This month, I pose a question: Why isn’t there somewhere in East Dallas or Lakewood to buy a pair of pants? Or a tie or, God forbid, a suit?
I bring this up after a visit last month to Highland Park Village, where I discovered – to my shock and surprise – that a Banana Republic and Limited Express had opened.
This is unusual for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that neither company does much more than open stores in malls. Witness Banana Republic’s closing its Old Town location a couple of years ago.
(Rest easy. I don’t make a habit of shopping in the Park Cities. They need my sales tax money like I need another mouth to whine with. I was there to exchange a Christmas gift that I would otherwise have had to travel to North Dallas to exchange – sort of like choosing whether I wanted to break an arm or a leg).
I am not someone who was born to shop, and the appearance of these two stores does not send me into fits of cash-hurling frenzy. I was wearing flannel shirts and blue jeans long before Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren turned them into fashion statements. What my trip did do, however, was make me wonder: Why them, and not us?
I genuinely don’t know, and I hope that someone out there can tell me.
Why do we have empty storefronts at Lakewood Shopping Center? Why does it seem that the only new businesses that open in East Dallas sell food or liquor or both?
Why, when we lose a store that fills a need, like the M.E. Moses at Hillside Village, is it replaced with a store that duplicates services we’re already getting?
(I’m not criticizing the Amber’s that replaced M.E. Moses because it sells craft supplies; I’m asking why it went in there with a Michael’s down the street and another Amber’s in Casa Linda.)
I already know the obvious answer to my question, and it is as inaccurate as it is simple-minded.
If one more person tells me the Park Cities have better demographics than we do, I’m going to make them wade through the U.S. census report that says otherwise.
The Park Cities do not have a monopoly on the middle- and upper-middle class, and I’m sick and tired of hearing they do. Anyone who believes that hasn’t visited Swiss Avenue or Forest Hills or Old Lakewood lately.
So what’s the reason?
- Is it City policies that make it difficult for merchants Supporting Local Businesses Helps Our Neighborhood to move in? The City has helped in the past couple of years, making it possible, for example, for Target to open at Cityplace. On the other hand, we have seen very little initiative to deal with the dozens of empty storefronts at strip centers throughout the area.
- Is is bottom-line developers who are reluctant to do anything that isn’t 100-percent certain of success? I’m still waiting for the myriad schemes for renovating the old Sears store on Ross Avenue to come to fruition.
- Is it hard-nosed retailers who refuse to open a store unless the marketing study comes up with a 40-percent return? Sears’ departure is only the most recent example of this. How many people remember when there was a Sound Warehouse in Lakewood?
I don’t know, and I hope someone can tell me.
What I’m afraid of is that we have been red-lined by perception, by the wrong-headed idea that since we are an urban neighborhood, we can’t possibly have money to spend.
This is as silly as it is stupid.
If this was one of the great, blighted areas of the world, we would still have to buy clothes. But this is not one of the great, blighted areas of the world, unless you are sitting somewhere else and looking at us through apprehension-colored glasses.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope there is a legitimate business reason that an ex-sportswriter like myself couldn’t possibly know about.
So if anyone knows, please tell me.
