The remains of the Charlotte Coliseum were imploded this morning, marking an end to an indoor arena with a colorful history and at the center of major redevelopment plans.

The New York Times has a rundown of the arena’s history in today’s edition:

An arena that was host to 364 consecutive N.B.A. sellouts, the 1994 Final Four, numerous concerts and a speech by Mother Teresa will be reduced to rubble, making way for an office park.

“As nice as the building was, it was as someone said, the last of the propeller airplanes before the jets came,” said Max Muhleman of Private Sports Consulting, based in Charlotte, N.C.

Construction of the 24,000-seat arena began in 1986, with Charlotte intent on staying in the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament rotation. Plans included luxury boxes but only eight high-priced suites.

The Palace of Auburn Hills in suburban Detroit opened the same year with 180 luxury suites and expensive club seats, a key difference that became a financial boon for the Pistons.

Meanwhile, today it looked more like this:

(Picture from the Charlotte Observer.)

The former arena site is now owned by Pope and Land Entreprises, who have a large scale mixed-used development slated for the site. With commercial and retail space slated for the site, could a large scale big box retailer be in the future for this corner of southwest Charlotte?

More coverage from the Charlotte Observer and WXII12. I previously mentioned this site when talking about the redevelopment of the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

What happens when a big box retailer goes out of business and leaves vacant a sizable chunk of commercial real estate? Apparently, you can open a church:

A megachurch — complete with an arcade, a cafe with Starbucks and a bookstore — will open this weekend in an unlikely spot: the former Home Quarters store in a once-struggling strip mall on Van Dyke near 14 Mile.

Grace Christian Church spent $15 million to transform the longtime vacant big-box store into an estimated 1,600-seat main sanctuary with activities geared toward children and a quiet area for people to sit and read.

“We want going to church to be an enjoyable and enriching experience for the whole family,” said Senior Pastor Jerry Weinzierl, 50, of Warren. “Even if someone comes in for the wrong reason, I can maybe make an impact on them for that moment.

“This will be a very peaceful place.”

(More from the Detroit News.)

This is a pretty awesome redevelopment plan. Big box retailers are often cited for taking prime real estate and ignoring the needs of a community. This is a great way to turn a negative (vacant commercial property) and turn it around, serving the community and, I’m sure, anchoring redevelopment in that area.

Kudos to the Grace Christian Church for their (pardon the pun) out of the (big) box thinking in terms of location.

If readers know of other examples of vacant retailers being converted into a church, or anything civic-minded like this, please share it.

Located along Route 35, just a few traffic lights away from the Garden State Parkway, is a shopping center that, at one time, was among the only shopping centers in the area. But as more traditional big box and national retailers moved into the area, this shopping center all but died. While some shopping centers lost an anchor or two, this center had an incredible assortment of retailers that did not survive the competition in the early to mid-90’s.

Arguably, the main draw of the center was Service Merchandise. From my childhood, I have many fond memories of this store as an eceletic retailer where one could get boxing gloves, a camera, a stereo system, and a watch. In this area in the late 80’s, if you needed electronics, you went to Service Merchandise, (Nobody Beat’s) The Wiz, or Crazy Eddie’s. While the chain went under for, I’m sure, more than a few reasons, the strongest threat that they had was the increased competition from chains like Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

The second doomed retailer was Rickel. Rickel was a northeastern-based hardware store. A little larger than the neighborhood hardware store, but not large enough to compete with the likes of Home Depot. After a merger with competitor Chanel, the chain could not survive and folded in the late 90’s.

Then we also had Herman’s World of Sports, which seemed to be the best place to go for sports equipment or merchandise. Increased competition from retailers like Sports Authority eventually killed this chain.

The last piece of this shopping center that didn’t survive was a Roy Rogers location. After a sale to Hardee’s, and an unsuccessful venture into the Mid Atlantic by the Hardee’s brand, this Roy Rogers location eventually closed. (I still think Roy rogers is my all time favorite fast food resturaunt.)

Interestingly, this center was also home to an Odd Lots. Although Odd Lots still exists, as Big Lots, this particular location closed a few years ago.

Around 2000, this center was a ghost town. Odd Lots has become a children’s discount clothier and Herman’s World of Sports was now a carpet store. The former Rickel and Service Merchandise locations stood vacant, leaving more than half of the center empty. After 2000, Staples moved into the former Rickel location while McDonalds eventually opened up in the former Roy Rogers location.

While the Service Merchandise location has stood vacant for almost a decade after the chain went under, it is finally seeing signs of life as construction is under way on a new Foodtown supermarket which looks to open later this year.

Some photos of the construction:

I’ve always been fascinated by how this one shopping center seems to have the worst luck. No other shopping center in the area saw so many retailers go under or sat vacant for so long. But this is an interesting look back and I’m sure there are lessons to be learned from all of these retailers who did not make it in face of increased competition.

The city of Indiapolis has solicited bids for the redevelopment of the site of the former Market Square Arena. The two plans for redevelopment are slightly different, with one favoring residential development with some retail space, while the other is more mixed-use of residential, office, and retail space. The second plan has a large retailer name attatched - Target.

Drawing of the Market Center Partners twin tower proposal from IndyStar.com. More information, see: New plans for Market Square.

While Target has several stores on the outskirts of Indianapolis, this would be the first location in downtown Indianapolis for the retailer.

Downtown is gaining the density of residents that mass-merchandisers such as Target demand before they locate stores there, said Mark Perlstein, a principal of Sitehawk Retail Real Estate Group of Carmel.

Landing a Target Downtown “would be a real coup for the city, with Target’s reputation and their (customer) draw,” he said. He noted that a Downtown Target “would have minimal cannibalizing on their other stores in the marketplace.”

The city of Indianapolis will make their final decision on which project to proceed with by the Summer. However, both developers are looking for subsidies that could run into the “millions of dollars”. It will be interesting to see how much the city is able to cough up for this redevelopment effort.

When a professional sports team upgrades it’s facilities, it can leave a city with a very large, vacant parcel of land. While it seems that the land from most demolished stadiums/arenas are reused by the new stadium, usually for parking, there are a couple of exceptions:

• After both the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers moved west, the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field were later demolished and turned into apartment complexes and public housing.
• Following the construction of Camden Yards in Balitmore, the former site of Memorial Stadium has been converted into two apartment complexes and “the largest YMCA facility in Maryland”.
• The former site of the Charlotte Coliseum is currently under redevelopment, with the development firm of Pope & Land Entreprises proposing 625,000 square feet of office space, 271,000 square feet of hotel & retail space, 616 apartments, 91 townhomes and 116 single-family homes (more information).
• Currently the city of Detroit is looking towards the demolition of the former Tiger Stadium site. While demolition looks to happen this Summer, former proposals included a Wal-Mart (more information).

These multi-acre parcels are a mixed-use developer’s dream, but as more of these sites become available in the next decade, look for more big box retailers to try to piggyback on them as a way in to congested, downtown urban areas.