land development practices -- which, like Franklin's, had the effect of decentralizing growth and ignoring community-building -- contributed to the state’s loss of young people and its subsequent job and wage stagnation.*

The laissez-faire approach has been tried, and it failed. Time to be proactive.

* [See http://www.iedconline.org/ for the report, Economic Development and Smart Growth]

Suburban strip malls: There's no "there" there

Franklin's own Shoppes at Wyndham Village -- Good news: A handy Target store! Bad news: In no danger of being named one of the Great Places in America

Retrofitting Suburbia on suburban strip malls:

At best, the promise of freedom inherent to the road and the promise of self actualization promoted by consumerism endow the strip with the capacity to satisfy a broad range of individual needs and desires. At worst, the collective aspirations expressed by the commercial strip speak of the willing suppression of local identity by national systems of corporate investment and mass consumption.

Creating Neighborhood Capital from Strip Malls | Planetizen

This is a concept being talked about at dense urban levels - but what about suburban strip malls? Can it be possible to convert dead or dying strip malls into community-building assets?

"It's very clear to me that the rules have changed and that it's very possible for somebody who has a really good idea to create an audience that can sustain that idea if it’s really well branded and really cunningly conceived," says Sherman. "But developers, for the most part, are not those types of people. They're in a different silo."

From: Creating Neighborhood Capital from Strip Malls | Planetizen:

Strip malls probably don’t fit into the definition of progressive urbanism for most people, but maybe they should. Well, maybe after a little organizational tweaking.

The small retail centers are ubiquitous in American cities, with their generic shops selling donuts or beer, offering dry cleaning or key-cutting. They're a part of many neighborhoods, but not necessarily an essential part. They bring goods and services to the area, but are ultimately of the greatest benefit to their owners – off somewhere cashing monthly rent checks from the moms and pops running the little businesses within. That model can change, according to Ava Bromberg. She's a PhD student in UCLA's School of Public Affairs who is developing a new vision for small retail centers that would transform them into engines of social and economic capital at the neighborhood level.

"It's part mall, part business incubator, part cultural hub," says Bromberg. The idea is to overlay a distributed ownership model on the typical strip mall that enables the value created by this commercial real estate to cycle back and benefit the neighborhood it serves. Consumers are also business owners, property shareholders, and decisionmakers. In this model, the building goes from being a cash cow for one owner to being a bank for the community, into which investments can be made and from which public benefits can be funded.

But it's also about activating disused retail space for more than retail. Bromberg wants the spaces to partner with local institutions like hospitals and universities to create learning environments and job training opportunities on-site. The idea is to retool the existing neighborhood infrastructure to serve unmet needs within the community.

Read the rest at Planetizen.

Making Suburbia More Livable for Retirees

From the decidedly pedestrian-unfriendly layout of Shoppes at Wyndham Village to the habit many city administrators have of referring to bike and walking paths as no more than frivolous "recreation facilities" (more on that when I post about the first Franklin Trails Committee meeting), Franklin can be a tough place to function if you happen to be elderly, differently-abled, or without a vehicle.

Ironically, some of the Franklin politicians who roll their eyes (and I mean that literally) at suggestions that we make walkability and accessibility a priority are themselves approaching (or already in) their golden years. And who can forget the large contingent of Franklin's elderly community that Casper Green mobilized to attend a public meeting supporting developer Mark Carstensen's Shoppes at Wyndham Village despite a site plan distinctly unfriendly to the elderly? 

This past weekend's Wall Street Journal features a story about how many suburbs are "retrofitting" to better serve their aging population - and retaining that population, who otherwise would leave for Florida or Arizona retirement communities. And this means keeping our older neighbors in the mainstream and participatory in community life, not concentrated in "elderly housing facilities."

Why can't we "age in place"?

Sitting in his office in Fayetteville, Ga., Ken Steele, the town's mayor, is poring over a local street map, explaining how this suburb of Atlanta hopes to transform itself into a "lifelong community"—and why neighborhoods across the country need to do the same.

