If you've tuned in the past few days, I've been gradually tweaking the appearance of the blog to give it a bit more personality. This announcement serves as an indicator that I'm finish making these adjustments for now. No doubt I'll alter the appearance again in the future, but too frequent appearance changes only serve to erode the identity. So, this is all for now.
As I approach my tenth month with this blog, I again want to thank the followers, commentors, and general supporters--thanks for helping me stay alive with fresh posts, even as my own workload has grown a great deal. Keep it up, and I intend to keep the dialogue going for many moons.
Removing the gauze.
If you've tuned in the past few days, I've been gradually tweaking the appearance of the blog to give it a bit more personality. This announcement serves as an indicator that I'm finish making these adjustments for now. No doubt I'll alter the appearance again in the future, but too frequent appearance changes only serve to erode the identity. So, this is all for now.
As I approach my tenth month with this blog, I again want to thank the followers, commentors, and general supporters--thanks for helping me stay alive with fresh posts, even as my own workload has grown a great deal. Keep it up, and I intend to keep the dialogue going for many moons.
As I approach my tenth month with this blog, I again want to thank the followers, commentors, and general supporters--thanks for helping me stay alive with fresh posts, even as my own workload has grown a great deal. Keep it up, and I intend to keep the dialogue going for many moons.
Mall rot: how they do it in Dixie.
This blog is due for another photo montage, and while the subject this month is hardly original, it remains one of my favorite: the always fascinating dying mall. I’ve explored several examples in the past: two in Indianapolis and one outside of Detroit. But dying malls are hardly relegated to the Midwest—all across the country, a number of regional enclosed shopping centers have met their demise over the past twenty years. So now it’s time to focus the lens on one in the South. I’ve referenced the Cortana Mall at Baton Rouge obliquely through a previous post; this time I finally visited it with a carefully hidden camera.
Dedicated in 1976, the Cortana Mall (formerly Mall at Cortana) opened about 6 miles west of the Baton Rouge City Center, in a section from the old Cortana Plantation parcel, at the intersection of two arterials, Florida Avenue (U.S. 190) and Airline Highway (U.S. 61), indicated by the purple letter A on the map.
Originally nearly 1.4 million square feet, it was the largest mall in the state, and in 1981 it expanded by over 200,000 more square feet, when one of the early department stores added a second level. A more detailed history of the mall is available at Mall Hall of Fame.
The mall endured several battalions of new competitors over the ensuring two decades, but nothing unseated Cortana from its dominion as the pre-eminent mall of the Capital City region. However, in 1997, developer Jim Wilson and Associates opened the Mall of Louisiana to the southeast of the city center, along the mercilessly well-traveled Interstate 10 corridor, at its interchange with Bluebonnet Boulevard, indicated by the blue B on the map. Cortana Mall was dethroned.
Cortana didn’t die overnight; thirteen years after the unveiling of the Mall of Louisiana, it remains open. Within a year after the competitor stole the spotlight, Cortana Mall underwent a mild renovation and changed its name to Mall at Cortana; it returned to Cortana Mall last year. Truthfully, this Mall has persevered as the “other mall” in Baton Rouge metro for a remarkably long time. Aside from the Mall of Louisiana, other formidable competitors include the lifestyle center Towne Center at Cedar Lodge (2005, just a little over 2 miles away, the green letter C on the map), the Tanger Outlets in Gonzales (an outer suburb 21 miles to the southeast along I-10), and the recent lifestyle/apartment/office hybrid Perkins Rowe (2008, just a mile south of Mall of Louisiana, also on Bluebonnet Boulevard at the purple letter D on the map). It is no doubt a testament to the solid population growth of metro Baton Rouge that Cortana Mall has been able to endure this long. When I first visited in 2005 (which I briefly referenced a few months ago), I could tell that it was the downgraded mall—quite simply, it lacked the upscale stores such as Banana Republic, Brookstone, Talbots, and any of the other solidly upper-middle tier stores present at Mall of Louisiana. Nonetheless, it seemed generally bustling around Christmastime, with relatively low vacancy except in the wing of in-line stores that lead to the notorious Sears. But that was nearly five years ago. How does it look today?
It’s seriously hurting, with about 50% occupancy, I would guess, among the in-line stores. And in answer to the question posed by the title of this blog, they don’t really do mall rot that differently in the South than anywhere else, by my observation. Among the few tenants currently entering the mall are fourth-tier brands without any major advertising presence, like Famous Labels seen below:
This is precisely the sort of tenant that seeks a struggling retail outlet, because that caters to the lower income market that still shops here. The well-heeled of Baton Rouge stopped patronizing Cortana long ago, and now the foot traffic and ensuing sales per square foot are so low that the place cannot ask for high rents. Famous Labels is a discounter that feeds on the rejected space of former top brands; no doubt this space once held a Lane Bryant or New York and Company. Notice from the photo above how much of the space inside the store is vacant; the tenant doesn’t even need to stuff the premises with merchandise because rents are low. Stepping back several feet from the store’s entrance reveals its less-than-lucrative surroundings:
Beyond this, many of the other in-line tenants are most likely locally owned and operated. They would never be able to afford the rents in a thriving mall.
The tenant in the background of the photo below is a convenience store, with gas station merchandise. Would you ever see that in a successful mall?
Cortana hasn’t lost all of the big names; a few are hanging on. The neon is barely visible on the photo below, but the two tenants seen here are Pacific Sun and Journeys.
And two more mall mainstays, Hot Topic and Wet Seal:
The targeted demographic for these stores suggests that, at the very least, teenagers still frequent the mall. But how much are you willing to bet that not one of these will renew its lease when the term ends?
And then there’s Aeropostale, another bit of a surprise.
But for some reason, I’ve noticed Aeropostale hangs around dying malls longer than its perceived competitors. I’ve never shopped at the store, but I used to think it was comparable to American Eagle or The Gap; however, those two retailers tend to dart out of a mall at the first sign of failure, while Aeropostale does not. Most likely that means Aeropostale has cheaper merchandise. Bath and Body Works and Victoria’s Secret, both present in Cortana (though I did not take a photo), also hang around longer than one might expect. And shoe stores like Foot Locker are usually among the last big names to jump ship. I enjoy what the property managers of Cortana, creatively named Mall Properties, have decided to do with some of the vacant storefronts:
These TV screens advertise the remaining in-line stores still standing in the mall.
What about the department stores? At its peak, the mall boasted six anchor tenants, an incredible four of which were housed in two-story structures. Today, four occupied department stores remain: Sears, Macy’s, Dillard’s, and J.C. Penney. Mervyn’s closed a few years before the company went out of business in 2008, while Steve and Barry’s prevailed at the mall until near the end of the company’s life; it was defunct in 2009. But what about the surviving anchors? Since anchors typically pay little to no rent in a mall, they have less at stake and can often break even as long as they sell enough merchandise to pay their employees and cover basic operating expenses. But the Dillard’s at Cortana is clearly feeling the pinch. It’s housed in one of the two-story spaces, but the second floor seems to be receding.
