Party Like It's Winter '08

This week's issue of the American Journal is nothing if not a trip down short-memory lane.

Besides causing me to mine old March 2008 articles surrounding the closing of Skybox (see below), this week's edition has sent me searching for old February/March 2008 articles in which the economics surrounding Stroudwater Place considered (here and here). The AJ's Linda Hersey has the latest thoughts on the topic:

Stroudwater Place and the Maine Mall will fight a death struggle against one another
Public policy professor and economist Charles Colgan: "It's pretty much inevitable that the two malls would be competing for the same shoppers and tenants."

Financial columnist and urban studies professor Joel Kotkin: "Building more stores just moves people from one location to another. Unless you're expecting a huge population growth in southern Maine or a jump in people's income, there's a limit to how many large shopping malls the region can support."

Marketing expert and retail analyst David Biernbaum: "In my opinion, every retailer type and every type of mall is in competition for the available consumer dollar.”

Stroudwater Place and the Maine Mall will co-exist peacefully
Stroudwater Place developer Jason Snyder: "The Maine Mall is not going to disappear. It will not be anything less than what it is as we build out.”

This debate is moot, because Stroudwater Place may not even be built
Colgan: “I never want to knock anyone who puts their own money at risk. It could be one of those projects that never gets built, which now seems like more than a reasonable chance of happening.”

- John C.L. Morgan