The Way I See It: Back to the Future

By Dennis Lane

"I really don't know that much about cheese."
"That's OK, we're just looking for someone to make sandwiches."
It was the summer of 1969. I was 15 years old and was applying for a job at The Cheese Shop in what was then called Wilde Lake Village Green. The store was run by a guy named Jon Nelson. His father owned the Wilde Lake store and another one in the Village of Cross Keys in Northwest Baltimore. I had heard the store was looking for part-time help.
"Sandwiches?"
"Yeah, we sell sandwiches, too."
Actually, The Cheese Shop sold only two types of sandwiches: roast beef, and ham and cheese. Even with this limited menu, they did a booming business, particularly with the legions of construction workers that were building homes in the then-new villages of Wilde Lake and Harper's Choice. We shaved thin slices of brisket and ham, and generously piled it high on your choice of rye, wheat or hard roll.
Making sandwiches for construction workers was a big business for other village center merchants, too. The Butcher Shop and the Giant deli counter had their own brisk lunchtime trade. There were plenty of hungry workers to go around and the village center was a bustling place on weekday afternoons.
This was the golden year of the Columbia village center. In addition to the cheese shop, the butcher shop and the Giant grocery store, there was the Tidewater Book Shop, a pharmacy with a lunch counter called the Eagles Nest, a tobacco store called the Pipe Pub, a bank, a record store, a card shop, Ridings Liquor store, Anthony Richards Barber & Beauty Salon, Lord Baltimore Cleaners, Village Lock & Key, Karras Beef House and a travel agency.
In 1969, Wilde Lake Village Green was the center of residential life in the new town. For three years it was the only village center in Columbia, until Oakland Mills Village Center opened in 1970.
The Wilde Lake village center was where the new residents of the new town congregated. Before the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center opened in 1970, Sunday services were held in the Slayton House Community Center next to the shopping area. Next to Slayton House was a teen center and next to the teen center was the Columbia Swim Center.
People hung out at the village center because it was really the only place in Columbia to hang out.
At the beginning of the Christmas holidays, the merchants would hold an open house night. On the selected evening, Santa would arrive at the village center and hold court in a specially designed Santa House. The merchants would open their doors and give out freebies to the public. Even the bank served up a punch (with a punch) for the adults. It was all very much like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
Then, in the late summer of 1971, The Mall in Columbia opened and the slow decline of the village centers began. Even though The Rouse Company continued to open new village centers as the new town expanded, none ever matched that special magic or mix of merchants that Wilde Lake enjoyed in 1969. In fact, within two years of the mall's opening, the bookstore and the card shop left Wilde Lake and the record store and the pharmacy lunch counter closed, too.
Only Oakland Mills had another butcher shop. No other village center ever had a pharmacy with a lunch counter and none of the others had a cheese shop or a bookstore.
In the summer of 1977, after graduating from college, I returned to Wilde Lake Village Center as the marketing director for the Village Center Merchants Association. This was no glamour job; I was charged with building traffic and sales to the merchants in all of Columbia's village centers, which by then included Harper's Choice, Oakland Mills and Long Reach.
But by this time, the bloom was already well off the rose and the newer village centers were not only competing with the mall - they were competing with each other.
The holidays were different, too. While the mall got the beautiful poinsettia tree and a Santa with a real beard, the village center Santa had been reduced to a skinny college student in a poor fitting Santa suit handing out small candy canes to kids while walking around the center. The special Santa house was long gone and there was no more open house night.
And by this time, the remaining merchants had already grudgingly accepted their second class retail status in Columbia.
I share this history in order to put some of the current discussion surrounding Wilde Lake Village Center into perspective. Last year, the county council passed a bill that establishes a new process for the redevelopment of the Columbia village centers that includes a key provision for community input into any new plan.
Not surprisingly, many of the long-time residents of the village expressed a desire for a redeveloped village center that (pretty much) resembles what was offered in 1969. Among the types of new stores some residents said they'd like to see were ... a cheese shop. And a hardware store.
That's not likely to happen. Like the rest of the country, Columbia is a much different place than it was in 1969. The retail industry has changed dramatically during four decades as it has adjusted to meet the needs of shifting consumer demographics and tastes. Many stores that didn't even exist in 1969 are some of today's leading retailers.
I'm not sure what the right retail formula is for Columbia's village centers in this changed environment. But I do know that trying to recreate the past is not a very good plan for moving forward.

Dennis Lane blogs about stuff around here at www.wordbones.com.