Town Madison Update Thread (Huntsville: salon, apartments, tenants)

[Carolina Knight]

I have noticed other conceptual drawings that do not contain a grocery store. I wonder if there is an updated site plan for Town Madison.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by Tennhioland

Assume this is the beginning of the interchange construction. That's good news for Town Madison, will definitely help to secure tenants.

Beyond the road work and the old Integraph buildings being removed on the west side, the first residential phase is all I know that has been approved and is in work.

http://www.madisonal.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9745

I'd like to see a larger coverage map than the detailed one that's shown. It's no doubt correct, but it looks like the area that's marked off is already in existence ... Mountain Brook.

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by preguntas

Please give an example of what you might consider upscale shopping. In reading on this forum I discern that to be a confusing description for many, and others are not given to support it.

Sorry it took a while to answer your question ... I haven't been on the forum for a month or so.

I consider things like Nordstrom, Macy's (not likely because they're closing a lot of stores) ... things of that nature ... to be upscale. When he first announced the development, he said it would be similar to Cool Springs near Nashville ... that's upscale. In fact, I think the term he used was "Cool Springs on steroids". That would be quite a development.

Does that answer your question? I would NOT want to see Wal Mart, Target, or the ubiquitous mattress store, nail salon, or title loan "business".

[Tennhioland]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

I'd like to see a larger coverage map than the detailed one that's shown. It's no doubt correct, but it looks like the area that's marked off is already in existence ... Mountain Brook.

Matches the satellite view pretty well. Satellite obviously old, but you can see the new road being started.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6789...!3m1!1e3?hl=en

[David1502]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

I'd like to see a larger coverage map than the detailed one that's shown. It's no doubt correct, but it looks like the area that's marked off is already in existence ... Mountain Brook.

If you look at this map closely, you can tell where the existing Mountain Brook neighborhood is (at the bottom), as well as the Heritage Wood neighborhood of Edgewater (to the left). If you use the zoom feature, you can see that most of the lots are about 50 feet wide and some are 25 feet wide. This means that this neighborhood will essentially be the "Village of Providence South", as the lots in the existing Providence development are mostly 50 ft. wide. The lots which are 25 ft. wide will be for townhomes.


This design similar to Providence is not at all surprising, since both developments have the same designer, Andres Duany, who is probably the biggest proponent of new urbanism where homes and commercial uses are all within walking distance. One problem, which I see, is that the design for Town Madison does not have alleys behind the houses, so these small lots, which are only 50 ft. wide, will have driveways from the front and this will make them seem more packed in. The advantage of Providence is that with alleys in the back, you don't see garages in the front of the houses, with the exception of a few streets like the new area where the back of the houses is the steep cliff overlooking Indian Creek - those lots are selling for $140K.


The original plans for Town Madison had this area next to Mountain Brook designated for apartments, however, due to the construction of numerous apartment complexes in the area, it seems like a wise decision to build single family homes and townhomes instead of more apartments.

[David1502]

Originally Posted by RocketDawg

Sorry it took a while to answer your question ... I haven't been on the forum for a month or so.

I consider things like Nordstrom, Macy's (not likely because they're closing a lot of stores) ... things of that nature ... to be upscale. When he first announced the development, he said it would be similar to Cool Springs near Nashville ... that's upscale. In fact, I think the term he used was "Cool Springs on steroids". That would be quite a development.

Does that answer your question? I would NOT want to see Wal Mart, Target, or the ubiquitous mattress store, nail salon, or title loan "business".

Actually, the two Belk stores here, at Bridge Street and Parkway Place, carry some higher end merchandise than any Macy's. Belk is a real hybrid in retail in that their flagship stores carry some designer brands which are also found in Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, yet at the same time they also carry lower priced merchandise so that they can be competitive in the numerous small towns of the south like Greenville, MS, where their main competition is a Wal-Mart.


Macy's, by contrast, carries a narrower range of merchandise in the upper middle, because they don't want to cut into the market of their higher end sister store, Bloomingdales'. For example, you will never see the Brooks Brothers men's shirts and ties or $400 Dione Von Furstenberg women's clothing at a Macy's, yet both brands are carried at Belk's Bridge Street store.


All of this begs the question of "How much of a high end retail market is there in the greater Huntsville area?" I say this because as I mentioned the two flagship Belk's, the Dillard's at Parkway Place also carries some high end merchandise - for example, they carry Hickey Freeman men's suits which can sell for up to $1,500.00. When you take this into account and add in the small specialty high end stores like Roosevelt and Company, one has to wonder where the saturation point is for retail in this local area.


When Breland originally planned to build Town Madison, he was counting on getting the Belk flagship store (which Belk was planning on building when it was pondering closing their Madison Square store) and Cabela's. However, both of those stores chose not to wait around for him to get approval and actually build the interchange with I-565. Now that those two stores are no longer possibilities, the next question is what will take their place as anchors for the development. A Wal-Mart, Target or Home Depot are hardly worth spending $22 million to construct the interchange which is what Breland is now spending. Von Maur, a Midwestern department store (similar to Nordstrom) which has a store at the Riverchase Galleria in Birmingham (as well as three stores in the Atlanta area) has expressed an interest in the Huntsville market. Dillard' s could also be a possibility as they had two stores here for a number of years before they closed their store at Madison Square.

[Tourian]

It is not just a problem of finding headline stealing anchors any more. We are in the midst of a big retail meltdown with so many chains shrinking or disappearing altogether. Typical mall fare like J. Crew, Guess, BCBGMaxazria, American Eagle Outfitters, Aeropostale, Abercrombie & Fitch, Chico's, Limited, Payless plus the big boxes like HHgregg who might go completely under this weekend and JCP and Macy's...i mean the list goes on and on. Ole buddy was talking big about having 1.5 million sq feet of retail/commercial...but filled with what? Even if you back off if it being all upscale, so many retailers across the board are putting a hold on expanding or cutting back with closures. Without a real anchor or three to give real confidence I doubt there will be any more boasts like "Cool Springs on steroids" or "the most prime property in the Southeastern United States."

[bmrisko]

Town Madison isn't supposed to impact the Madison Golf Center in any way, is it?

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by bmrisko

Town Madison isn't supposed to impact the Madison Golf Center in any way, is it?

I don't think so, other than positively. The new roads will make the golf center more accessible.

[MadisonMike]

So...Town Madison developers don't seem to be in any hurry to get the infrastructure completed. Anyone think they might be struggling to get this thing off the ground?