Wilde Lake Giant Is Closing

The Wilde Lake Giant is closing. The reason given is that it was too small to satisfy consumers desired range of grocery products. This will be a vital challenge for our community to address. The desires of the community for diverse options are growing and Rouse had no way of knowing the scales of stores today when he planned Columbia. Thus we ended up with the new development of the big box store lining the outskirts of Columbia. When addressing the future of the village centers we need to keep in mind the scale desired by consumers and upsize rather than downsize our shopping options in the village centers. Consumers like to try to get all their shopping done in one place and they will go to the places they can do that. If the village centers are downsized they will have less draws and will die off as less and less shoppers use the businesses. If we upsize the village centers by stacking shopping options and adding more shoppers (in the form of residents and office workers) onsite we will draw more people to the village centers and the businesses will thrive.

I wrote a letter to the editor on this, months ago, suggesting that by upsizing the village centers and stacking big box stores on top of grocery stores as is done in Seattle we can relieve some of our growth pressures by getting rid of the big box strip along Snowden River Parkway and build a new village of Columbia there, which will get more bang for the buck off that land and will revitalize the village centers by adding shopping draws that do not compete with existing businesses.

In the meantime HayDuke has a good suggestion on addressing the situation in Wilde Lake:

So, what to do with the space? The story provides no details, but there are two options that I would support. The first is getting David’s Natural Food Market and Produce Galore to join forces and give Columbia it’s first (nearly) full-sized natural food store. The second, which is bound to happen eventually anyway, is to redevelop the entire village center, something we may want to hold off on, however, until the whole charrette thing is done.

The second option is already being pursued. I believe the effort is being championed by forward thinking Mary Pivar on the Wilde Lake Village Board.

I would add that if a grocery store cannot use the space our area could really use an REI camping goods store. I always thought that Oakland Mills should have gone after an REI when their grocery store problems were going on.