Are they still building that Wal Mart at northcros

Has WalMart produced any estimates of customer load for this store? How do those numbers compare to what might be expected with typical mall retailers taking up that space? I'd be surprised if they're much different.

 

Brodie and 290 may as well be Pflugerville to me.




Wasn't this supposed to be one of the "upscale" wal marts?

 

I disagree on some of your things.

2) You don't have to have checked on the zoning status to realize that something zone for 300,000 sqft of retail might be redeveloped into a 200,000 sqft of retail.

3) Yes, it's the biggest store (SINGULAR) but not the biggest shopping center. The existing mall is 100,000 sqft bigger than the new Wal-Mart.

4) They might want to make it 24/7, but one of their concessions was that it's not going to be. Which is really stupid in my opinion. There are certain things that you need at 3 am (plunger, sink snake, etc.) Numerous times I've desparately wished Home Depot was open late for such emergencies.

5) From the first open house they've showed how their trucks will route: I-35 to 183, then down Burnet Rd to the site. No Mopac truckin'. No Anderson lane truckin.

6) It is the suburbs. It is the Austin suburbs that were built in the 50s with a suburb plan of the times. There's a reason why a 300,000 sqft mall went into the site, and why it's separate from the neighborhoods, and why there are no businesses in the neighborhoods (save the Crestview IGA) nor are there any residences on Burnet or Anderson. It's because it's a suburb plan.

7) There is a lot of classism in play. Members of the neighborhood claimed that Burnet road was already starting to look like "Little Mexico" and that this would make it "worse."

8) It's not in a residential community. The residential communities surrounding it are distinct and have no retail.


Not that any of this matters going forward. Except that apparently I live in the same neighborhood as some real ******** who think that they're better than a lot of other people, which is disconcerting.

 

On No. 5, can the residents hold Wal Mart to that? I doubt it. More 18 wheelers on Burnet isn't good either.

 

Ramathorn,

No they can't, but the fact is that 35-183-Burnet is the best route from the WalMart D center to the store.

I don't get why anybody ever thought that they'd want to send trucks down Anderson lane, and I'm not sure what makes people who drive Mopac that they have some divine right to an invisible supply chain for their consumption.

 

bozo, I think some spots on Mopac (southbound to 360) can be pretty dangerous for 18 wheelers. Throw in the overpass from Benwhite to 360 as well.

 

I agree. FWIW, I'm told that trucks route around those spots as much as possible, along with the obvious issue at 35th and Mopac.

But, sometimes it's got to get there. The Randall's on 35th, for example.

 

1. I don't live in your neighborhood and I'm still taking the anti-walmart stance. The class-ist argument doesn't hold water to me. Like I said, they could have built a 'neighborhood' wal-mart and few would have complained. My parents have a 'neighborhood' walmart near them in Houston and it is pleasant.
2. Your argument that this IS a suburb because it was far away in 1950s standards is laughable. No one in their right mind considers Crestview the suburbs. Seriously dude....
3. The upscale design of the Walmart was not their original design. It took neighborhood complaints for them to make it a modern looking design. It took neighborhood action for them to make it 2 stories. It took neighborhood action for them to make it a parking garage. It took neighborhood action to force Walmart to deal the eventual toxins that will flow into Shoal Creek.
4. Anyone on here that has ever studied urban design knows this is a complete waste of valuable property.

 

Stuck, you've obviously got some axe to grind here, but I'd like to respond to a couple of things:

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I have never talked to anyone who is a member of RG4N. I really don't have an axe to grind except that I want to see Austin grow in a sustainable fashion. I love this town, but every day it looks more and more like Houston to me. Corporate dollars are driving decisions, instead of common sense. A good example is the Mueller. What an opportunity they missed. All the PR in the world won't change my opinion.

Increasing the population density in inner-Austin creates more harmony. It allows for mass transit options. It takes cars off the roads. To me, inner Austin is bordered (for the most part) by Mopac, I-35, Ben White, and 183.

The answer is not to continue building suburbs. The answer is not the yearly expansion of every highway to support that outward growth.

What we had with the Northcross property was an amazing opportunity. A large plot of underutilized land a few minutes north of central Austin.

Instead, we allow Walmart to build a huge massive store.

No one is arguing that the current 'mall' is perfect as it is. In fact I think it is a total eye-sore. I simply argue that placing a giant Walmart on this property is moving in the wrong direction.

I lived in Houston for 17 years. I have now lived in Austin for 10 years. I know both towns pretty darn well... and sadly... like I said before, they are becoming more and more similar.

 

Look, stuck, I sympathize. And I agree with you about Mueller. Here's my take on that from the quack's thread:

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We haven't seen the end result of Mueller, so I will wait to reserve judgement. I'm all for urban density though.

 

I'm not against urban density. I'm against using tax dollars to subsidize gentrification and speculative building. Mueller may in fact turn into an interesting community, but that will be because of the people who move there. The planning and buildout have been a slow motion train wreck, and the design sucks.

 

Northcross Mall has been a severely underutilized piece of crap for well over a decade. The opportunity to use it in some sort of "smart" manner was there, and nobody took advantage of it. Now WalMart has jumped on the opportunity, and apparently has made several concessions to neighborhood concerns.

I suggest the "smart growth" people (to whom I am fairly closely aligned) see this for what it is -- a lost cause and a great learning opportunity. Instead of passively sitting back and watching other people make less-than-desirable decisions for Austin, maybe it's time to find the next "Northcross" and proactively (blech) put it to good use.

 

My house is not already within walking distance of an empty mall. I'm sorry yours is, but unless you bought in 1975, that was your choice.

 

I went over to Top Notch for lunch yesterday and paid extra attention to the area because of this thread. That stretch of Burnet Rd is ugly. The Wal Mart/Northcross development is the most visually appealing development within a mile in either direction on Burnet.

 

Has the neighborhood spent any time at all trying to figure out what is going to happen at the Chuck E Cheese/Ross site or are they going to wait until a business comes in that they don't like and scream about "ethics"?

Surely the neighborhood group has learned their lesson and is going to be proactive on all of the other dead/decaying sites. Otherwise, we'll hear this all again.

 

I clicked on this thread thinking that I had never heard a good argument against that Wal-Mart.

I still haven't. It's just sour grapes.

 

Gakfoo- let me say in advance that I really respect that you haven't tried to make a zoning argument and instead have had the courage to make an argument based on cultural elitism, which in this case is more valid than the totally hokey zoning argument. I'm not joking.
Anyway to address your post:

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By the way, last Wednesday I was heading east on Anderson Lane at 6:15 pm to turn R (south) on Burnet. There were 0 cars ahead of me in the right-hand turn lane, and only 3 total cars in the other eastbound lanes. The other direction on Anderson had all of 1 car stopped at the light, and southbound Burnet had 5 or 6. The only traffic that was even moderate was northbound Burnet, which had about 10 cars turning left to head towards mopac and an equal number in each of the two through lanes heading north. So much for heavy rush hour traffic.

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stat, so if they put the walmart in and there's ten times as much traffic, would you agree that the hood had was right in their concerns?