How many Permanent Better Blocks can fit in this closed grocery store?

As a follow-up to the Building a Permanent Better Block post, we now analyze a “suburban formed” grocery anchored commercial block (across the street from our office) in Dallas, Texas, only 4 miles from Downtown Dallas.

This was formerly a grocery store that recently closed leaving a large void in the area. Beside it is a strip of small chain businesses including a Little Caesar’s, O’Reilly’s Auto Parts Store, Bank of America branch office, Go Clips Salon, ACE Cash Express, and an Insurance office. All total, including the now vacant grocery store, 7 businesses. The lot itself, including parking lot is 120,000 square feet, half of which is parking (ie. unusable land that will generate no revenue, taking up potential product shelf space).

Now let’s look at the Camden High Street commercial and residential block example again from the past post. Taking less than one quarter of the same land area at 18,700 square feet, you see far more productive use of the land with residents, businesses, and vibrant street life:

From 7 businesses to 96 in the same area. Also, 300+ people living in the same block. Far more productive, far more efficient for the utilities (that we all pay for) that run under the ground, and the potential for a lively, neighborhood destination. And if we can figure out the financing mechanism at a local scale, where each building (total of 96) is constructed by individuals as opposed to single master developers, then we’ve got a new model built on historic precedence, which spreads ownership to a broader group.

Next, we’ll break down the sheer metric tons of concrete poured surrounding the area for roadway and parking lots to show how this (comparatively) unproductive land use can’t generate enough tax revenue to even cover the maintenance costs of the road that fronts it, yet we still build it without questioning it’s long term viability.