The partitions are blocking about 1/3 of the gross leasable space on this level. A conversation with a clerk revealed that they were liquidating the central portion of that floor as well, seen below.
Before long, only the other 1/3 of that floor would remain open. Access to the second floor is already limited, as witnessed by this barricaded escalator.
How much longer before Dillard’s vacates its second floor altogether? And then, of course, how soon before it bids adieu to Cortana Mall?
Perhaps one of the clearest indicators that this mall is a goner is one of the smaller wings leading back to the parking lot.
The theme of this wing seems to be Public Sector.
It houses an Army Recruitment Center, Navy Recruitment, Air Force, and a US Postal Service Branch. No doubt these government agencies wouldn’t be paying the rent at Mall of Louisiana. While I hate to bring the specter of social class into this argument (and certainly don’t want to politicize it), the presence of all these recruiting centers can’t help but recall Michael Moore’s trip to an Army Recruiting Center in his hometown of Flint, Michigan in Fahrenheit 9/11. He recognized that the recruiting centers never appear on the “good” side of town, where the teenaged shoppers are most likely to have college aspirations.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest and most successful, Cortana’s placement is probably about a four or a five. It’s not dead yet, a few strong tenants remain, and some recent news that a Sam’s Club proposes locating at an outparcel on the mall premises offers a whisper of good fortune in this bad economy. But the fact remains that any mall that sinks below about a 7 out of 10 is likely past the point of no return, and what this means for Baton Rouge is the confirmation that the growth patterns are veering further away from the eastern suburbs and more to the southeast, along the I-10 corridor. It makes sense, in a way: living closer to a limited access road such as I-10 (rather than a busy six lane highway like Florida Boulevard) helps the commuter. And Louisiana State University, the true heart of Baton Rouge, already lies to the south and southeast of the city center. But the housing around Cortana Mall—particularly to the immediate south—is still solidly middle class. How long will it remain that way if the families have a blighted mall presiding over them? Will they be able to sell?
The decline of Cortana is more remarkable because it remains a larger shopping center than the successful Mall of Louisiana, which is about 50,000 square feet shy of its predecessor in GLA. But it’s clear that the decentralizing forces in Baton Rouge have long favored the southeast. The northern section of Baton Rouge is overwhelmingly lower income minority. The western suburbs, across the Mississippi River, are mostly working class and growing slowly. The eastern suburbs comprised a middle class boomlet as recently as the early 1990s, but they haven’t been able to compete in desirability of the I-10 corridor. And since the Mall of Louisiana is the second biggest in the state, it has even become an attraction for folks in New Orleans over 70 miles away; it’s proximity to the interstate makes it far more accessible than the Cortana Mall ever was. But the poor folks in the north and west of Baton Rouge have always had a long hike to get to any major shopping; before long, even the sprawling suburbs of the east will have to travel much further to get to any major retail node. The death of Cortana Mall represents the culmination of some of the most lopsided decentralization patterns of any metro region I have seen. It is an apotheosis of Homer Hoyt’s sector theory, in which settlements expand in wedge shaped patterns along principal transportation routes. There’s nothing wrong with this per say, but the problem with most urban growth theories is that few cities actually live up to any of the proposed patterns. But here’s one example that has followed it almost hook, line, and sinker. Maybe that’s just how they do it Down South?
Dedicated in 1976, the Cortana Mall (formerly Mall at Cortana) opened about 6 miles west of the Baton Rouge City Center, in a section from the old Cortana Plantation parcel, at the intersection of two arterials, Florida Avenue (U.S. 190) and Airline Highway (U.S. 61), indicated by the purple letter A on the map.
Originally nearly 1.4 million square feet, it was the largest mall in the state, and in 1981 it expanded by over 200,000 more square feet, when one of the early department stores added a second level. A more detailed history of the mall is available at Mall Hall of Fame.
The mall endured several battalions of new competitors over the ensuring two decades, but nothing unseated Cortana from its dominion as the pre-eminent mall of the Capital City region. However, in 1997, developer Jim Wilson and Associates opened the Mall of Louisiana to the southeast of the city center, along the mercilessly well-traveled Interstate 10 corridor, at its interchange with Bluebonnet Boulevard, indicated by the blue B on the map. Cortana Mall was dethroned.
Cortana didn’t die overnight; thirteen years after the unveiling of the Mall of Louisiana, it remains open. Within a year after the competitor stole the spotlight, Cortana Mall underwent a mild renovation and changed its name to Mall at Cortana; it returned to Cortana Mall last year. Truthfully, this Mall has persevered as the “other mall” in Baton Rouge metro for a remarkably long time. Aside from the Mall of Louisiana, other formidable competitors include the lifestyle center Towne Center at Cedar Lodge (2005, just a little over 2 miles away, the green letter C on the map), the Tanger Outlets in Gonzales (an outer suburb 21 miles to the southeast along I-10), and the recent lifestyle/apartment/office hybrid Perkins Rowe (2008, just a mile south of Mall of Louisiana, also on Bluebonnet Boulevard at the purple letter D on the map). It is no doubt a testament to the solid population growth of metro Baton Rouge that Cortana Mall has been able to endure this long. When I first visited in 2005 (which I briefly referenced a few months ago), I could tell that it was the downgraded mall—quite simply, it lacked the upscale stores such as Banana Republic, Brookstone, Talbots, and any of the other solidly upper-middle tier stores present at Mall of Louisiana. Nonetheless, it seemed generally bustling around Christmastime, with relatively low vacancy except in the wing of in-line stores that lead to the notorious Sears. But that was nearly five years ago. How does it look today?
It’s seriously hurting, with about 50% occupancy, I would guess, among the in-line stores. And in answer to the question posed by the title of this blog, they don’t really do mall rot that differently in the South than anywhere else, by my observation. Among the few tenants currently entering the mall are fourth-tier brands without any major advertising presence, like Famous Labels seen below:
This is precisely the sort of tenant that seeks a struggling retail outlet, because that caters to the lower income market that still shops here. The well-heeled of Baton Rouge stopped patronizing Cortana long ago, and now the foot traffic and ensuing sales per square foot are so low that the place cannot ask for high rents. Famous Labels is a discounter that feeds on the rejected space of former top brands; no doubt this space once held a Lane Bryant or New York and Company. Notice from the photo above how much of the space inside the store is vacant; the tenant doesn’t even need to stuff the premises with merchandise because rents are low. Stepping back several feet from the store’s entrance reveals its less-than-lucrative surroundings:
Beyond this, many of the other in-line tenants are most likely locally owned and operated. They would never be able to afford the rents in a thriving mall.
The tenant in the background of the photo below is a convenience store, with gas station merchandise. Would you ever see that in a successful mall?
Cortana hasn’t lost all of the big names; a few are hanging on. The neon is barely visible on the photo below, but the two tenants seen here are Pacific Sun and Journeys.
And two more mall mainstays, Hot Topic and Wet Seal:
The targeted demographic for these stores suggests that, at the very least, teenagers still frequent the mall. But how much are you willing to bet that not one of these will renew its lease when the term ends?
And then there’s Aeropostale, another bit of a surprise.
