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Wal-Mart and Other Nightmares, Part One |
Bill Hudson | 12/31/09
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Laura Dollar, the clerk at Switchback Mountain Wear in the uptown Country Center, had helped me pick out some winter gloves — gloves I desperately needed following a couple of sub-zero days mornings here in Pagosa Springs — and she was now ringing them up. I noticed a couple of clipboards sitting on the counter, with official looking Manilla envelopes attached to them — and putting two and two together, I asked:
“Are those the Big Box petitions?”
The “two and two” consisted of knowing that Ann Bubb, one of Pagosa’s more active outdoors enthusiasts, owned Switchback Mountain Wear — and that Ann had been one of the four people behind the political effort to place Ordinance 743 in front of the voters next April.
“Yes, they are,” Laura smiled. “Would you like to circulate one of them?”
I did want to, actually. But did I have the time? I thought for a moment.
Let’s see. I conveniently live downtown, and only residents of downtown can sign the petition. I’ve often imagined myself going door to door and meeting more of my downtown neighbors. I think the Pagosa Springs Town Council made a huge mistake when they approved Ordinance 743 — and this petition would allow me and the rest of my downtown neighbors to weigh in on that very ordinance at the April election.
It was decided. “Yes, I would,” I told Laura.
And so began my very short career as a Big Box petition custodian. As it turned out, the petition effort was successful, and will result in a question on the Town’s April ballot.
Town voters will get to vote on Ordinance 743, and on Big Box regulation, on April 6.
 Ordinance 743 has its own checkered past, dating back to 2004, when our local leaders were still suffering shell shock following a decade of unprecedented residential growth here in Archuleta County. The population of the county had doubled in ten years, property values were climbing, huge new homes were popping up on various hilltops — and many of the recent newcomers, along with many old timers, were afraid the Pagosa Springs they moved here to enjoy was going to transform into something unpleasant — something like the millionaire villages of Aspen or Vail or Telluride.
Clearly, we needed to grab the reins of this runaway stagecoach — or at least, that was the feeling many of us had. We looked at the seemingly unchecked 60 miles to the west, in Durango — growth in both population and housing prices — and we wondered if there was any way to preserve Pagosa’s small-town friendliness.
One of the new symbols of Durango’s departure from small-town life was the arrival of its Wal-Mart Super Center on the outskirts of town. That monster retailer had battled for several years to earn the right to build in Durango. In the end, they had negotiated a compromise settlement with the city, and the new Wal-Mart — with its attendant multi-acre parking lot and with its string of secondary merchants and restaurants wrapping around the north end of that huge parking lot — arose in all its concrete-block glory, destined to unsettle the retail landscape of Durango.
Did Pagosa want to go the way of Durango? We already had an economically struggling downtown, full of locally owned ‘mom and pop’ businesses. Would the arrival of a Wal-Mart here, one day in the near future, serve to destroy the fabric of small town Pagosa?
Enter the ‘Big Box’ Task Force, serving at the pleasure of both the Town Council and the County Commissioners. The members of that committee were a business-oriented mix of Town and County officials and consultants, and local business owners. The task force also had the support of developer David Brown and his private Community Vision Council. Brown had commissioned a recent survey — the results of which showed almost 60 percent of county residents opposed to any kind of ‘big box’ retailer, and another 30 percent wanting special regulations if such a retailer were allowed to build.
One of those task force members was Ann Bubb, the owner of Switchback Mountain Wear. The committee's report was published in June, 2005.
Like many of the other folks serving on the task force, Ann had special concerns about a future Big Box. As business owners, she and the other committee members were concerned not only about how a Big Box might forever change the character of Pagosa Springs, but also, on a personal level, they were no doubt thinking about how difficult it might be to survive as a small ‘mom and pop’ retail business, should a Wal-Mart or Target open its doors here.
Subsequent to the formation of the Task Force, the Town passed a six-month moratorium on processing permits of non-grocery retail development over 18,000 square feet. An “emergency ordinance” suspending the processing of superstore applications was passed on July 27, 2004 and expired on January 27, 2005. Archuleta County passed a similar moratorium, and the Town later renewed its moratorium.
“The goal of these [moratoriums] was to give the task force adequate time to consider the comprehensive impacts of this type of commercial development and to recommend potential solutions to address these impacts,” states the report issued by the task force in June 2005.
“Communities across the country have been faced with the challenges associated with “big box” development for a number of years. The task force recognized that potential impacts on the community were broad and complex, and that learning from other communities regarding their approach and solutions made sense. The task force concluded that a combination of research using primary and secondary studies, public hearings and other avenues for gathering public input would provide the data necessary for a comprehensive analysis.”
Click here to view the 2005 Big Box Task Force report, as a PDF file.
As I was thinking about this article earlier this morning, lying in my bed listening to the furnace fan and staring at the ceiling, I thought about the number of retail businesses that have come and gone in downtown Pagosa Springs in the 16 years I’ve lived in this community.
In the main retail block across from the San Juan River parking lot, only four of the businesses are still operating under the same name and same owners as they were in 1993, as far as I can tell: Goodman’s, Moonlight Books, the Elkhorn Café, and the Pagosa Bar.
If you look farther down Pagosa Street — aka Highway 160 — east of the Junior High and all the way down to the First Street bridge, only one business remains from 1993: Pagosa Insurance, on the corner of Third Street and Pagosa Street.
Over the bridge and turning into the River Center retail area, the only businesses remaining under the same ownership from 1993 are the Malt Shoppe, Summit Sports, and Silver Dollar Liquor.
A large number of the retail spaces along Highway 160 are empty. And a good number of the remaining businesses are probably wondering if they will still be open a year from now.
Nevertheless, I think it’s fascinating that nearly all of the businesses in downtown Pagosa Springs — new and old — are actually operated by their owners. When you walk into a retail shop or restaurant in downtown Pagosa, you are very likely to meet the owner — perhaps even the owner’s family.
Compare this to Telluride, Aspen and Vail, and I believe you will find a very different situation in those other resort communities: absentee business owners who live in Los Angeles or New York, operating cookie cutter franchises — and college kids, still wet behind the ears, doing the actual day-to-day running of the shops and restaurants.
So as we stand here, at the door to 2010 and a new decade, we have three questions we might consider about the impact of a future Wal-Mart on our little mountain town with its ‘mom and pop’ retail landscape.
First: would a Wal-Mart be the final nail in the coffin for many of our locally owned, locally managed downtown retailers — and the neighboring restaurants that benefit from a vibrant downtown?
Second: would a Big Box store really make any difference — considering the difficulties keeping a retail business alive in Pagosa even without a Wal-Mart on the outskirts of town?
And third: to what extent does the existence of locally owned businesses — ‘mom and pop’ shops and restaurants — actually create the small town atmosphere that we all cherish about Pagosa?
Read Part Two... |
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