"Every small community has the same problem," says Mr. Steele, age 69. "We want residents to be able to age in place, to meet their needs…here, without having to move away."

To that end, he indicates on the map how a new street grid could reduce traffic in the center of town and help Fayetteville become a "walking community"; how new town homes and condominiums, in an area where single-family homes have long been the norm, could give residents of all ages more housing options; and how new greenways and parks could promote social interaction.

"Lenders, landowners, developers—they're all talking now," Mr. Steele says of the project. "We really can't afford to wait."

That sense of urgency is understandable. The nation's sprawling suburbs—home to as much as half of the U.S. population and more than 30 million people age 55-plus—may have been a good place to grow up. But the suburbs are proving a tough place to grow old.

Indeed, as the country ages, suburbia's widely assumed benefits—privacy, elbow room, affordability—tend to vanish. Maintaining yards and homes requires more effort; driving everywhere, and for everything, becomes expensive and, eventually, impossible. (Research shows that men and women who reach their 70s, on average, outlive their ability to drive by six and 10 years, respectively.)

Even something as simple as the absence of sidewalks can discourage older adults from walking through their neighborhoods and seeing other people.

Suddenly, "all that privacy that drew people to the suburbs in the first place can become isolation," says Ellen Dunham-Jones, associate professor of architecture and urban design at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

One answer, of course, is to leave. Active-adult communities and assisted-living facilities exist to mitigate some of the drawbacks of growing old on a cul-de-sac. That said, the vast majority of older adults don't want to move. Fully 85% of surveyed individuals age 50-plus told AARP, the Washington-based advocacy group, that they wish to remain in their communities for as long as possible. And those communities, invariably, want the same thing: a strong mix of ages, interests and abilities among residents.

Perhaps a better solution, and one finding favor in more circles, is the idea of "retrofitting" suburbia and developing, as seen on the drawing board in Fayetteville, "lifelong communities." Such projects typically involve taking a neighborhood or site within an existing town or suburb and creating a compact, walkable community—one with alternatives to single-family homes, such as condominiums or row houses. Ideally, older residents in large homes will have the option of downsizing and remaining in a community where they can access restaurants, shopping and other amenities and services on foot.

Read the rest at: Making Suburbia More Livable for Retirees - WSJ.com.

Replacement store, replacement surface at Shoppes at Wyndham Village

On my way to Target to buy some of the new remastered Beatles CDs (buy two, get a $5 gift card - whatta deal), I noticed work being done to convert the now-shuttered Sendik's to a Pick n' Save, and that the parking lot is being resurfaced - a welcome development after the buckling and heaving that occurred soon after the first impervious surface tried in vain to conquer a former rain-absorbing wetlands area.

The parking lot resurfacing must be a TOP SECRET project. See that guy in the vest and hard hat on the left side of the photo? He's walking all the way across the parking lot to ask me why I'm taking pictures.

I should have suggested they use a giant camouflaged tarp if they're concerned. Ferch's customers: Avert your eyes.

Placeless places: More on "The Shoppes at Wyndham Ghost Town"

A follow-up to my post about contrasting sunny Sunday afternoons at Ferch's Malt Shoppe locations in two quite different environments. A comment was left by "Anon":

I was there on 8/3 with my family at 8 PM at night. Target looked like they were ready to close then, the Starbucks and Food Court were already closed, and it seemed like a ghost town in there. We went to Ferch's, and there was like 10 people in there when we started, and another 10 people came in while we were having our desserts.

I think you have to give it time. There's nothing there to attract people to that location yet. Huntington Learning Center's looked like they were finished with drywall, and Cousins and the haircut place were closed.

I remember when the Target in New Berlin was like a ghost town the first year or so as well. The same with the Target in Oak Creek. I'm happy that it's a Target, and not a Wal-Mart.

