I have just been amazed and overwhelmed at the VOLUME of development of retail stores in the West End. This topic, of course, is not new, and has been the talk of the community for the past several years.
Again, it seems like people are split down the middle in terms of their feelings. Some actually love all this retail coming and and are happy that we are getting much better stores than we ever had. I used to fall in this camp.
But recently, I have switched sides to wanting no more development. Enough is enough. I miss seeing the trees and having some space in and around Broad Street. And, the traffic is rivaling areas like Virginia Beach and Northern Virginia. I have noticed that if my travels require me to be on Broad Street I now must add 15 to 20 minutes to my commute time. I am really worried about how much worse it is going to get as the development across from Best Buy gets completed . . . and then there is the new development coming up across from the mall (Broad and Lauderdale). I am truly sad about that one as it takes away the last set of beautiful green trees left in and around the area of Broad.
Despite all the development, I guess it is nice to have new stores come closer. And I cannot help wondering what new store is going to come into those new developments?
I am sure there will be lots of posts on this subject in our blog as the subject matter of short pump development is such a major one in our community.