But for some reason, I’ve noticed Aeropostale hangs around dying malls longer than its perceived competitors. I’ve never shopped at the store, but I used to think it was comparable to American Eagle or The Gap; however, those two retailers tend to dart out of a mall at the first sign of failure, while Aeropostale does not. Most likely that means Aeropostale has cheaper merchandise. Bath and Body Works and Victoria’s Secret, both present in Cortana (though I did not take a photo), also hang around longer than one might expect. And shoe stores like Foot Locker are usually among the last big names to jump ship. I enjoy what the property managers of Cortana, creatively named Mall Properties, have decided to do with some of the vacant storefronts:
These TV screens advertise the remaining in-line stores still standing in the mall.
What about the department stores? At its peak, the mall boasted six anchor tenants, an incredible four of which were housed in two-story structures. Today, four occupied department stores remain: Sears, Macy’s, Dillard’s, and J.C. Penney. Mervyn’s closed a few years before the company went out of business in 2008, while Steve and Barry’s prevailed at the mall until near the end of the company’s life; it was defunct in 2009. But what about the surviving anchors? Since anchors typically pay little to no rent in a mall, they have less at stake and can often break even as long as they sell enough merchandise to pay their employees and cover basic operating expenses. But the Dillard’s at Cortana is clearly feeling the pinch. It’s housed in one of the two-story spaces, but the second floor seems to be receding.
The partitions are blocking about 1/3 of the gross leasable space on this level. A conversation with a clerk revealed that they were liquidating the central portion of that floor as well, seen below.
Before long, only the other 1/3 of that floor would remain open. Access to the second floor is already limited, as witnessed by this barricaded escalator.
How much longer before Dillard’s vacates its second floor altogether? And then, of course, how soon before it bids adieu to Cortana Mall?Perhaps one of the clearest indicators that this mall is a goner is one of the smaller wings leading back to the parking lot.
The theme of this wing seems to be Public Sector.
It houses an Army Recruitment Center, Navy Recruitment, Air Force, and a US Postal Service Branch. No doubt these government agencies wouldn’t be paying the rent at Mall of Louisiana. While I hate to bring the specter of social class into this argument (and certainly don’t want to politicize it), the presence of all these recruiting centers can’t help but recall Michael Moore’s trip to an Army Recruiting Center in his hometown of Flint, Michigan in Fahrenheit 9/11. He recognized that the recruiting centers never appear on the “good” side of town, where the teenaged shoppers are most likely to have college aspirations.So, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest and most successful, Cortana’s placement is probably about a four or a five. It’s not dead yet, a few strong tenants remain, and some recent news that a Sam’s Club proposes locating at an outparcel on the mall premises offers a whisper of good fortune in this bad economy. But the fact remains that any mall that sinks below about a 7 out of 10 is likely past the point of no return, and what this means for Baton Rouge is the confirmation that the growth patterns are veering further away from the eastern suburbs and more to the southeast, along the I-10 corridor. It makes sense, in a way: living closer to a limited access road such as I-10 (rather than a busy six lane highway like Florida Boulevard) helps the commuter. And Louisiana State University, the true heart of Baton Rouge, already lies to the south and southeast of the city center. But the housing around Cortana Mall—particularly to the immediate south—is still solidly middle class. How long will it remain that way if the families have a blighted mall presiding over them? Will they be able to sell?
The decline of Cortana is more remarkable because it remains a larger shopping center than the successful Mall of Louisiana, which is about 50,000 square feet shy of its predecessor in GLA. But it’s clear that the decentralizing forces in Baton Rouge have long favored the southeast. The northern section of Baton Rouge is overwhelmingly lower income minority. The western suburbs, across the Mississippi River, are mostly working class and growing slowly. The eastern suburbs comprised a middle class boomlet as recently as the early 1990s, but they haven’t been able to compete in desirability of the I-10 corridor. And since the Mall of Louisiana is the second biggest in the state, it has even become an attraction for folks in New Orleans over 70 miles away; it’s proximity to the interstate makes it far more accessible than the Cortana Mall ever was. But the poor folks in the north and west of Baton Rouge have always had a long hike to get to any major shopping; before long, even the sprawling suburbs of the east will have to travel much further to get to any major retail node. The death of Cortana Mall represents the culmination of some of the most lopsided decentralization patterns of any metro region I have seen. It is an apotheosis of Homer Hoyt’s sector theory, in which settlements expand in wedge shaped patterns along principal transportation routes. There’s nothing wrong with this per say, but the problem with most urban growth theories is that few cities actually live up to any of the proposed patterns. But here’s one example that has followed it almost hook, line, and sinker. Maybe that’s just how they do it Down South?
Mall rot: how they do it in Dixie.
This blog is due for another photo montage, and while the subject this month is hardly original, it remains one of my favorite: the always fascinating dying mall. I’ve explored several examples in the past: two in Indianapolis and one outside of Detroit. But dying malls are hardly relegated to the Midwest—all across the country, a number of regional enclosed shopping centers have met their demise over the past twenty years. So now it’s time to focus the lens on one in the South. I’ve referenced the Cortana Mall at Baton Rouge obliquely through a previous post; this time I finally visited it with a carefully hidden camera.
Dedicated in 1976, the Cortana Mall (formerly Mall at Cortana) opened about 6 miles west of the Baton Rouge City Center, in a section from the old Cortana Plantation parcel, at the intersection of two arterials, Florida Avenue (U.S. 190) and Airline Highway (U.S. 61), indicated by the purple letter A on the map.
Originally nearly 1.4 million square feet, it was the largest mall in the state, and in 1981 it expanded by over 200,000 more square feet, when one of the early department stores added a second level. A more detailed history of the mall is available at Mall Hall of Fame.
The mall endured several battalions of new competitors over the ensuring two decades, but nothing unseated Cortana from its dominion as the pre-eminent mall of the Capital City region. However, in 1997, developer Jim Wilson and Associates opened the Mall of Louisiana to the southeast of the city center, along the mercilessly well-traveled Interstate 10 corridor, at its interchange with Bluebonnet Boulevard, indicated by the blue B on the map. Cortana Mall was dethroned.
Cortana didn’t die overnight; thirteen years after the unveiling of the Mall of Louisiana, it remains open. Within a year after the competitor stole the spotlight, Cortana Mall underwent a mild renovation and changed its name to Mall at Cortana; it returned to Cortana Mall last year. Truthfully, this Mall has persevered as the “other mall” in Baton Rouge metro for a remarkably long time. Aside from the Mall of Louisiana, other formidable competitors include the lifestyle center Towne Center at Cedar Lodge (2005, just a little over 2 miles away, the green letter C on the map), the Tanger Outlets in Gonzales (an outer suburb 21 miles to the southeast along I-10), and the recent lifestyle/apartment/office hybrid Perkins Rowe (2008, just a mile south of Mall of Louisiana, also on Bluebonnet Boulevard at the purple letter D on the map). It is no doubt a testament to the solid population growth of metro Baton Rouge that Cortana Mall has been able to endure this long. When I first visited in 2005 (which I briefly referenced a few months ago), I could tell that it was the downgraded mall—quite simply, it lacked the upscale stores such as Banana Republic, Brookstone, Talbots, and any of the other solidly upper-middle tier stores present at Mall of Louisiana. Nonetheless, it seemed generally bustling around Christmastime, with relatively low vacancy except in the wing of in-line stores that lead to the notorious Sears. But that was nearly five years ago. How does it look today?