It might have been interesting to see the Greendale Ferch's at the time "Anon" describes above; Monday evening, still light out, perfect temperature -- the park right next door, a neighborhood in safe walking distance, etc. I don't imagine a "ghost town," do you?

And, yes, we can be relieved that Wal-Mart -- whose location on 27th Street is shabbily maintained at best -- is not there.

The point is, the interlocking conditions I described in my previous post contribute to a vibrant public space that is not subject to "spurts" of 10 people or so who arrive for a single purpose and then get back in their car and leave. There is nothing of use anywhere near the Shoppes at Wyndham Village's Ferch's; it's an imitation of a replica -- where the Greendale Ferch's is explicitly designed to evoke long-departed downtown "malt shops," it works because it is part of a network of pre-planned civic and commercial amenities that rise above the level of a single developer's desire to "do a deal." The Franklin Ferch's duplicates the decor, the menu, the signage, but ignores everything else that makes for a regular flow of people in and around their site.

It's a poor site plan, driven, evidently, by the rigid requirements of Target. That vast frontage of asphalt parking is nonnegotiable for a reason; Target (and most big boxes) manipulate their site plans to discourage relationships with other commercial buildings in proximity.

So, while the Shoppes at Wyndham Village's (apparently abandoned) website claims...

The layout has been thoughtfully planned to include outdoor seating areas featuring decorative benches, lighting and abundant pedestrian paths offering connections for ideal access to the stores. Imagine carrying out your shopping errands at your favorite retailers and being able to meet friends for coffee and lunch at Franklin’s finest shopping experience – The Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

... it is abundantly clear by a cursory glance at the site plan above that this is little more than a standard Target big box location with out-buildings; nothing will cross that red border up there, even though extending structures along Lover's Lane to nearly meet Target would have created a much more useful, interconnected space. 

Go there while the weather is perfect and sit on a "decorative bench" in the treeless, open expanse and see if you don't feel like asking yourself, as I did, "what am I doing here?" It's practically hostile space.

"Thoughtfully planned"? No, this is the sort of character-free development that used to pop up near highway interchanges and still do as part of "Edge City" developments, which are "placeless" concentrations of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community. Think Bluemound Road in Brookfield.

But this is right in the middle of Franklin, across the street from a subdivision full of McMansions. Wholly inappropriate to its surroundings because it was designed as though situated right off I-94.

I should also point out that when I looked in the windows of the outbuilding where the Sport Clipz "haircut place" sign is (see below), I saw an empty shell; there aren't even partitions delineating interior spaces. We're talking about frameworks and facades over dirt and gravel, not commercial spaces ready for occupancy.

Target will do just fine. But how do you generate more commercial growth when little or no care appears to be taken in creating a physical environment that is conducive to commerce and integrated into its surrounding community?

But we lose much more than commercial opportunities when we allow -- and even encourage -- development that is so ludicrously out of human scale. As Stacy Mitchell writes in her book, Big Box Swindle:

In the suburbs, life takes place in a series of fragmented, single-purpose zones -- home, office, shopping -- that stretch indefinitely toward the horizon, with no obvious geographic center or outer boundaries. This lack of well-defined community has a powerful negative influence on civic participation, according to Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam, as does the amount of time one spends in the car each day.

UPDATE: Greg Kowalski at Franklintoday.com speculates on possible new Shoppes at Wyndham Village tenants based on MidAmerica Real Estate's web site.They've updated their Wyndham Hills listing and PDF flier to replace Sendik's with Pick n' Save - could the other notations indicate actual pending tenant announcements?

What happens when you build to serve vehicles exclusively? The Shoppes at Wyndham Ghost Town

Yesterday, a beautiful Sunday (low humidity, mid-seventies), I traveled to Franklin's Shoppes at Wyndham Village to see how this relatively new component of the local "social ecosystem" was being utilized on such a perfect day.

The answer? Let's just say that all that were missing were tumbleweeds.

ABOVE: Ferch's in Franklin.

