Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Which Bend do you shop at?

Linda gave me half a day off, yesterday. I used it to go get my car washed. (I lead an exciting life, I tell you!) While I was at it, I drove around town to see what I could see.

My main goal was to see if the Kohls was being built. Seems to me, they announced several months ago that it was a 'go.' There was a nice big empty lot behind the Bend River Mall -- or whatever they're calling it these days -- but no building.

Seems that there might be a bit of hedging going on -- not that I blame them. The Gottshalk center had 9 spots for rent (soon to be 10.)

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I also decided to check to see how much it would cost to have my front lawn replaced. Got an estimate later that night, and the guy is coming around Thursday to take a look.

I don't know. I think I have a series of improvements I need to make to the house and landscaping, and I think I can probably afford to do them. I also suspect that a couple of years ago, all these jobs would have been too small for most of these guys.

I don't want to stick them on price -- I'm going to try to get 3 or 4 estimates and average it out. But I do think I have a bit more leverage, nowadays.

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The thing I noticed driving around town, is that there seems to be three different retail Bends.

There is the Old Mill and Downtown; there are the Big Box Centers; and there are the strip commercial along 3rd St. and Greenwood and Galveston, ect. (Probably a fourth Bend, if you include the West Side, which I didn't get to.)

All of them have a completely different feel.

The Big Box Centers -- the Forum, and Cascade Village, and Factory Outlet, etc. would be where the vast majority of people shop. Say, SHOP, and they immediately think of going to one of these places.

The Strip Stores are almost 'industrial' retail. They don't really care how they look, and probably depend on people driving by, and people looking in the good old fashioned Yellow Pages for a particular product.

Downtown and the Old Mill would seem to be for tourists and/or locals who want to go out on the town and experience the surroundings.

I suppose the West Side would be a Neighborhood shopping experience.

Like I said, it's just interesting how different they feel.

2 comments:

tim said...

My kids like Old Mill the best, because they can have some form of independence there walking around with friends.

I, personally, hate shopping.

shopping monkey said...

Up until about a week ago, they were very busy in that Kohl's spot behind the Bend River Promenade (oh boy, does that name crack me up). There was some final grading and finishing of the canal piping project (also at Pomegranate)... so this may just be the calm before the walls go up. We can watch it all from our front lawn, and I'll be SO glad when the dust and noise settles.