It’s seriously hurting, with about 50% occupancy, I would guess, among the in-line stores. And in answer to the question posed by the title of this blog, they don’t really do mall rot that differently in the South than anywhere else, by my observation. Among the few tenants currently entering the mall are fourth-tier brands without any major advertising presence, like Famous Labels seen below:
This is precisely the sort of tenant that seeks a struggling retail outlet, because that caters to the lower income market that still shops here. The well-heeled of Baton Rouge stopped patronizing Cortana long ago, and now the foot traffic and ensuing sales per square foot are so low that the place cannot ask for high rents. Famous Labels is a discounter that feeds on the rejected space of former top brands; no doubt this space once held a Lane Bryant or New York and Company. Notice from the photo above how much of the space inside the store is vacant; the tenant doesn’t even need to stuff the premises with merchandise because rents are low. Stepping back several feet from the store’s entrance reveals its less-than-lucrative surroundings:
Beyond this, many of the other in-line tenants are most likely locally owned and operated. They would never be able to afford the rents in a thriving mall.
The tenant in the background of the photo below is a convenience store, with gas station merchandise. Would you ever see that in a successful mall?
Cortana hasn’t lost all of the big names; a few are hanging on. The neon is barely visible on the photo below, but the two tenants seen here are Pacific Sun and Journeys.
And two more mall mainstays, Hot Topic and Wet Seal:
The targeted demographic for these stores suggests that, at the very least, teenagers still frequent the mall. But how much are you willing to bet that not one of these will renew its lease when the term ends?
And then there’s Aeropostale, another bit of a surprise.
But for some reason, I’ve noticed Aeropostale hangs around dying malls longer than its perceived competitors. I’ve never shopped at the store, but I used to think it was comparable to American Eagle or The Gap; however, those two retailers tend to dart out of a mall at the first sign of failure, while Aeropostale does not. Most likely that means Aeropostale has cheaper merchandise. Bath and Body Works and Victoria’s Secret, both present in Cortana (though I did not take a photo), also hang around longer than one might expect. And shoe stores like Foot Locker are usually among the last big names to jump ship. I enjoy what the property managers of Cortana, creatively named Mall Properties, have decided to do with some of the vacant storefronts:
These TV screens advertise the remaining in-line stores still standing in the mall.
What about the department stores? At its peak, the mall boasted six anchor tenants, an incredible four of which were housed in two-story structures. Today, four occupied department stores remain: Sears, Macy’s, Dillard’s, and J.C. Penney. Mervyn’s closed a few years before the company went out of business in 2008, while Steve and Barry’s prevailed at the mall until near the end of the company’s life; it was defunct in 2009. But what about the surviving anchors? Since anchors typically pay little to no rent in a mall, they have less at stake and can often break even as long as they sell enough merchandise to pay their employees and cover basic operating expenses. But the Dillard’s at Cortana is clearly feeling the pinch. It’s housed in one of the two-story spaces, but the second floor seems to be receding.
The partitions are blocking about 1/3 of the gross leasable space on this level. A conversation with a clerk revealed that they were liquidating the central portion of that floor as well, seen below.
Before long, only the other 1/3 of that floor would remain open. Access to the second floor is already limited, as witnessed by this barricaded escalator.
How much longer before Dillard’s vacates its second floor altogether? And then, of course, how soon before it bids adieu to Cortana Mall?
Perhaps one of the clearest indicators that this mall is a goner is one of the smaller wings leading back to the parking lot.
The theme of this wing seems to be Public Sector.
It houses an Army Recruitment Center, Navy Recruitment, Air Force, and a US Postal Service Branch. No doubt these government agencies wouldn’t be paying the rent at Mall of Louisiana. While I hate to bring the specter of social class into this argument (and certainly don’t want to politicize it), the presence of all these recruiting centers can’t help but recall Michael Moore’s trip to an Army Recruiting Center in his hometown of Flint, Michigan in Fahrenheit 9/11. He recognized that the recruiting centers never appear on the “good” side of town, where the teenaged shoppers are most likely to have college aspirations.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest and most successful, Cortana’s placement is probably about a four or a five. It’s not dead yet, a few strong tenants remain, and some recent news that a Sam’s Club proposes locating at an outparcel on the mall premises offers a whisper of good fortune in this bad economy. But the fact remains that any mall that sinks below about a 7 out of 10 is likely past the point of no return, and what this means for Baton Rouge is the confirmation that the growth patterns are veering further away from the eastern suburbs and more to the southeast, along the I-10 corridor. It makes sense, in a way: living closer to a limited access road such as I-10 (rather than a busy six lane highway like Florida Boulevard) helps the commuter. And Louisiana State University, the true heart of Baton Rouge, already lies to the south and southeast of the city center. But the housing around Cortana Mall—particularly to the immediate south—is still solidly middle class. How long will it remain that way if the families have a blighted mall presiding over them? Will they be able to sell?
The decline of Cortana is more remarkable because it remains a larger shopping center than the successful Mall of Louisiana, which is about 50,000 square feet shy of its predecessor in GLA. But it’s clear that the decentralizing forces in Baton Rouge have long favored the southeast. The northern section of Baton Rouge is overwhelmingly lower income minority. The western suburbs, across the Mississippi River, are mostly working class and growing slowly. The eastern suburbs comprised a middle class boomlet as recently as the early 1990s, but they haven’t been able to compete in desirability of the I-10 corridor. And since the Mall of Louisiana is the second biggest in the state, it has even become an attraction for folks in New Orleans over 70 miles away; it’s proximity to the interstate makes it far more accessible than the Cortana Mall ever was. But the poor folks in the north and west of Baton Rouge have always had a long hike to get to any major shopping; before long, even the sprawling suburbs of the east will have to travel much further to get to any major retail node. The death of Cortana Mall represents the culmination of some of the most lopsided decentralization patterns of any metro region I have seen. It is an apotheosis of Homer Hoyt’s sector theory, in which settlements expand in wedge shaped patterns along principal transportation routes. There’s nothing wrong with this per say, but the problem with most urban growth theories is that few cities actually live up to any of the proposed patterns. But here’s one example that has followed it almost hook, line, and sinker. Maybe that’s just how they do it Down South?
Dedicated in 1976, the Cortana Mall (formerly Mall at Cortana) opened about 6 miles west of the Baton Rouge City Center, in a section from the old Cortana Plantation parcel, at the intersection of two arterials, Florida Avenue (U.S. 190) and Airline Highway (U.S. 61), indicated by the purple letter A on the map.
Originally nearly 1.4 million square feet, it was the largest mall in the state, and in 1981 it expanded by over 200,000 more square feet, when one of the early department stores added a second level. A more detailed history of the mall is available at Mall Hall of Fame.
