“What about the rest of Mercury?”

Top: For lease signs line are placed along West Mercury Boulevard, a busy stretch that serves as Hampton's primary business corridor. Below: The lot at Newmarket South shopping center is mostly empty on a weekday morning. (Daily Press photos by Sangjib Min (top) and Dennis Tennant (bottom) / October 3, 2009)

dailypress.com

By Veronica Chufo

247-4741

11:12 PM EDT, October 3, 2009

HAMPTON — The Peninsula Town Center is rising from the rubble of the Coliseum Mall.

The development of big-name retailers, anchored by Target, J.C. Penney, Macy’s and Barnes & Noble, is taking shape off West Mercury Boulevard.

Two new restaurants have recently opened, and a third is on the way.

At the nearby Power Plant, a NASCAR Sports Grille restaurant is expected soon.

But the Mercury makeover largely stops around Aberdeen Road.

West of there, the number of new buildings and national retailers dwindle.

Payday lending businesses, beauty supply shops, dollar stores and thrift stores are common in the strip lined with mostly older plazas, many of them with space for lease.

It’s a tale of two Mercurys — one new and master-planned, the other a hodgepodge of aging strip malls and commercial buildings.

The landscape of Mercury east of Aberdeen, in the Coliseum Central Business Improvement District, has changed in recent years, but redevelopment has been slow in coming to the rest of West Mercury Boulevard — a busy corridor traveled by more than 53,000 vehicles a day.

In 2004, the city of Hampton adopted a master plan mapping out future development of the Coliseum area. The plan ends at Aberdeen Road.

Hampton’s top development official said the city is working with business owners but acknowledged that more can be done.

“We all acknowledge that that probably is worth some sort of planning effort to that stretch,” said Economic Development Director James Eason. “But we’ve been so busy with the Coliseum Central master plan that we haven’t had a whole lot of time to focus on that area between Aberdeen and Jefferson. There are definitely some areas in there that need it.”

Mercury’s history

Mercury Boulevard was built in 1942 as Military Highway to connect military bases. Since then, it has become a vital east-west artery on the lower Peninsula and an entree to Interstate 64.

The corridor was once dotted with malls. There was the now-demolished Mercury Mall, built in 1967. It was followed by the Coliseum Mall, which was torn down to make way for the highly promoted Peninsula Town Center; and Newmarket North, which is now used for office space.

With malls at both ends, Mercury Boulevard grew up as a retail corridor, said Chris Rouzie, a senior vice president in the Newport News office of Thalhimer, a commercial real estate firm. That made it the place to shop on the lower Peninsula until 1993, when taxable sales in Newport News first topped taxable sales in Hampton, Eason said.

But over time, as the Peninsula’s population shifted north, Jefferson Avenue became the preferred spot for retail. It’s home to the Patrick Henry Mall, built in 1987, the City Center at Oyster Point, Port Warwick and national retailers such as Best Buy, Sam’s Club and Kohl’s. Some businesses, including Haynes Furniture and the former Circuit City, vacated Mercury stores in favor of Jefferson.

“Retail tends to follow money and growth,” said H. Blount Hunter, of H. Blount Hunter Retail and Real Estate Research Co. of Norfolk. “That’s been sort of a northern movement on the Peninsula. You don’t find all those for-rent signs on Jefferson Avenue.”

Jefferson is also a more centrally located corridor on the Peninsula, easy to get to for residents from Williamsburg to Hampton.

“If you’re a retailer that looks at the Peninsula and only needs one location, then Jefferson is an ideal location,” Rouzie said. “Jefferson is in the middle.”

Hampton is fighting back. As business-associated revenue flowing into Hampton’s coffers dwindled, the city launched projects such as the Power Plant and the Peninsula Town Center to woo retailers and shoppers back, Eason said.

Those two projects are filling up, with a grand opening scheduled for the Peninsula Town Center next spring. That’s expected to be followed by redevelopment of the Riverdale Shopping Center to complement the Town Center, Eason said.

Chronic vacancies

But along Mercury west of Aberdeen, vacancies seem to be chronic, Hunter said. That makes him think it’s overbuilt.

“That’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everybody is afraid to admit,” said Hunter, who conducts consumer research and retail real estate studies. “We have excess capacity.”

And it’s not easy to find lasting tenants for older buildings, he said.

“Poor-quality shopping centers attract marginal-quality tenants. So if a shopping center is in bad repair or needs to be updated, they’re not going to get a quality tenant,” Hunter said.

The current economic picture isn’t helping. Of the commercial real estate sectors, retail may have taken the hardest hit, as thousands of businesses across the country close their doors, said Peter Eckert, president of the Hampton Roads Association for Commercial Real Estate. Retail is what makes up a lot of Mercury’s development.