Blame the economy? The fact is, at that very hour (about 5pm), while the Shoppes at Wyndham Village version of Ferch's Malt Shoppe was completely customer-free, the original Ferch's in Greendale (see photo below, taken 45 minutes later) was bustling with people - as is typical - inside and out.

Two Ferch's on the same sunny afternoon. What's the difference?

I saw vehicles come and go from Target at the Franklin Shoppes complex on a fairly regular basis. From the looks of it, these were all fairly joyless excursions; single-purpose errands for practical necessities (though one guy came out with a flat-screen TV and a huge smile). Everyone took straight-line courses from their vehicle to the Target entrance and back again. Occasionally you would see someone emerge with a coffee cup, having stopped at Target's in-store Starbucks.

ABOVE: Ferch's in Greendale.

A different story at the original Greendale Ferch's. There is a shaded, building-enveloped courtyard; on this afternoon, every table save one or two were occupied. Young families, elderly couples, groups of teens, etc., all shared this comfortable space and casually interacted. People walked between the courtyard tables and the adjacent park and coffee shop (the small neighboring stores were mostly closed for the day), stopping periodically to greet neighbors and acquaintances. And almost everyone I passed said hi to me as well.

An adjacent park, welcoming "outdoor room" courtyard environment, pedestrian- and bike-friendly local streets, and attached neighborhood make Ferch's of Greendale a vibrant public space. And commercially lucrative.

Back at Wyndham Village, I noticed a couple of random benches on islands in the asphalt sea. I sat on one for a while -- long enough to contemplate exactly where I was. Why would anyone want to sit right here, in the middle of... nothing? What would bring a person to this particular bench in a strip mall like this, so obscenely out of synch with any sense of human scale?

Benches?

Judging by the quizzical looks emanating from the windows of vehicles whizzing past me, I was not the only one wondering what I was doing there.

 

ABOVE: Ghost town.

I walked the entire Shoppes complex via the exposed strip of sidewalk; no enclosing "street wall" of mature trees and/or buildings to create a comfortable walking environment. I was the lone person on foot in the entire area for the entire period of my visit; again, cars passed me and looked me over as though I was dressed at the lead guitarist for KISS (which I was not). Needless to say, no one said "hi." After all, what the heck was I doing there?!?!

No, the people of Greendale are not inherently friendlier than the people in Franklin. This is an example of how our built environment creates us as much as we create it. Build formless, uninspiring, unwelcoming commercial spaces and you create single-purpose destinations that discourage the sorts of interaction and "lingering" that is crucial to the success of local (i.e. non-big box) businesses -- and, by extension, you strangle local economic livelihood. Who's in a hurry to lease space here as opposed to any other anonymous strip mall?

By contrast, Greendale offers a superior physical environment that attracts people whether or not they need to shop. The small, locally-owned businesses benefit, and a real community is maintained. 

More on this later ...

More photos at: Shoppes at Wyndham Ghosttown - a set on Flickr:

Sendik's closing: the elephant in the room has a red bullseye drawn on it

A reader emailed to ask when I would be writing an "I told you so" blog entry regarding the recent closing of Sendik's at Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

While my apprehensions were public and frequent (and early), I certainly take no pleasure in seeing the Sendik's at Wyndham Village close. But, the bottom line is, you can't buy a Batmobile at Sendik's.

A year ago, I wrote:

I stopped at Target because it was opening day, but also because I really wanted that Hot Wheels '60s-era Batmobile that just came out (lost my childhood Corgi version in the flood). I ended up getting some cereal and a Starbucks coffee at the same time. Didn't go near Sendik's - - you can't get a Batmobile there, you know. (Nor can you loiter in an aisle examining dozens of varieties of pens, another favorite pastime of mine.)

Don't think this is significant? Think this is all "great competition?" Then you haven't studied closely the reasons people shop where they shop and buy what they buy. As it happens, I've spent twenty years of my life squandering brain cells on exactly those questions. I'm good enough at it by now that companies regularly pay me decent money to advise them on those exact issues. (Heck, spend a weekend with a book and you'll start to get the picture very quickly. Just don't horn in on my client base).