The mall endured several battalions of new competitors over the ensuring two decades, but nothing unseated Cortana from its dominion as the pre-eminent mall of the Capital City region. However, in 1997, developer Jim Wilson and Associates opened the Mall of Louisiana to the southeast of the city center, along the mercilessly well-traveled Interstate 10 corridor, at its interchange with Bluebonnet Boulevard, indicated by the blue B on the map. Cortana Mall was dethroned.
Cortana didn’t die overnight; thirteen years after the unveiling of the Mall of Louisiana, it remains open. Within a year after the competitor stole the spotlight, Cortana Mall underwent a mild renovation and changed its name to Mall at Cortana; it returned to Cortana Mall last year. Truthfully, this Mall has persevered as the “other mall” in Baton Rouge metro for a remarkably long time. Aside from the Mall of Louisiana, other formidable competitors include the lifestyle center Towne Center at Cedar Lodge (2005, just a little over 2 miles away, the green letter C on the map), the Tanger Outlets in Gonzales (an outer suburb 21 miles to the southeast along I-10), and the recent lifestyle/apartment/office hybrid Perkins Rowe (2008, just a mile south of Mall of Louisiana, also on Bluebonnet Boulevard at the purple letter D on the map). It is no doubt a testament to the solid population growth of metro Baton Rouge that Cortana Mall has been able to endure this long. When I first visited in 2005 (which I briefly referenced a few months ago), I could tell that it was the downgraded mall—quite simply, it lacked the upscale stores such as Banana Republic, Brookstone, Talbots, and any of the other solidly upper-middle tier stores present at Mall of Louisiana. Nonetheless, it seemed generally bustling around Christmastime, with relatively low vacancy except in the wing of in-line stores that lead to the notorious Sears. But that was nearly five years ago. How does it look today?
It’s seriously hurting, with about 50% occupancy, I would guess, among the in-line stores. And in answer to the question posed by the title of this blog, they don’t really do mall rot that differently in the South than anywhere else, by my observation. Among the few tenants currently entering the mall are fourth-tier brands without any major advertising presence, like Famous Labels seen below:
This is precisely the sort of tenant that seeks a struggling retail outlet, because that caters to the lower income market that still shops here. The well-heeled of Baton Rouge stopped patronizing Cortana long ago, and now the foot traffic and ensuing sales per square foot are so low that the place cannot ask for high rents. Famous Labels is a discounter that feeds on the rejected space of former top brands; no doubt this space once held a Lane Bryant or New York and Company. Notice from the photo above how much of the space inside the store is vacant; the tenant doesn’t even need to stuff the premises with merchandise because rents are low. Stepping back several feet from the store’s entrance reveals its less-than-lucrative surroundings:
Beyond this, many of the other in-line tenants are most likely locally owned and operated. They would never be able to afford the rents in a thriving mall.
The tenant in the background of the photo below is a convenience store, with gas station merchandise. Would you ever see that in a successful mall?
Cortana hasn’t lost all of the big names; a few are hanging on. The neon is barely visible on the photo below, but the two tenants seen here are Pacific Sun and Journeys.
And two more mall mainstays, Hot Topic and Wet Seal:
The targeted demographic for these stores suggests that, at the very least, teenagers still frequent the mall. But how much are you willing to bet that not one of these will renew its lease when the term ends?
And then there’s Aeropostale, another bit of a surprise.
But for some reason, I’ve noticed Aeropostale hangs around dying malls longer than its perceived competitors. I’ve never shopped at the store, but I used to think it was comparable to American Eagle or The Gap; however, those two retailers tend to dart out of a mall at the first sign of failure, while Aeropostale does not. Most likely that means Aeropostale has cheaper merchandise. Bath and Body Works and Victoria’s Secret, both present in Cortana (though I did not take a photo), also hang around longer than one might expect. And shoe stores like Foot Locker are usually among the last big names to jump ship. I enjoy what the property managers of Cortana, creatively named Mall Properties, have decided to do with some of the vacant storefronts:
These TV screens advertise the remaining in-line stores still standing in the mall.
What about the department stores? At its peak, the mall boasted six anchor tenants, an incredible four of which were housed in two-story structures. Today, four occupied department stores remain: Sears, Macy’s, Dillard’s, and J.C. Penney. Mervyn’s closed a few years before the company went out of business in 2008, while Steve and Barry’s prevailed at the mall until near the end of the company’s life; it was defunct in 2009. But what about the surviving anchors? Since anchors typically pay little to no rent in a mall, they have less at stake and can often break even as long as they sell enough merchandise to pay their employees and cover basic operating expenses. But the Dillard’s at Cortana is clearly feeling the pinch. It’s housed in one of the two-story spaces, but the second floor seems to be receding.
The partitions are blocking about 1/3 of the gross leasable space on this level. A conversation with a clerk revealed that they were liquidating the central portion of that floor as well, seen below.
Before long, only the other 1/3 of that floor would remain open. Access to the second floor is already limited, as witnessed by this barricaded escalator.
How much longer before Dillard’s vacates its second floor altogether? And then, of course, how soon before it bids adieu to Cortana Mall?Perhaps one of the clearest indicators that this mall is a goner is one of the smaller wings leading back to the parking lot.
The theme of this wing seems to be Public Sector.
It houses an Army Recruitment Center, Navy Recruitment, Air Force, and a US Postal Service Branch. No doubt these government agencies wouldn’t be paying the rent at Mall of Louisiana. While I hate to bring the specter of social class into this argument (and certainly don’t want to politicize it), the presence of all these recruiting centers can’t help but recall Michael Moore’s trip to an Army Recruiting Center in his hometown of Flint, Michigan in Fahrenheit 9/11. He recognized that the recruiting centers never appear on the “good” side of town, where the teenaged shoppers are most likely to have college aspirations.So, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest and most successful, Cortana’s placement is probably about a four or a five. It’s not dead yet, a few strong tenants remain, and some recent news that a Sam’s Club proposes locating at an outparcel on the mall premises offers a whisper of good fortune in this bad economy. But the fact remains that any mall that sinks below about a 7 out of 10 is likely past the point of no return, and what this means for Baton Rouge is the confirmation that the growth patterns are veering further away from the eastern suburbs and more to the southeast, along the I-10 corridor. It makes sense, in a way: living closer to a limited access road such as I-10 (rather than a busy six lane highway like Florida Boulevard) helps the commuter. And Louisiana State University, the true heart of Baton Rouge, already lies to the south and southeast of the city center. But the housing around Cortana Mall—particularly to the immediate south—is still solidly middle class. How long will it remain that way if the families have a blighted mall presiding over them? Will they be able to sell?
