The Observation Deck

In a recent announcement, DDR has cut another additional 50 jobs in its mall management team based in Beachwood. The New York based company that manages retail space, malls has cut over 125 job in recent months as it is continues to try to downside to meet the lack of demand for their space and venues.

Meanwhile the fastest growing segment and most secure segment of the economy is Healthcare and Hospitals! Go figure. A small group of Lakewoodites bitter since their failure to build a strip mall on the West End of Lakewood dug in for retail for more than a decade. Moving their dream of a strip mall, err multi use strip mall to DowntowN. Finally failing to rebuild DowtowN they set about closing Lakewood Hospital to get the foundation's money and land for guess what? That's right a multi-use strip mall! Go figure.

But as this 60+ crowd dreamed of strip malls, the internet came along, and retail started dying as Health Care and Hospitals took off, in what has become the fastest growing and most secure segment of job growth and the economy.

Is it any wonder they have decided to push ahead and demand instant action from council? What if council realized it was a boondoggle* (see below) before it even broke ground.

You know some people couldn't find water in the middle of a river. We all know people like that.

* This is Below

*boon·dog·gle ˈbo͞onˌdäɡəl/
North American informal
noun: boondoggle; plural noun: boondoggles
1. work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value. "writing off the cold fusion phenomenon as a boondoggle best buried in literature" a public project of questionable merit that typically involves political patronage and graft. "they each drew $600,000 in the final months of the great boondoggle"

verb: boondoggle; 3rd person present: boondoggles; past tense: boondoggled; past participle: boondoggled; gerund or present participle: boondoggling

1. waste money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects.

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It’s interesting you note the age of the players.

Throughout all this nefarious “planning,” these same people kept talking about “millenials” and how important it was to attract these young people to Lakewood, as if they were some sort of savior.

However, the geriatric power people wouldn’t know what millenials want if it hit them in the a$$.

Witness the emphasis on retail. Young people shop online. Heck, I cannot recall the last time one of my kids went into a store, other than a grocery store. When young people do go to a store, it’s to look at an item then they get on the phone and buy it elsewhere. That’s why retail is dying. It has been and it’s never coming back.

They are so out of touch with the reality of today’s world that it’s frightening.

Bridget Conant wrote:It’s interesting you note the age of the players.

Throughout all this nefarious “planning,” these same people kept talking about “millenials” and how important it was to attract these young people to Lakewood, as if they were some sort of savior.

However, the geriatric power people wouldn’t know what millenials want if it hit them in the a$$.

Witness the emphasis on retail. Young people shop online. Heck, I cannot recall the last time one of my kids went into a store, other than a grocery store. When young people do go to a store, it’s to look at an item then they get on the phone and buy it elsewhere. That’s why retail is dying. It has been and it’s never coming back.

They are so out of touch with the reality of today’s world that it’s frightening.

Bridget

I have watched this group of frustrated sim city developers talk about group after group as tools to use to reach their end, a strip mall of one kind or another. Nothing more.

I have watched them misrepresent project after project, time and time again. Over stating everything while saying, "We mus t do this before it is too late. It will be the end of.." And it never has been. If anything it has been a waste of time, money and causes great divides in Lakewood nearly every time.

I watched as they presented a way to USE artists to get development. A way to USE lower income families to get development. A way to USE money that was needed elsewhwere in Lakewood to get development. Raise funds to keep Lakewood hospital solvent then USE them as a way to get development. Always a way to USE something that is not theirs, not in their neighborhood to get what they dream of retail development ie multi use strip malls.

Who can forget was an amazing space was promised at Cook and Detroit. High End shopping, galss walkways between it and our prize possession Lakewood Hospital. The center of retail growth for decades to come. What they delivered finally after people stepping in to help was Marc's Plaza. Over promise, misrepresent, take us to the edge, then under deliver. Their hallmark, their legacy.

Funny I noticed Urban Outfitters kind of penciled in on One Lakewood Place. Of course that was promised with Gold's Gym in another development, that became Get-Go.

The told us Five Guys headquarters moved into Lakewood. Celebrated it with a ribbon cutting and announcements of THEIR success. In actuality it was a small training facility for Cuyahoga/Summit County which soon closed. Icing on the cake, it was the landlord that got them here, not the city, not the small group of 60+ year olds. They were only USING the news for themselves.

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Urban Outfitters ain’t happening. There’s one at Crocker Park, or about 6 miles from Lakewood. They don’t need another that close, particularly given our income demographics.

From a recent Forbes story on Urb Out:

A focus on the DTC channel stems from the rise in omni-channel retailing, which seems to be one of the few growth areas for retail. In 2016, the internet contributed to 42% of the growth in the US retail market, representing 11.7% of the total sales. The company also believes that its store count in the U.S. – 199 for Urban Outfitters and 210 for Anthropologie - is the right figure and accordingly it will not be undertaking any store expansion Most of the company’s recent growth has come from online sales, a trend indicative of the retail industry as a whole.

I've always liked Bed Bath & Beyond - and they're a highly successful category killer!
Wait. What? Oops...BBB is struggling too?

I'd be in favor of a Sears Hardware Store-- cater to the do-it yourselfers. Also, a resource center along with Bed Bath and Beyond for bankruptcies in storefront retail.

Stan Austin wrote:I'd be in favor of a Sears Hardware Store-- cater to the do-it yourselfers. Also, a resource center along with Bed Bath and Beyond for bankruptcies in storefront retail.

That's the ultimate end-result for the mixed-use retail development faction - a drop-in resource center for struggling and bankrupt retail. Apply for government grants from our foundations!

I like to tinker, too - maybe a Radio Shack?

Gonna up you one--- at the current drop off on Belle-- a Lawson's drive thru!!!!! milk and dutch loaf, pre- ordered on line, and just like Walmart-brought out to your car! That way we get all the demographics-- oldsters, baby boomers, mellenials, and "those people" who would have gone to a MetroGeneral hospital!