You may have heard that the new owners of Atlantic Station have plans to diversify the mixed use area’s commercial base.  But the Midtown Patch site has some pretty interesting quotes from the new owners, which provide a bit more detail as to the problems and the proposed solutions.

[Mark] Toro [managing partner at North American Properties] said his plan is to change between 20 and 25 percent of the retailers at Atlantic Station. That means of the 1.3 million square feet of retail space, about 150,ooo square feet will be retooled, he said. The development’s major tenants IKEA, Dillard’s and Target shall remain, Toro said.

“Midtown is a mecca for the creative class,” Toro said. He said he wants Atlantic Station to bring in those retailers that appeal to “Generation Y” shoppers. He said he hopes local boutiques and mom-and-pop restaurants will be among the new tenants. “The national chains have not done well here.”

Toro said Atlantic Station will evolve over the next three or four years. “It is going to be slow, but steady,” he said. But Toro said leaders will immediately be more engaged with Midtown residents.

It’s interesting to hear this brand-new view of Atlantic Station, which admits to the national retailers combined shortcomings outside their mall-confines and envisions more “mom-and-pop” stuff.  Not to mention the slightly odd – but understandable – juxtaposition of the stated desire to hold onto the big-box stores. (Is the urban retail future actually a combination of the big-box and “authentic” local retail shops and restaurants?)

These quotes also raise the topic of developing or retaining “authenticity” in urban areas.  Cities, neighborhoods and towns can acquire this “authenticity” in different ways, either through a diverse array of local shops or historic streetscapes.  While having both is preferable in the 21st century retail search for individuality – as Decatur currently does –  having none may just be a death-knell in an urban setting.

Stuff to think about.

Avondale writer Patti Ghettzi bursts our bubble with an article recently published in Mother Nature Network, titled “My Year of Shopping Locally”.  In her email to DM she notes “I don’t name the businesses, because I wrote it for a national audience, but it’s pretty obvious whom I’m talking about.”

In the article, Ghettzi recaps the times in the past year when she vowed to “buy local” and ended up disappointed.  Reasons for disappointment ranged from having a bad experience with a shopkeeper to being unable to find items in stock, or just unwilling to pay more for something she could find for less online.

But before we local-devotees jump down Ghettzi’s throat with cries of cherry-picking and not looking at the bigger picture, I think we should first consider the value of such an article.  With its near cult-like status, it’s admittedly pretty easy for advocates to live comfortably inside the local movement vilifying all things big-box and tongue-kissing anything that’s displayed in the quaint corner store.

Of course, life, love and community are never that simple.

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I’m not sure whether to laugh, raise an eyebrow, or nod warily at this.

Recently, Wal-Mart has been rolling out plans for what it calls a sustainability index — a measure of how green the products it sells really are. It is asking each of its suppliers, an enormous list of businesses, 15 questions about the life of their products from manufacturing through disposal: questions about greenhouse gas emissions, social responsibility, waste reduction initiatives and water use.

…Wal-Mart has already created a Sustainability Index Consortium, which will include environmental groups and other nonprofits, universities and businesses. The consortium will create the criteria for the index, and will share with Wal-Mart the task of building a product-by-product database measuring the environmental impact of each product’s life cycle.

Oh god!  Guilt-free consumerism is almost here!  Thank you skillful marketing, thank you!

“In just two days, and with virtually no advertising or even any signs, a staggering 7,500 people filled out applications for one of the 350 to 400 available jobs [at a new Wal-Mart on Memorial Drive in central DeKalb County].” (Read the full AJC article here)

Though I’m often first point out the destructive nature of the big box on the local economy and local character, you can’t ignore a turnout like this.