The decline of Cortana is more remarkable because it remains a larger shopping center than the successful Mall of Louisiana, which is about 50,000 square feet shy of its predecessor in GLA. But it’s clear that the decentralizing forces in Baton Rouge have long favored the southeast. The northern section of Baton Rouge is overwhelmingly lower income minority. The western suburbs, across the Mississippi River, are mostly working class and growing slowly. The eastern suburbs comprised a middle class boomlet as recently as the early 1990s, but they haven’t been able to compete in desirability of the I-10 corridor. And since the Mall of Louisiana is the second biggest in the state, it has even become an attraction for folks in New Orleans over 70 miles away; it’s proximity to the interstate makes it far more accessible than the Cortana Mall ever was. But the poor folks in the north and west of Baton Rouge have always had a long hike to get to any major shopping; before long, even the sprawling suburbs of the east will have to travel much further to get to any major retail node. The death of Cortana Mall represents the culmination of some of the most lopsided decentralization patterns of any metro region I have seen. It is an apotheosis of Homer Hoyt’s sector theory, in which settlements expand in wedge shaped patterns along principal transportation routes. There’s nothing wrong with this per say, but the problem with most urban growth theories is that few cities actually live up to any of the proposed patterns. But here’s one example that has followed it almost hook, line, and sinker. Maybe that’s just how they do it Down South?
Repelling criminals and just about everyone else.
A few years ago I was assigned to collect demographics on the downtowns of a number of different American cities of varying sizes, from Detroit to Lafayette Louisiana, using carefully defined census tracts that correlated as well as possible from 1970 to 2000. We were hoping to find similar characteristics to the downtown dwellers across the country, whether the central business districts had mature and thriving residential populations or were largely moribund, with only a handful of brave souls claiming such an address. Most of our conclusions were unsurprising: downtowns typically had a higher percentage of poverty than the metro areas as a whole, significantly smaller households, more foreign-born persons, a higher percentage with college degrees, as well as those without a high school diploma, and (particularly in the economically healthy town centers) a high concentration of empty nesters and childless singles. However, one contingency we did not recognize until halfway through our research—and then had to double back and include—was the high percentage of incarcerated or institutionalized persons in downtowns. This segment of the population—usually the mentally ill or prisoners—can not participate in free enterprise to any large degree, so they are unable to partake in any of a downtown’s commerce or amenities. Despite their general sequestration from downtown living, the incarcerated undeniably exert an influence on urban culture.
And we’ve all seen the telltale hints that we’re in close proximity to a county jail, even if we aren’t always aware of it: bail bonds services will inevitably cluster nearby. In some instances, the prison is relatively inconspicuous, but the bail bonds companies nearly always announce themselves in neon. They drew my attention to the prison in downtown Chillicothe, the original capital of Ohio and a minor city at the edge of the state’s segment of Appalachia.
These storefronts dominate one side of Paint Street, the principal north-south arterial. Directly across from them sit the expected public buildings:
The Ross County courthouse is an archetypal center of Midwestern county seats, but the building adjacent to it (featured in the second of the two photos) is perhaps more interesting in the context of this discussion. The sign announces that it is the Ross County Chillicothe Law Enforcement Center—in short, the local jail. But the generously sized and plentiful windows, the multiple entrances directly off the sidewalk, and the absence of any plainly visible security measures betray the building’s confining intentions. It doesn’t look like a detention center, and I believe that two factors have influenced this deceptive appearance: it is a mere county operated jail for those in temporary custody while they await bail or a criminal trial; also, the designers intended for the building to be pleasing to the eye to avoid the negative impression people have of jails, both in terms of aesthetics and their punitive function.
Urban corrective centers pose a question that a cost-benefit analysis would most likely attempt to answer: does the logistical efficiency afforded to positioning a county jail adjacent to the courthouse supersede any efforts to revitalize a downtown? Chillicothe, I’m afraid, does not provide a clear solution, but at least it thoughtfully attempts to address this ostensible Catch-22. Detention facilities, it seems, carry with them a perception of making bad neighbors; it is rare that a community will rally in support of locating a penitentiary on the vacant land a block away. To a certain degree, this is understandable: virtually no one voluntarily chooses to live in an area with a high concentration of criminals. Yet at the same time it is ludicrous: with such intensive security infrastructure (not to mention armed guards) it may be one of the safest places in the region to live. But private developers are consistently chary to invest in real estate adjacent to correction centers, particularly when it comes to new residential construction. The perception is almost insurmountable that the area adjacent to a county jail has been compromised by the slight chance that a prisoner may escape and wreak havoc there. Without having researched the probabilistic comparisons, I’m willing to venture that the chances of a prisoner escaping then behaving violently in the vicinity are on par with a prisoner successfully concealing an escape tunnel behind a poster of Rita Hayworth. Nonetheless, it is not hard to spot a city jail because, besides the reliably austere architecture, it has the economic development impact of fertilizing a lawn with gasoline, thanks in no small part to our movie- and television-fueled perception of prison breaks.
So a corrective facility is a nuisance, more or less—not entirely different from a noisome hog farm or a noisy airport. But it is undeniably practical to situate a city or county jail immediately next to a courthouse, and it is inevitable that a courthouse will sit relatively close to the center of town—after all, it is one of the first buildings to appear in a community or jurisdiction of any reasonable political scale. Up to this point, I have measured my words, in order to apply the nomenclature correctly: the downtowns of cities like Chillicothe (and anything larger) typically host jails, not prisons. The distinction is critical. Jails are operated by a county or municipality and are thus numerous; the typically incarcerate individuals who were arrested within that same jurisdiction and are held in custody while awaiting a trial. Conversely, either the state or federal governments manage prisons, where the inmates have committed a crime of much greater severity, usually with sentences of at least two years. Prisons are much rarer, and—particularly in the federal ones—the incarcerated most likely came from significantly farther distances. It understandably follows that jails lack both the amenities (vocational training, drug rehab, work release) that prisons have, nor can they claim the same level of security infrastructure; they don’t usually need it the way prisons do.
The past few decades have witnessed a widening spatial dichotomy between jails and prisons. While jails have justified their place next to other municipal government buildings, prisons have become an increasingly rural phenomenon: they host the inmates who have committed more serious offenses, receiving longer sentences for crimes that are far more likely to be violent in nature. Imagine the nuclear-sized NIMBY rupture if a state or the federal government tried to locate a maximum security prison in a densely populated urban area. Needless to say, the downtown Ross County Chillicothe Law Enforcement Center is a short-term jail. But the much more sizeable Chillicothe Correction Institution (operated by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction) sits several miles north of town on State Route 104…next to the Ross County Airport.
Traci Huling’s essay, “Building a Prison Economy in Rural America”
from the larger work Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment, explores the simultaneous decline of rural America with the emergence of federal penitentiaries over the last forty years, often perceived as an economic development strategy to rescue these regions from persistently low wages and high unemployment. Towns much smaller and more remote than Chillicothe (which is about 45 miles south of Columbus) “have become dependent on an industry which itself is dependent on the continuation of crime-producing conditions.” Huling does not attempt to conceal her cynicism, as she recalls communities entering literal bidding wars to win the rights to host a new penitentiary (always safely removed from the city center), often for the added benefit of improved Census figures that will in turn earn them more political clout and federal financial aid, even though the source of the population gains are incarcerated residents who cannot vote. Small towns have even on occasion offered tax abatements for private prisons.
