ForKids Proposes Thrift Store in Wards Corner

 The ForKids organization gave a presentation to the Suburban Acres Civic League at the January meeting, outlining their plan to open a Thrift Store in the old Sports Zone in Wards Corner Shopping Center.  

!! This topic is receiving mixed reviews among the Wards Corner community — YOUR awareness and feedback are essential !!

The Yays and Nays:

Most everyone, if not all, are supportive of the charity work that is done through ForKids.   Some support the addition of the thrift because it will be business in an otherwise empty store in a shopping center that is desperate for business.  The organization promises an upscale thrift store. 

The largest opposition has been based on the required rezoning of the property, and the lasting impact it can make on Wards Corner.   The expressed concern has been that once the property is zoned to allow a thrift store, a zoning precedent is set that may lead to more thrift stores in Wards Corner– which is thought to be an impediment to the WC revitalization efforts and the ability to attract the desired quality of merchants.

The information below is provided for your education on the topic:

 Click here to view the ForKids presentation

 Click to read an article posted on the Wardscorner Now webpage (posted Nov 2010) 

Following is an excerpt of a message from Thaler McCormick (CEO of ForKids) after presenting to SACL:

“…Also, we encourage everyone to join us for tours of our facilities to become familiar with our work and our standards for implementing projects.  I find that when people see firsthand what we do they are usually amazed at our attention to detail. I think this will be very comforting for anyone that might be concerned about the project.  To schedule a tour or for questions about the project, please have your members call me (622-6400, ext. 101) or my Development Director Bill Young (622-6400 ext. 126).

 I will express your concerns to the city regarding the possible proliferation of thrifts in Wards Corner and will work with them to find ways to ensure that, by approving this project, you are not opening the doors to becoming a neighborhood of thrifts.  Hopefully that concern will not prevent this worthy project from happening. While I am clearly a die-hard ForKids advocate, I really do believe this store will be tremendously positive and bring much-needed energy to Wards Corner. It will be good for both the neighborhood and our families. Lastly, I live just a Civic League away in Winona (have for 15 years). If anything is wrong with our store, you are going to call me and I will fix it!
 
Thanks for considering our project,
Thaler    
 
Thaler McCormick
Chief Executive Officer”

—————————-

Please take some time to become familiar with the proposed project, and know that you are encouraged to provide your civic league with your feedback. 

**  CITY PLANNING COMMISSION PUBLIC HEARING AGENDA

 The Norfolk City Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on January 27, 2011 at 2:30 p.m. in the City Council Chamber, 11th Floor, City Hall Building, Civic Center, Norfolk, Virginia to consider the following applications: 

FORKIDS FAMILY THRIFT BY FORKIDS, INC., for a Special Exception to operate a Used Merchandise Establishment on property located on the southeast corner of W. Little Creek Road and Granby Street, property fronts 469 feet, more or less, along the southern line of W. Little Creek Road and 313 feet, more or less, along the eastern line of Granby Street; premises numbered 7542 Granby Street, Unit 19 and 20.

**

The SACL will provide our City Council representative and the Planning Commission with the general consensus from Suburban Acres prior to this meeting.

At this time, a special meeting for  SACL vote has not been established.

You can reply to this comment thread, or email suburbanacres@gmail.com.

Suburban Acres Civic League Meetings are Going Green!

One of the New Year’s resolutions for the Suburban Acres Civic League is to make our meetings greenerYou can help us reduce waste by bringing your own coffee/travel mug or water bottle to the meeting. 

For those of you who forget or don’t have travel mugs or bottles, the civic league will still provide cups for coffee and water with the refreshments.

We are also planning to replace our stock of foam (hydrocarbon based) coffee cups with “compostable” cups made out of paper or corn starch. 

So, we’ll see you tonight at the meeting!  Bring your cup!

SACL Meeting Tonight (Jan 10):

6:30 pm @ Suburban Park Elementary

(doors open at 6pm for refreshments and socialization)

Guest Speaker:  Thaler McCormick – ForKids Thrift Store pusuing location in Wards Corner

Adopt-A-Spot: Thole Street Clean-up ~ Friday, January 14th

Thole Street Clean-up

Saturday, January 14th, 12:30-2:30pm

The SACL is joining Norfolk Christian School in officially sponsoring the Thole Street Adopt-a-Spot.  The students have scheduled this clean-up and would love to have our support.  If you are available to assist for all or a portion of the time please come out and help keep your neighborhood great.

Meet in front of Norfolk Christian School.

We also need one volunteer who would be able to take attendance for the SACL so we can get the proper EARNN credit.  If you are able to take on this simple task, please contact Katrina Butler (703-655-2101, dixiekat@mac.com).

2010 SACL Website Stats

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,700 times in 2010. That’s about 6 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 39 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 92 posts. There were 52 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 217mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 24th with 80 views. The most popular post that day was February Newsletter Extras – that wouldn’t fit in our Newsletter….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were wardscornernow.com, mail.yahoo.com, mail.live.com, welovenorfolk.org, and webmail.aol.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for suburban acres civic league, http://www.suburban23505.com, suburban acres, norfolk civic leagues, and suburban park civic league.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

February Newsletter Extras – that wouldn’t fit in our Newsletter… February 2010

2

Officers / Contacts August 2008

3

Events August 2008
2 comments

4

Photos August 2008

5

About August 2008
5 comments