What dark angel whispered into the ears of the proponents of the Storrs Downtown Project, “If you build it, they will come.”
Real Estate 101 is quite clear on this point. In the absence of pre-existing patterns of use and development, any commercial real estate development will fail. (Even the Donald ignores this maxim at his peril.)
The historical case, which best illustrates a failure to obey this rule is The Empire State Building.
Find out what's happening in Mansfield-Storrswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Built in 1931, the opening of the tallest building in the world, unfortunately, coincided with the Great Depression, but that’s not what caused the office building to carry a 77% vacancy rate!
It was “off-location."
Find out what's happening in Mansfield-Storrswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Even and right up to the present time, the building has never reached 100 percent occupancy. (The current vacancy rate stands at approximately 18 percent).
Between 1930 and 2011 plenty of New York businesses came and went. Booms and busts sounded. And lots and lots of people (willing to spend lots and lots of money) have cruised on through the Big Apple.
Why the colossal disaster?
Location, location, location!
Built on 34th street, it was and still remains off-location from the hub of the downtown.
Now, what does this have to do with Mansfield? Everything.
(Remember? Storrs was never a town.)
The objection to the Storrs Downtown Project is not a resistance to change or some morbid fear of small villages. Rather, it is the obvious absence of a pattern of use that supports the need (not want) for this project. And there is a difference (Mick Jagger, 1969).
Route 195 is a series of retail strip centers with points of destination outlets to service a transient population of (mostly) students.
And that brings me to the second point-population-we have none.
Once the census data is watered down (take out the jail-immobile, take out the university-seasonal), the permanent population of Mansfield is around 5,000. Not sufficient to draw the anchor tenants downtown proponents spend winter nights wistfully dreaming of by the fire.
Ah! And now, for the Chinese curse. “May you get what you wish for…”
WOW! For a project of this kind to really succeed, the auto and pedestrian traffic will be life altering, if not mind blowing!
So, before you throw all the “naysayers” from the train, be careful what you wish for!