Yet Huling has no difficulty exploring the speciousness of recruiting a prison: many of the well-paying positions require skills not available among the local workforce so the management must import talent; the push to keep prisons safely ensconced amidst low-density farmland means the staff will have long commutes; the multiplier effect rarely applies and few prisons generate spin-off industries. Her litany of the negative impacts of rural prisons continues through many additional vignettes, all substantiated with citations that demonstrate the discomfort of this “Norman Rockwell meets Quentin Tarantino” scenario, but these vignettes remain at odds with the reality on the ground. The fact is, rural areas continue to entice private and public sector prisons for reasons often as simple as 1) it helps re-endow the community with a reason for being; and 2) it is far less likely to arouse objections than in a major city. Huling complains that small-town prisons rarely offer quality retail, instead encouraging Wal-Marts and McDonald’s that help kill the local businesses. But the fact remains that a Wal-Mart offers far greater tax revenue to a town than a whole host of small mom-and-pop establishments on Main Street, and affordable big-box retail may be exactly what such a community needs to keep its own population shopping and spending money within the municipal boundaries.
Chillicothe seems emblematic of the sort of economic push-and-pull that transpires when two corrective facilities sandwich the community. The small city no doubt struggles with many of the challenges that Traci Huling reveals in her essay, but its other alternative could be the objectively undesirable continued population decline. (In fact, Census figures suggest that, after losing population since 1960, the city has finally recovered slightly since 2000, based on recent American Community Survey estimates from 2008. Could it be a boom from the Chillicothe Penitentiary stimulated job growth in the area?) The rural prison might actually exert a measurable influence on the raw numbers, despite the negative social impacts—meanwhile the downtown jail only stymies the growth of preferred retail. As observed earlier, the blocks immediately surrounding the Law Enforcement Center aren’t exactly lively. We see the attractively disguised “jail” on one side of the street:
And on the other?
A domestic violence non-profit, criminal defense attorneys, and of course, the predictable bail bonds. I am by no means criticizing these essential services which will always accompany a county jail, but they hardly attract the foot traffic that more desirable retail would, and they’re not the stuff that vibrant smaller cities are made of. Joel Kotkin mused with equal cynicism when a verdant suburb of Philadelphia called Media, PA banned anything but retail on the first floors of buildings along Main Street . He recalls how this divisive zoning ordinance depends, by many locals’ perceptions, on a misplaced nostalgia for what a Main Street offered when the American economy was less dominated by services (or automobiles). He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t prevent a community for appropriating that nostalgia as the cornerstone for economic development; sometimes accessing the charm of yesteryear is the only opportunity for Main Street’s structures—and the small communities that host them—to get a second lease on life.
Thus, Chillicothe precariously situates itself between two potential economic development loci: a seemingly recession-proof incarceration industry and the heritage tourism of vibrant downtown filled with specialty retail. Can Chillicothe shoot and score with both? Downtown today is mixed bag, hardly flourishing but active enough to stay reasonably occupied just a block further from the county jail:
But then one encounters beautiful old buildings that seem incapable of finding a new identity, such as this one rotting on a prominent corner:
Chillicothe has to face the same question numerous communities of its size and smaller must confront: is the Wal-Mart/prison/Native American casino worth the potential drawbacks? It’s hardly a profound question, but the answers vary greatly from region to region, and it may be unfair of me to conflate them, since many small town economic development leaders would perceive a casino as an attractive alternative to the prison (or vise versa), and the Wal-Mart a suitable supplement to them both. When an observer regards the cultural shift of the incarcerated from urban to rural America with unfettered disapproval, he or she fails to account for the limited capacity small towns have at reinventing themselves with dwindling resources. At least most of our dying cities have a suburban bounty close at hand which, however impenetrable, still can add clout to the metropolitan region. Isolated rural communities might need the cataclysm that a prison offers in order to effect any change—and, for some of them, all change is positive. To criticize a small town for attract a Wal-Mart smacks of sneering paternalism.
My prognosis for Chillicothe is positive. It is undoubtedly trying to cultivate its history as Ohio’s original capital by linking it to some of its surviving building stock, some of which is in fairly good shape. It has an abundance of state parks nearby. And most importantly, it is growing closer to the current state capital of Columbus every day. Even though Columbus’ decentralization overwhelmingly favors the northern burbs and Chillicothe sits to the south, the town still rests on the outskirts of the successful capital’s sphere of influence and may soon re-emerge as a distant commuter suburb; it’s already part of Columbus’ Combined Statistical Area. Thirty years from now, the presence of a prison and a jail in Chillicothe may be a moot point. This small city may enjoy a renaissance as a bedroom community. And the prisons may have relocated to a new region in far greater need of an economic shot in the arm.
And we’ve all seen the telltale hints that we’re in close proximity to a county jail, even if we aren’t always aware of it: bail bonds services will inevitably cluster nearby. In some instances, the prison is relatively inconspicuous, but the bail bonds companies nearly always announce themselves in neon. They drew my attention to the prison in downtown Chillicothe, the original capital of Ohio and a minor city at the edge of the state’s segment of Appalachia.
These storefronts dominate one side of Paint Street, the principal north-south arterial. Directly across from them sit the expected public buildings:
The Ross County courthouse is an archetypal center of Midwestern county seats, but the building adjacent to it (featured in the second of the two photos) is perhaps more interesting in the context of this discussion. The sign announces that it is the Ross County Chillicothe Law Enforcement Center—in short, the local jail. But the generously sized and plentiful windows, the multiple entrances directly off the sidewalk, and the absence of any plainly visible security measures betray the building’s confining intentions. It doesn’t look like a detention center, and I believe that two factors have influenced this deceptive appearance: it is a mere county operated jail for those in temporary custody while they await bail or a criminal trial; also, the designers intended for the building to be pleasing to the eye to avoid the negative impression people have of jails, both in terms of aesthetics and their punitive function.
Urban corrective centers pose a question that a cost-benefit analysis would most likely attempt to answer: does the logistical efficiency afforded to positioning a county jail adjacent to the courthouse supersede any efforts to revitalize a downtown? Chillicothe, I’m afraid, does not provide a clear solution, but at least it thoughtfully attempts to address this ostensible Catch-22. Detention facilities, it seems, carry with them a perception of making bad neighbors; it is rare that a community will rally in support of locating a penitentiary on the vacant land a block away. To a certain degree, this is understandable: virtually no one voluntarily chooses to live in an area with a high concentration of criminals. Yet at the same time it is ludicrous: with such intensive security infrastructure (not to mention armed guards) it may be one of the safest places in the region to live. But private developers are consistently chary to invest in real estate adjacent to correction centers, particularly when it comes to new residential construction. The perception is almost insurmountable that the area adjacent to a county jail has been compromised by the slight chance that a prisoner may escape and wreak havoc there. Without having researched the probabilistic comparisons, I’m willing to venture that the chances of a prisoner escaping then behaving violently in the vicinity are on par with a prisoner successfully concealing an escape tunnel behind a poster of Rita Hayworth. Nonetheless, it is not hard to spot a city jail because, besides the reliably austere architecture, it has the economic development impact of fertilizing a lawn with gasoline, thanks in no small part to our movie- and television-fueled perception of prison breaks.