Vacancies are bad for business.

Rodney Alexander is manager of Best Way, a rent-to-own business in a plaza that includes a vacant storefront and a dialysis center.

Having a vacancy next door cuts down on walk-through traffic, he said.

Best Way has been in business for going on 25 years, 10 of those in its current location.

“Everybody’s trying to move into the new developments,” Alexander said. “That new curb appeal attracts a lot of people, that new storefront.”

People think new developments are safer and better illuminated than an aging, half-vacant plaza, Alexander said.

Aging plazas, future potential

Hampton offers incentives to spur aging commercial properties, including shopping centers, to rehabilitate. So far, only one property on Mercury Boulevard between I-64 and the James River Bridge has participated, city officials said.

Some of the shopping centers have been there since the 1950s. Declining retail strips like Mercury Boulevard can be found throughout the United States. Because they’re aging and expansive, they’re costly to rehabilitate or redevelop, especially for budget-strapped cities and counties struggling to meet basic needs like education and public safety.

“It’s very hard for those kind of buildings to succeed now, particularly with the newer stuff going up,” Eason said.

But there’s hope.

Peninsula Town Center could add more traffic to Mercury, which could lead to more eyes on, and more opportunities for, businesses along that stretch. Coliseum Central retailers already trace many of their customers from south of the James River Bridge, Eason said, and he expects that customer base to follow at the Peninsula Town Center.

So business and plaza owners along Mercury Boulevard will see the benefit to investing in upgrades to attract those shoppers, he said. That’s already happening, with a new Peninsula Honda building and CVS pharmacy.

“It’s no question it’s going to have an impact,” Eason said.

Copyright © 2009, Newport News, Va., Daily Press

Mercury Plaza vs. Coliseum Mall (April, 2002)

Scanned directly from my journal back in 2002, hence the spiral in the middle. This was either right before or right after Circuit City closed at Mercury Plaza, and when Barnes & Noble just opened at Coliseum Mall.

Now both of them are torn down and replaced. The Burlington Coat Factory at Mercury Plaza moved to the mall around 2003, and when the mall was torn down, it moved back to the ground the Mercury Plaza was back on.

Coliseum Mall went on to be the Peninsula Town Center.

(Here is a big version so you can read the captions

“New Target Opening”

From the July 16, 2009 Daily Press:

Entry about the soon to be old Target

June 17, 2009 WAVY Report on Peninsula Town Center (Coliseum Mall)

(Just uploaded, if video does not show up try again later)

{{Daily Press}} Target takes shape at Town Center

Target takes shape at Town Center
The store will feature an expanded grocery section in an attempt to remain competitive with Wal-Mart.

By PETER FROST | 247-4744
November 20, 2008

HAMPTON – A new Target store that will feature fresh produce, meats and baked goods is beginning to take shape at the new Peninsula Town Center, a mixed-use development that will take the place of the old Coliseum Mall on Mercury Boulevard.

The nation’s second-largest discount retailer completed the purchase of the land about a month ago for $4.3 million and is on track to finish the 143,000 square foot store in time for a July 2009 opening, company and development officials said Wednesday.

The store will serve as one of the shopping and dining district’s anchors and will replace the nearby Hampton Target that opened on Saville Row in 1996, said Anna Anderson, a Target Corp. spokeswoman. That store is 118,300 square feet, according to city property records.

Hampton’s new Target will be molded in a new company prototype, a hybrid discount store with an expanded grocery format that will help it remain competitive with Wal-Mart, which began rolling out a similar store strategy within the last year.

“It’s a mix between a general merchandise Target and a Super Target,” Anderson said. “We find that what our guest is looking for is to have the most things under one roof.”

Employees of the existing Hampton Target location will be relocated to the new store. None are expected to lose their jobs.

The company recently finished a re-model and expansion project at its Newport News store, expanding the grocery section and improving its pharmacy, among other things. Target also has two stores in the Williamsburg area.

Despite a haggard economy and slowing retail sales that are expected to be weak through 2009, much of the development at Peninsula Town Center is moving forward as planned.

In March, bookseller Barnes & Noble is slated to open its third Peninsula location, and in April, the developer hopes to have 159 executive-style apartments ready for tenants, said Raymond Tripp, general manager of the development.

When the first phase of Town Center is complete, it could have as many as 100 retail storefronts, a dozen restaurants and a separate entertainment hub that might hold a movie theater. The center also will have several thousand square feet available for offices.

The developer is not releasing prospective tenants until they’re signed and close to opening in the center, Tripp said.

