That’s the question I’ve been asked this weekend. I keep reading in the Uptown paper of record that the 1999 arrival of Target and Lowe’s (Lowe’s?) helped to kill Eastland. But that view seems to be based more on the paper’s anti-big box dogma than reality.
The concensus of actual Charlotte residents is that Eastland started to turn scary in the early 90s and by the mid 90s was no longer a shopping destination of choice. Eastland needed a radical re-working long before a Target showed up.
Besides, the Big Box theory ignores that Carolina Place has not been crippled by the explosion of other retail options across South Charlotte, including multiple Targets.
What does hurt Carolina Place — and every other large place of commerce in the county — is horrible traffic. Traffic caused by inadequate local road capacity.
Can we blame big boxes for that too?