Grocery stores like Sendik's don't make their real nut on you going in and getting exactly what's on your list. The real money is in incidentals that you suddenly decide you need while you're there - - and that's where the higher mark-up is. On everything else, they have to remain competitive and therefor maintain thinner - - sometimes murderously thin - - margins.

Example: Computer nerds and audio jocks know that you should never buy cables or cords at Best Buy. A nominal length of USB or ethernet line is just outrageously expensive there (recent example from The Consumerist website: Three generic 6-foot optical audio cables from online retailer Monoprice.com for $10.79, shipped. Same product from Best Buy [the cheaper, Acoustic Research brand], shipped price was $97.47 for three).

But Best Buy still manages to make really big money on high mark-up cords because it's an incidental purchase made while picking up a DVD player or iPod. (Best Buy managers encourage their no-commission floor sales crew to push the cables, of course; they sold my mom a $100 cord she could have gotten at Radio Shack for $5.99). And, you guessed it, they don't make much  - - if anything - - on the sale of that DVD player; it's the cables that excite the Best Buy bean counters.

Bottom line: We are about to watch a seasoned nation-wide predator slowly and efficiently absorb its locally-owned prey over the course of a couple years; it has overtly configured itself as if Sendik's does not exist, much less live right next door.

However...

It's interesting that the central and controlling presence of Target in Shoppes at Wyndham Village seems to be the elephant in the room ignored by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (see below), Business Journal, and other bloggers.

In fact, the preceding examples do not once even mention the name "Target" in their reports of Sendik's closing.

"Succumbs to economy."

Perhaps. But, by all accounts, the other Franklin Sendik's at 51st and Rawson - the one not chained to a grocery-selling Target store - is doing a great and growing business, as are the other region-wide Sendik's locations. They face the very same economic pressure, but are not hindered by a site plan dominated by a big box that, in effect, eats their lunch each and every day.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with a Target store. At the same time, one must recognize the implications of making a big box like Target the center of a strip mall whose site plan discourages cross-shopping. And all that talk of a "high-end lifestyle center" and "high standards" is coming down to earth. It's ubiquitous Cousin's Subs rather than a Potbelly's or even a Jimmy Johns; it's econo-cut SportClips rather than a spa/salon. Let's hope Ferch's, the one remaining "as advertised" tenant, takes hold.

The happy surprise in this story? The immediate entry of Roundys into this market space. While this is much better news than ending up with a vacant building (or a Target Greatland as I predicted), one can only hope that Pick n' Save is a "serious shopping" draw in a way that a more upscale grocer is not.

However, there are rumors (already?) that Roundy's may install their "Metro Market" upscale configuration, which is largely a matter of re-signage; same market appeal, different name. Perhaps Roundy's can muster success through its huge economy of scale.

Otherwise, there's a Target Greatland in our future.

(See also Shoppes at Wyndham Village: Part 2 - The issue of site design; "My part of the development, which is the Sendik's and all the outlying buildings..."; A tale of two Sendik's stores;

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Franklin Sendik's Succumbs to Economy

By Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: June 30, 2009

A sinking economy, combined with heavy competition, is leading one of two Sendik's supermarkets in Franklin to shut down after just one year of business, the store's co-owner said Tuesday.

"Over the last year, we've struggled to gain market share in Franklin," said Lori Balistreri Barczak, whose family owns the Sendik's Fine Foods at The Shoppes of Wyndham Village at the southeast corner of Highway 100 and Drexel Ave.

Despite a "gorgeous facility" and "tremendous staff," the store has been unable to draw enough sales to cover its costs, Barczak said.

The store will close at the end of July, Barczak said. Roundy's Supermarkets Inc. will reopen it as a Pick 'n Save supermarket in November, said Roundy's spokeswoman Vivian King.

