Posted on 07/06/2009 9:44:34 PM PDT by B-Chan
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. Many are trying to find creative uses for those near windowless monoliths.
In Minnesota, one became a Spam Museum. In Texas, an indoor go-cart track. In Illinois, a church moved into an empty Wal-Mart. The new tenants, however, often generate less revenue for local governments. And with the recent spate of bankruptcies and store closures, including Circuit City and Linens 'N Things, more abandoned buildings will be added to a struggling commercial real estate market.
There are already hundreds of empty "ghostboxes" around the country. "There is not a landfill on earth able to handle all the big boxes that we have sitting empty," says Julia Christensen, author of the book "Big Box Reuse," who has been studying the trend since 2002...
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
“There is not a landfill on earth able to handle all the big boxes that we have sitting empty,”
Kind of a silly and pointless statement.
I guess what he was referring to is that, if demolished, there would be no place to dispose of the rubble.
Sounds like they would make good homeless shelters to me.
I won’t stop until there are Ghost City Halls and Ghost State Capitols.
The will be known as Obamaville’s. The homeless and suffering can go there to live when the become unemployed because of EFAC.
A whiny Liberal has an eyesore on his way to work so he's going to rail against the world and all of its injustices because there's not a park with waterfalls, rainbows and unicorns there instead.
Reality is this is how the Capitalistic world works.
“.....leaving a big orange empty eyesore on the outskirts of town.”
Paint it green! Paint everything greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!
Why dont they just call them “hope and change” buildings?
re: The new tenants, however, often generate less revenue for local governments.
Of course, we all know that the value of any tenant or endeavor is based solely on its ability to generate revenue for government at some level.
If government would spend one tenth the time finding ways to cut expenditures as they do searching for sources of additional revenue we’d all be better off!
Until we find a way to dry up the revenue stream to government, and thus deprive the monster of its sustenance, it’s only going to get worse. We, meaning the taxpayers, are at war with government and it’s time we call it that treat it with the concern a war deserves.
We’ve got this really, big, shiny ghost pyramid sitting on the Mississippi River! Beat that! lol
re: make good homeless shelters to me
Great idea! Just use plywood and painted facade to make them look like bridges and they would be perfect!
That kinda looks like Mogadishu...only taller.
There are a number of these in my town.
I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, if you own the property, I think you have the right to do with it as you please.
On the other hand, I think that properties like this should not be allowed to decay or become magnets for vandals or taggers, as those things cascade through neighborhoods, killing property values. I’d like to see municipalities push to require their constant upkeep or forfeiture.
I see the right to “do as you please” ending when it negatively affects other property owners.
And they will only have to add a single letter to the old signs.
Remember what happened when the authorities filled the Superdome in New Orleans with thousands of the city's poor?
“Reality is this is how capitalism works”...
Sort of, and so far it has been missed, how capitalism really works is some genius entrepeneur will create a solution for using the empty buildings that makes them wealthy and also helps the community via utlitizing the empty space.
You know, the exact thing the Obama Admin despises, prosperity without leave or a “Obamao may I”?
At the right price, someone will buy this and turn it into something useful, at $10 Million it just ain’t gonna sell.
Case in point, my little brother’s in-laws bought a Case Tractor store, complete with a tractor paint booth (yup, with breathing filtration systems, lights, paint sprayers, the whole shooting match .... for $5,000.
$5,000 - no, not $50K, not $500K. 5K for a tractor dealership’s building and the seperate paint booth. They use it to store crap they buy when they go to estate auctions. So, it’s full of dinnerware, old clothes, antique pianos and what not.
But, at the right price - someone will buy that building. It may become a plant nursery, a factory, a roller skating rink - but at some price - someone will get one hell of a deal. Now, if I just had $5,000 sitting around ...
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