Shopping for low-lying fruit
October 9th, 2006 | by Eric Fidler | Published in Downtown, East Campus, Route 1 | 15 Comments
The university is carefully devising plans for the East Campus development project and intends for this new development to rectify some of the most urgent problems detrimental to campus life. Among these problems is the fact that there is not a single grocery store within walking distance of the campus. Rather than waiting years for the East Campus plan to come to fruition, we’re sure the university could knock this off its to-do list quickly by leasing existing, underused floor space to a grocer. Enter, Pocomoke Building.
The Pocomoke Building is a stately neo-Georgian building located next-door to the Maryland Book Exchange on Route 1 downtown. Right now it houses maintenance garages, expansive storage rooms and spare offices. We recommend the university partner with a grocer to renovate part of the building to turn the first floor into a supermarket.
This partnership between the university and a private grocer would be mutually beneficial. The university would enhance the quality of life for the car-less population thus quickly ameliorating some of the usual student grievances (e.g. nothing to do, no way to shop, etc.). It would also remove one of the strongest incentives students have to bring their cars to College Park.
The grocer would benefit not only from an irresistibly low rent, but also from a hungry student body desperate for options. The publicly accessible location facing Route 1 would welcome passersby and town residents as well as setting a fine example of street-fronting development along Route 1.
The East Campus Market Analysis notes that many students have expressed a desire to see a Trader Joe’s set up shop on East Campus. The California-based grocery chain is known for its Hawaiian décor, interesting variety of foods and—most importantly—its low prices.
Though we’re not sure what exact incentives would attract an operation like Trader Joe’s, one can be certain that a $1/year lease for the entire space would be compelling to any retail business.
Since the building is rather spacious and located very nicely on the edge of campus and downtown, we would also like to see the second floor renovated and leased to a café, so we can finally have an option besides the one Starbucks by Wawa. The last thing we need is yet another chain coffee shop, so we’d like to see an independent place like the successful, but remote, College Perk or Adams Morgan’s Tryst.
The beauty of this plan is that with relatively little cost to the university we can finally get a grocery store and another coffee shop downtown long before the first spades hit the dirt on East Campus.
We here at Rethink C.P. think of everything, so we put together a 3D model of what we envision.
The current building configuration (above) puts two doors on either side of the front façade. We recommend opening up the façade with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass sliding door in the center (below). We kept the building symmetry since that is a key element of Georgian architecture.
Six garage doors currently pierce the south façade (above). Rather than bricking them in, we suggest replacing them with tall windows to bring in the light (below).
We also imagined piercing the ceiling with skylights (below) to brighten up the second floor. In addition we recommend capping the tops of the façades with some sort of pre-cast ornamental ledge.
We also imagine joining the two floors into a grand hall (above) with the second floor becoming a wide balcony holding the café. This would be reminiscent of some of the old public marketplaces like Faneuil Hall in Boston (below).
October 9th, 2006 at 10:01 pm (#)
Beautiful. I’d love to see something like this happen, though I’m curious if the University would want a private company like Trader Joe’s to open there, thus eating their revenues. Of course, the school has arrangements with Barnes and Noble and all of the fast-food places in the Union, so that may not be a problem here.
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October 9th, 2006 at 10:22 pm (#)
I once heard a student returning to South Commons comment to a friend on the phone that he “had to go to Wawa to buy some bread, because we have absolutely no food.” I am sure there’s plenty others in his situation in this part of campus.
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October 9th, 2006 at 10:33 pm (#)
The Pocomoke Building is currently non-revenue space since it mainly houses maintenance rooms and spare offices. Even if the university charged rent as a percentage of the grocer’s profit (let’s say 1% of the profit), they would still come out ahead (minus the renovation costs). The only possible opposition I can imagine is from business owners on Route 1, who must pay market-rate rents and don’t benefit from a university subsidy. However, none of the businesses downtown competes directly with Trader Joe’s. Besides, this plan is intended primarily to provide a desperately needed amenity to students; a hefty, immediate profit should not be the school’s goal on this issue.
