Big-Box, Boutique . . . Can't We Have It All?

On the other hand, I confess I am a fraud. I get just as much, if not more, of a kick out of shopping at Target as at Lord & Taylor. Last summer, I lived in my $10, feather-weight, wrinkle-resistant Capri pants from Target. It's also fun to receive compliments on my Kmart sun hat and tote. Best Buy and the Container Store aren't quite the same as having the old Sears and Hechinger's a few blocks from where I live, but I was happy enough to see them open. At Best Buy I bought not one, but two, TVs upon seeing the price (but I've made myself settle for only one no-frills Walkman). At the Container Store, I've bought everything from a large mop and special mothballs to, yes, boxes and more boxes, figuring that someday, enough boxes will bring order to my life.

And since I didn't know these big stores were coming until the deed was done, I didn't have to feel responsible for their arrival. I also reasoned that I could buy without restraint. Besides, the old stores had closed. No use crying over them now.

Certainly all is not lost downtown. I've been told you can find a screwdriver and a hammer there -- nails, too. You have Hecht's, still bravely holding down the old-style department-store fort. Interesting boutiques with original wares flourish, as do specialty stores and pastry shops with fancy breads. Every now and again, I make a trip that way for something special. But how much better to have a real price range. Not everyone wants to pay the high prices nor can afford to do so.

Which brings me to a notion of my own, city-planner that I'm not. Let's stuff one of those big-box stores into one of the underused downtown department stores. The old Woodies building, I think, is still looking for additional tenants, and it's right at a Metro stop. Throw in a soda fountain for good measure. Negotiate wages and benefits upward for all our sakes.

That leaves room for creativity and originality in the smaller spaces in the surrounding area, but gives commuters and workers and shoppers one place to go to get the "stuff" of life at an affordable price. This concept, I believe, is called "mixed usage" in the planner jargon of the day. The really good and successful downtowns and malls have been doing this for years. We end up with high-end and low-end markets and a lot of in-betweens.

This is a rational notion and therefore likely to be rejected on the face of it. But possibly, while all the groups and interests are yelling at each other over new development in big boxes, some bit of practicality and common sense could be slipped into the controversy and carried over to downtown proper. An attractive variety of options would certainly please a lot of people working downtown and lure a lot of the rest of us back to city shopping.

My own longings could best be summed up in the words of a country song of the '60s: "Billy broke my heart at Walgreens and I cried all the way to Sears." Feel free to substitute the stores of your choice.

Author's e-mail: Kate@KateLehrer.com

Kate Lehrer is a novelist whose latest book is "Confessions of a Bigamist" (Shaye Areheart).