Bob Kerr: Only the name is warm and friendly

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

I love the names they give these horrendous, character-killing sprawls. One might as easily call a serial killer "Cuddles" as call a shopping mall "The Village."

And let's not forget "The Common," "The Crossings," "The Green," "The Hollow" and "The Ridge."

And small game birds for some reason have a cachet in the effort to turn concrete blight into an embraceable shopping experience. You might see "Pheasant" or "Quail" up there on the mall entrance sign, before turning into a place where the last game bird probably chirped just before the bulldozer belched.

If you didn't know better, you might think you were heading for some rough-hewn place with a soundtrack by the bubbling waters of a brook. Pheasant Ridge, Quail Hollow -- all seem to drip with timeless, down-home charm.

So does Dowling Village. It sounds so darned homey, like a place you might stop by for some chat around the woodburning stove and a taste of Aunt May's boysenberry jam.

Forget about it. The closest you'll get to a woodburning stove in Dowling Village is the one with the remote control flame at Fireplace City, if this unfortunate proposal is allowed to happen and its promoters decide a fireplace franchise fits the mix. And Aunt May's boysenberry jam? Sure, you might find it there, at Aunt May's Jam Kiosk. And say hi to Aunt May, who's 18 and wearing a cell phone.

Dowling Village would be just another place to shop, another slab of sameness to be slapped down on the North Smithfield-Woonsocket line if all the approvals are granted and the developers are allowed to pave another piece of Rhode Island.

Chances are, Dowling Village won't provide anything that isn't already available nearby. It will just redirect the flow, draw shoppers in with the lazy lure of easy parking and easy access. And it will suck the life out of small businesses that have formed the heart of the local retail economy for a lot of years.

Chet Chomka manages the hardware store that his father owns on Cumberland Hill Road in Woonsocket. He employs 10 people. And he fears what will happen if Dowling Village includes a Home Depot.

"There's a very good chance it will put us out of business," he says.

He talks about a paint store, another hardware, lumberyards -- all local businesses and all in peril because of a proposed mall that will help to make a part of Woonsocket and North Smithfield look just like parts of Traverse City, Mich., and Gastonia, N.C.

But Chomka isn't sure what will be in the new shopping wonderland. That's part of the problem. There hasn't been a lot of information made available to the people most directly affected by the mall.

Chomka, along with dozens of other citzens who feel they have not been adequately informed, took their case to the Woonsocket City Council Monday night.

Council members listened, then took the first steps to make Dowling Village possible. It would be part of something called a Municipal Economic Development Zone, which would mean shoppers would pay only half the state sales tax for the first 10 years.

Woonsocket and North Smithfield would get a bundle in tax revenue in return for putting a "For Sale" sign on the unique character of their communities.

Given a few decades, people probably won't even remember the hardware store or lumberyard where local residents used to buy things and actually know the person they were buying from.

Bob Kerr can be reached by e-mail at bkerr@projo.com