So a corrective facility is a nuisance, more or less—not entirely different from a noisome hog farm or a noisy airport. But it is undeniably practical to situate a city or county jail immediately next to a courthouse, and it is inevitable that a courthouse will sit relatively close to the center of town—after all, it is one of the first buildings to appear in a community or jurisdiction of any reasonable political scale. Up to this point, I have measured my words, in order to apply the nomenclature correctly: the downtowns of cities like Chillicothe (and anything larger) typically host jails, not prisons. The distinction is critical. Jails are operated by a county or municipality and are thus numerous; the typically incarcerate individuals who were arrested within that same jurisdiction and are held in custody while awaiting a trial. Conversely, either the state or federal governments manage prisons, where the inmates have committed a crime of much greater severity, usually with sentences of at least two years. Prisons are much rarer, and—particularly in the federal ones—the incarcerated most likely came from significantly farther distances. It understandably follows that jails lack both the amenities (vocational training, drug rehab, work release) that prisons have, nor can they claim the same level of security infrastructure; they don’t usually need it the way prisons do.
The past few decades have witnessed a widening spatial dichotomy between jails and prisons. While jails have justified their place next to other municipal government buildings, prisons have become an increasingly rural phenomenon: they host the inmates who have committed more serious offenses, receiving longer sentences for crimes that are far more likely to be violent in nature. Imagine the nuclear-sized NIMBY rupture if a state or the federal government tried to locate a maximum security prison in a densely populated urban area. Needless to say, the downtown Ross County Chillicothe Law Enforcement Center is a short-term jail. But the much more sizeable Chillicothe Correction Institution (operated by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction) sits several miles north of town on State Route 104…next to the Ross County Airport.
Traci Huling’s essay, “Building a Prison Economy in Rural America”
from the larger work Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment, explores the simultaneous decline of rural America with the emergence of federal penitentiaries over the last forty years, often perceived as an economic development strategy to rescue these regions from persistently low wages and high unemployment. Towns much smaller and more remote than Chillicothe (which is about 45 miles south of Columbus) “have become dependent on an industry which itself is dependent on the continuation of crime-producing conditions.” Huling does not attempt to conceal her cynicism, as she recalls communities entering literal bidding wars to win the rights to host a new penitentiary (always safely removed from the city center), often for the added benefit of improved Census figures that will in turn earn them more political clout and federal financial aid, even though the source of the population gains are incarcerated residents who cannot vote. Small towns have even on occasion offered tax abatements for private prisons.
Yet Huling has no difficulty exploring the speciousness of recruiting a prison: many of the well-paying positions require skills not available among the local workforce so the management must import talent; the push to keep prisons safely ensconced amidst low-density farmland means the staff will have long commutes; the multiplier effect rarely applies and few prisons generate spin-off industries. Her litany of the negative impacts of rural prisons continues through many additional vignettes, all substantiated with citations that demonstrate the discomfort of this “Norman Rockwell meets Quentin Tarantino” scenario, but these vignettes remain at odds with the reality on the ground. The fact is, rural areas continue to entice private and public sector prisons for reasons often as simple as 1) it helps re-endow the community with a reason for being; and 2) it is far less likely to arouse objections than in a major city. Huling complains that small-town prisons rarely offer quality retail, instead encouraging Wal-Marts and McDonald’s that help kill the local businesses. But the fact remains that a Wal-Mart offers far greater tax revenue to a town than a whole host of small mom-and-pop establishments on Main Street, and affordable big-box retail may be exactly what such a community needs to keep its own population shopping and spending money within the municipal boundaries.
Chillicothe seems emblematic of the sort of economic push-and-pull that transpires when two corrective facilities sandwich the community. The small city no doubt struggles with many of the challenges that Traci Huling reveals in her essay, but its other alternative could be the objectively undesirable continued population decline. (In fact, Census figures suggest that, after losing population since 1960, the city has finally recovered slightly since 2000, based on recent American Community Survey estimates from 2008. Could it be a boom from the Chillicothe Penitentiary stimulated job growth in the area?) The rural prison might actually exert a measurable influence on the raw numbers, despite the negative social impacts—meanwhile the downtown jail only stymies the growth of preferred retail. As observed earlier, the blocks immediately surrounding the Law Enforcement Center aren’t exactly lively. We see the attractively disguised “jail” on one side of the street:
And on the other?
A domestic violence non-profit, criminal defense attorneys, and of course, the predictable bail bonds. I am by no means criticizing these essential services which will always accompany a county jail, but they hardly attract the foot traffic that more desirable retail would, and they’re not the stuff that vibrant smaller cities are made of. Joel Kotkin mused with equal cynicism when a verdant suburb of Philadelphia called Media, PA banned anything but retail on the first floors of buildings along Main Street . He recalls how this divisive zoning ordinance depends, by many locals’ perceptions, on a misplaced nostalgia for what a Main Street offered when the American economy was less dominated by services (or automobiles). He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t prevent a community for appropriating that nostalgia as the cornerstone for economic development; sometimes accessing the charm of yesteryear is the only opportunity for Main Street’s structures—and the small communities that host them—to get a second lease on life.
Thus, Chillicothe precariously situates itself between two potential economic development loci: a seemingly recession-proof incarceration industry and the heritage tourism of vibrant downtown filled with specialty retail. Can Chillicothe shoot and score with both? Downtown today is mixed bag, hardly flourishing but active enough to stay reasonably occupied just a block further from the county jail:
But then one encounters beautiful old buildings that seem incapable of finding a new identity, such as this one rotting on a prominent corner:
Chillicothe has to face the same question numerous communities of its size and smaller must confront: is the Wal-Mart/prison/Native American casino worth the potential drawbacks? It’s hardly a profound question, but the answers vary greatly from region to region, and it may be unfair of me to conflate them, since many small town economic development leaders would perceive a casino as an attractive alternative to the prison (or vise versa), and the Wal-Mart a suitable supplement to them both. When an observer regards the cultural shift of the incarcerated from urban to rural America with unfettered disapproval, he or she fails to account for the limited capacity small towns have at reinventing themselves with dwindling resources. At least most of our dying cities have a suburban bounty close at hand which, however impenetrable, still can add clout to the metropolitan region. Isolated rural communities might need the cataclysm that a prison offers in order to effect any change—and, for some of them, all change is positive. To criticize a small town for attract a Wal-Mart smacks of sneering paternalism.
My prognosis for Chillicothe is positive. It is undoubtedly trying to cultivate its history as Ohio’s original capital by linking it to some of its surviving building stock, some of which is in fairly good shape. It has an abundance of state parks nearby. And most importantly, it is growing closer to the current state capital of Columbus every day. Even though Columbus’ decentralization overwhelmingly favors the northern burbs and Chillicothe sits to the south, the town still rests on the outskirts of the successful capital’s sphere of influence and may soon re-emerge as a distant commuter suburb; it’s already part of Columbus’ Combined Statistical Area. Thirty years from now, the presence of a prison and a jail in Chillicothe may be a moot point. This small city may enjoy a renaissance as a bedroom community. And the prisons may have relocated to a new region in far greater need of an economic shot in the arm.
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