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October 10th, 2006 at 12:48 am (#)
Probably the biggest advantage of this proposal would be that it would remove the need for many on-campus/near campus students to have cars. Leasing the space at 0 profit would be pretty much comparable to what the University is proposing for the East Campus Development Initiative (in fact the Pocomoke building is part of this initiative). It’s clear that the destruction of the Pocomoke building wouldn’t provide any benefit because the university would be unlikely to approve of anything much larger in its place. I think that parking will be an issue but probably some contract with the book exchange is in order. Great job Eric.
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October 10th, 2006 at 10:23 am (#)
This is a really interesting idea, one that I wish had happened 4 years ago. Being without a car makes shopping fairly difficult, having either to rely on rides or the rare parental visit/resupply. I think that students would flock to this resource, however I still think that many would still keep their cars, that is unless more options as far as entertainment and retail became available within walking distance to campus. That, and I could forsee some people living in the View, or Commons 5 & 6 to drive instead of carrying grocery bags the whole way back.
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October 10th, 2006 at 5:38 pm (#)
(In a single grocery store with walking distance of the campus, that should be “within.”)
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October 10th, 2006 at 7:08 pm (#)
True, though it may not decrease the number of cars parked on campus, it can reduce the car trip distance and thus the burden on the road network. Currently, if you live on campus and have a car, you must drive two miles along Route 1 to Shopper’s (or Route 1 to Greenbelt Rd to go to Giant). That makes each trip a four-mile burden on an already congested road network. In theory, if we can reduce the distance needed to drive, we will actually free up some road capacity.
Of course it’s moot to me since I don’t even have a car. If Trader Joe’s came there, I’d be all over it like white on rice—or in Trader Joe’s case, like wasabi on dried peas.
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October 11th, 2006 at 2:08 pm (#)
The co-op could expand here and become a larger-scale grocer, be cheap and legitimize near-zero rent.
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October 12th, 2006 at 6:45 pm (#)
Good point on the decreased time on the road, I didnt think of it that way, however it would not really alleviate any parking problems on campus. I dont have a car either, and am a senior to boot, so I hope my kids like these changes.
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October 17th, 2006 at 12:19 pm (#)
Great concept! A better use of the Pocomoke building has been much discussed internally at the University. I would point out one limitation not identified in the article, however; the Security Operations Center occupies a significant amount of the space on the second floor of the building. The SOC is where the central monitoring of all of the security cameras on and near campus takes place. There is a considerable investment in both the SOC itself and the fiber optic connections to the building. The relocation of the Security Operations Center and its connections to an equally suitable location is a prerequisite for any re-use of the building.
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October 17th, 2006 at 4:35 pm (#)
The Security Operations Center appears to occupy the third floor, not the second floor, of the building. In fact, we were so sure of this we went back to the second floor and took photos (below). We envision the three uses–the market, the café, and the security office–each exclusively inhabiting the first, second, and third floors, respectively.
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October 22nd, 2006 at 5:08 pm (#)
Very good idea! This could turn out to be a small scale Quincy Market – Faneuil Hall Market Place like in Boston.
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November 1st, 2006 at 3:54 pm (#)
[...] There is a huge barrier that exists today between traditional downtown College Park and the East Campus site. That barrier, oddly enough, is the open space that is Fraternity Row and the Chapel Field. It will become the dividing line between the two districts to the detriment of both. We have proposed in the past that the Pocomoke Building be retrofitted to include a specialty grocer. This would not only be the first step toward binding together the two districts, it would provide an amenity downtown that is sorely needed. [...]
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August 16th, 2007 at 12:48 pm (#)
Eric, how did we make the 3D images, or where did we get them from?
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August 19th, 2007 at 10:10 pm (#)
I would also second expanding the co-op into this space. Of course, Trader Joe’s is great, but the co-op has a lot going for it and already has partnership with UM to some extent so the transition may be smoother.
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