What to do when greed fails?
As retailers cut back cities confront ‘ghostboxes’
BISMARCK, N.D. – Hundreds of anxious shoppers watched as city officials used power saws to cut 2-by-4s during Home Depot Inc.’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for its 102,700-square-foot building center in Bismarck. Less than three years later, the home improvement retailer shuttered the underperforming store, leaving a big orange empty eyesore on the outskirts of town.
The building, sitting derelict and silent on acres of asphalt, is now listed for sale at $10.5 million. But there’s been little interest in the near windowless warehouse-like building that occupies a lot the size of a dozen football fields.
For potential tenants “it’s a hard pitch because for most uses it seems to be a bit of a tough fit,” said Brian Ritter, business development director of the Bismarck-Mandan Development Association.
As the recession takes its toll on big-box retailers, more communities across the country are having to confront not just the eyesore of giant empty stores, but also the loss of jobs and tax revenue that follow.</em>
So does anyone really think that Home Depot, who became hugely successful in part by wiping out smaller hardware chains and Mom and Pop small businesses, really needed this store? Or dozens like it across the country? And do you think they really misread the economic climate so poorly as to shutter a place barely three years after opening it? Nah. Dig a bit, and you’ll most likely find tax incentives and sweetheart deals given to the mega corporation in order for them to build there instead of somewhere five miles down the road. So the taxpayers get screwed when they built it, lost smaller businesses because of it, and now are stuck with a huge structure nobody wants, and the loss of jobs.
Solution? First, call it what it is. Corporate littering. You build it, you clean it the hell up. Make Home Depot either refit the structure for other uses, or tear it down. Today its an eyesore. In a few years, a homeless haven and community safety issue. Nope, its Home Depots mess, force them to clean it up.