“We’ve had a few bumps in the road, yes, but fortunately not many,” Tripp said. “We haven’t had anyone pull out, but we’ve had a few that have drawn the process out.”

“Local projects still moving a lot of dirt” {{Daily Press, 10-4-08}}

Peninsula Town Center
The makeover of the former Coliseum Mall’s site is safe because Mall Properties, the New York-based firm building the mixed-use development, had financing complete before the project started and has a strong credit rating. Unlike some developers that live off borrowed money for projects and then sell them, Mall Properties regularly generates income from hotel, retail and office buildings it owns and manages.

“This is why companies like ours have been around for so long,” said Raymond Tripp, general manager of Peninsula Town Center. “We buy properties for investment opportunities.”

Almost every building in Peninsula Town Center — a mix of office, retail, residential and restaurant space — is well under way or even close to finished. The last building, which will have a movie theater and possibly a comedy club, has received approvals and will begin construction soon.

The Bennigan’s and Steak and Ale restaurants at the edge of the development along Coliseum Drive closed in July as the chains’ parent company went bankrupt. Tripp said that the loss of the income hurt but but that the plan was to eventually knock them down, anyway – which will happen once they get bankruptcy court approval.

“Those are great sites to use to entice another retailer or restaurant,” Tripp said.

The challenge at Peninsula Town Center is to entice retailers and restaurants when consumer spending is forcing the weakest companies into bankruptcy. Tripp won’t disclose specific names until almost all the tenants are in place, but he said some good deals were completed.

“We’re having some very good success and very good conversations with potential tenants,” Tripp said. “We’re having to work harder than if the economy was better.”

Retailers have been touring the development in the past six weeks. Having a high-quality mixed-use development is a big draw for the now-pickier retailers still adding stores.

“People are more interested in talking to us because we have a new product,” Tripp said.

Bennigans & Steak and Ale, dead July 2008, Hampton, VA

Today I’m in Hampton waiting for family, so I decided to take a drive around Hampton and take some pics and buy some eyeshadow at JC Penney.

In my previous entry, I c&p’d the article about Bennigans and Steak & Ale closing all their (non franchise) stores. These were pretty much right next door to one another, and the last remnants (other than Macys) of the original Coliseum Mall area. While I was out I took two quick iPhone photos of them:

When I was growing up in the 80’s and early 90’s, the big Bennigans sign on the side of the building used to be white against a dark green background, and that old man who used to be the logo (Who WAS he anyway? He looked sorta like the Lipton tea man) was painted on it too. He used to scare the beejesus out of me, especially when we’d pass by there at nighttime after a quick Coliseum Mall trip after dance class.

This was the best picture I could take of the Steak & Ale with my iPhone:

I remember one of my friends told me once that there used to be little “rooms’ you could eat in there, and one reminded him of a jail cell or something.

Both of these places are from the late 1970’s or early 1980’s. I think my half sister worked at Bennigans before I was born, I’m not too sure.

Bennigan’s, Steak and Ale restaurants closing

{two of the last remnants of Coliseum Mall [the other one being the Macys building that will be around forever] are shutting down}
Daily Press article below:

Bennigan’s, Steak and Ale restaurants closing

BY MIKE HOLTZCLAW | 757-928-6479
11:13 AM EDT, July 29, 2008

Three local Bennigan’s restaurants and two Steak and Ale restaurants closed their doors today, but it was unclear if the national chains were shutting down permanently in the wake of a bankruptcy filing by their parent company.

There was no official comment, but an employee at one restaurant in Hampton acknowledged that all Steak and Ales and Bennigan’s in the area “are closed indefinitely as of today.”

Both chains are owned by Metromedia Restaurants Group in Plano, Texas, which also operates the Steak and Ale, Ponderosa and Bonanza chains. There was no comment this morning from Metromedia.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Metromedia had violated terms of a loan agreement with GE Capital Solutions and had prepared a bankruptcy filing. The company denied it had prepared such a filing.

Media reports in cities such as Chicago and Denver also describe Metromedia restaurants in those markets closing.

“Wrecking Corp Wins Contract for Demolition of Coliseum Mall in Hampton Roads, Virginia”

{article from March}

Wrecking Corporation of America begins demolition of 750,000 thousand square-foot mall, including recycling of steel framing and on-site crushing of concrete and masonry materials.

Two photos are in the article, one of the Barnes & Noble and Steve & Barrys and an aerial shot:

All That is Left of Coliseum Mall (September, 2007)

I took this picture in the new JC Penney parking lot.

Everything was sold and moved out in early August, and the new JC Penney down from it was opened in late August. This one will be torn down. After this is torn down, the only building standing from the old Coliseum Mall days will be the Macys.