Roundy's is buying the store's equipment and will assume the lease for the building, King said. She said the store's 141 employees are being encouraged to apply for jobs at the Pick 'n Save.

The Sendik's store opened July 9. Since then, the recession deepened, which hurt sales, Barczak said.

Also, the store has a lot of competition, Barczak said. That includes a separately owned Sendik's Food Market at 5200 W. Rawson Ave., Franklin, which remains open.

The two Sendik's stores in Franklin - which are about a 10-minute drive from one another - are owned by different branches of the Balistreri family. The group that owns the Wyndham Village store also owns a Sendik's at 18985 W. Capitol Drive, Brookfield. That store opened in 2001 and is performing "extremely well," Barczak said.

The Rawson Ave. Sendik's opened in fall 2007 and is owned by a branch of the Balistreri family that owns seven other Sendik's Food Markets in Elm Grove, Germantown, Grafton, Greenfield, Mequon, Wauwatosa and Whitefish Bay. (Yet another family branch owns three Sendik's stores in Bayside, Brookfield and Milwaukee, while the Shorewood Sendik's is owned by John and Anne Nehring).

The Rawson Ave. store, located in the Fountains of Franklin development, "is doing quite well for us," said co-owner Nick Balistreri.

"Our business has been growing at a very steady rate," he said, "and we are very happy with its performance."

Sendik's stores have won customers partly because of their reputation for providing higher-quality fresh meat and produce. Several new Sendik's stores in recent years have filled gaps left behind by the departure of the Kohl's Food Stores and Jewel supermarket chains, along with other grocery store closings.

Pick 'n Save, however, remains the Milwaukee area's dominant supermarket chain. Roundy's doesn't plan to close any of its Franklin stores despite the conversion of the Wyndham Village store to a Pick 'n Save, King said.

"We think this store will fit in with our network of stores very well," King said. "Franklin is a growing community."

Industry consultant David Livingston said, however, that the Wyndham Village location is "entirely inadequate for a supermarket." .

"The primary reason is the lack of population density. This is due to much of the trade area being composed of lakes, landfills, golf courses and farms," Livingston said. "While there are a few small subdivisions of higher-income housing, there just isn't enough to support a high-end supermarket."

UPDATED: Sendik's at Shoppes at Wyndham Village to CLOSE; re-open as PICK 'n SAVE

Letter to the city of Franklin as received yesterday at city hall is below:

June 29, 2009

VIA HAND DELIVERY AND REGULAR U.S. MAIL
Mayor Tom Taylor
City of Franklin
9229 W. Loomis Road
Franklin, WI 53132

Re: Notice of Cessation of Operations/Sale of Business

Dear Mayor Taylor:

Due to changing business circumstances connected with the economy, our Wyndham Village store assets, located at 7780 S. Lovers Lane Road, Franklin, Wisconsin ("Sendik's-WyndhamVillage") will be sold to Roundy's Supermarkets, Inc. We expect the sale to close at the end of August. We will begin to wind down our operations during the weeks prior to that date.

We intend to continue pay and benefits for 74 eligible employees for 60 days from the date of this letter as required by Wisconsin law. Most of those employees will continue to work for most of that 60 day period while we wind down the operation. 8 additional employees will be offered positions at our Brookfield location. An additional group of part time low hour employees will also be laid off. All employees are also receiving notice on today's date.

It is our understanding Roundy's intends to reopen the store as a Pick 'n Save around November 1st. Roundy's has offered to interview all of our employees for positions in their new store. We have provided information to our employees about that interview process.

We are working with our employees to insure a smooth transition as our employees pursue other opportunities. If we can provide any further information or coordinate this activity with your office, please contact me at (262) 781-8200.

Sincerely,

Lori B. Barczak

RELATED:

A tale of two Sendik's stores

Sendik's (Shoppes at Wyndham Village) grand opening

Time for leadership on 27th street roundabouts

I remember the first time I encountered a roundabout. My wife and I were en route to IKEA, and I recall releasing an expletive under my breath as, suddenly jolted from my semi-autopilot revelry, I navigated through to the other side. Whereupon I reengaged the autopilot.

