In a message dated 12/14/2011 5:07:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, kallena...@msn.com writes:
I agree with the business owners who are concerned about corporate chains taking root here. My concern is that franchises can afford to pay high rents that would price out those businesses who don't own their buildings. I remember how South Street was back in the 1970s and 1980s before McDonalds, The Gap and what have you came in--TLA Theater, Book Trader, all kinds of little boutiques, eateries, galleries-- fun places to go to with stuff you didn't see in the malls. But once the corporate entities took root, gradually the sole proprietors were forced to go elsewhere... and now when you go to South Street what you see are a lot of the same stuff you see in the average mall, and a lot of vacancies. This can be a problem, but it's not how the free market works. And I'm deeply committed to free markets as I am opposed to top-down planning and proposals. That being said -- if the people who live in this neighborhood, and who patronize the businesses on Baltimore Ave, really wanted the kind of for-the-masses crap that's dished out in places like Subway, the Baltimore Ave merchants would have gone belly-up long ago because everyone would be going over to Sansom Commons and other places owned by Penn where the franchises and chains abound. My personal feeling is that we're more sophisticated -- in our own ways -- than that. There has, indeed, been a high business failure rate on Baltimore Ave. But I think it's because too many people start up there without doing their marketing homework and no sense of what retailing, especially food service, is all about. It's more likely that the people with the Subway franchise will do poorly than that entrepreneurs who really know the neighborhood will. And, as a little hint about this -- read between the lines of the article in the Review. The people who want to open the Subway didn't even bother to show up at the SHCA meeting, but sent their representatives. They haven't a clue about who we are, and don't think it's worth bothering to find out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan Krigman KRF Management, ICON/Information Concepts Inc 211 S 45th St, Philadelphia PA 19104-2918 215-349-6500, fax 215-349-6502 krf...@aol.com or al.krig...@krf.icodat.com