To the uninitiated driver, roundabouts seem to be little more than a nuisance. For one thing, a roundabout creates the sudden (and unfamiliar) need to re-engage with one's surroundings rather than simply obey a light. It's a sad fact of human nature that we would rather have a little red light grind us to a dead stop than proceed unimpeded through a traffic innovation that demands little more from us than our attention.

Ask the average person who hasn't used a roundabout regularly, and they will likely wrinkle their nose at the notion. We do not like what we do not know.

It's unfortunate that Franklin's initial impression of roundabouts is formed by a faux-roundabout - - actually a roundabout in miniature - - built in front of Shoppes at Wyndham Village as an effort to allay the thru-traffic fears of the residential subdivision across the street. Some drivers may have traveled the roundabout in New Berlin, which is complicated by its interaction with the freeway ramps (though still fairly easy to deal with).

And it doesn't help that we have a state senator pouring sand in the gears with specious reasoning and reactionary concerns clouding her judgment. State Senator Mary Lazich's complaint that "I've had constituents [who have no experience with roundabouts] voice their concerns to me" does not stack up against the voluminous hard data that supports roundabouts as superior on multiple levels - safety foremost - to traditional intersections.

The Franklin-Oak Creek Joint 27th Street Steering Committee discussed the benefits of roundabouts vs. intersections at their June 10th meeting. Though the Wisconsin Department of Transportation will ultimately make the decision as to whether a newly-constructed 27th Street will feature roundabouts, the committee's chairman, Franklin Alderman Steve Olson, hoped to bring to the Oak Creek and Franklin Common Councils a recommendation that they endorse via resolution the installation of roundabouts (resolution language after the jump).

I attended the meeting in order to comment in support of roundabouts on 27th; my experience discussing them with my colleagues on the Economic Development Commission convinced me that many of Franklin's decision makers were approaching the issue on a purely intuitive level (my recording of the discussion features Alderman [and EDC chairman] Ken Skowronski stating: "Roundabouts are a disaster.") rather than based on hard facts and real data.

I needn't have worried. At the direction of the the Joint 27th Street Steering Committee, HNTB, construction and design consultant for Oak Creek and Franklin, prepared a roundabout-vs.-intersection report to facilitate the discussion (Download HNTB Roundabout Report pdf).

Any points I made in my comments to the Steering Committee were only amplified by the HNTB report - - and then further amplified by Franklin's city engineer Jack Bennett in his pro-roundabout comments. Click on the summary page below to enlarge:

While the points above are discussed at much further length in the actual report, this evaluation matrix is a pretty powerful statement in support of roundabouts on 27th Street.

And that's even before the introduction of mitigating information provided by the two HNTB consultants as they discussed the document: It turns out that the only "non-up" arrows on the matrix in the roundabout column could easily be changed to "up" arrows; HNTB admitted that they were extremely conservative in their measurements for "Construction Costs," "Aesthetics," and, particularly, "Community Acceptance." (They went so far as to suggest changing the direction of these arrows, but Chairman Olson did not want to compromise their report).

After fruitful discussion, the Franklin-Oak Creek Joint 27th Street Steering Committee unanimously voted to recommend to the Common Councils of their respective cities that they pass a resolution in favor of roundabouts on 27th Street.

Oak Creek will vote on it at their next meeting; in Franklin, however, the item was removed from this Tuesday's agenda. 

In Part 2 of this post, I'll discuss that removal and the "Community Acceptance" aspect of roundabouts. I'll also address the need to exercise some real leadership in reassuring the electorate that the benefits of properly designed roundabouts are beyond the realm of THEORY, and that they are in fact safer, more economical, provide faster transit, and will drive economic development more effectively than intersections. 

And there will be charts and graphs ....