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The
Town Center
Readings
An excerpt from Jordan Creek Town Center Press Release:
General Growth Properties, Inc. (NYSE: GGP), the country’s second largest shopping center owner, developer and manager, begins a 5-day celebration today with the grand opening of Jordan Creek Town Center, a 2-million square foot retail resort in West Des Moines, Iowa – the largest shopping center in the state.
"There’s nothing like Jordan Creek Town Center in the country. It’s the new standard of retail,” said John Bucksbaum, chief executive officer, General Growth Properties s. “Jordan Creek is the epitome of our vision -- people creating special places and experiences. Shopping centers are evolving into more than just retail. We are creating experiences at our centers. Jordan Creek Town Center is the blueprint for our new developments and redevelopments moving forward."
Loving the earth, seeing what has been done to it, I grow sharp, I grow cold.
Where
will the trilliums go, and the coltsfoot?
Impossible
to believe we need so much I
have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips
Oh,
I would like to live in an empty house, No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.
And I suppose sometime I will. Old
and cold I will lie apart
SermonFor this annual “breakfast with the minister” sermon, I like to reflect on something that happened over the summer, during my time away from you all, and I had a lot of possibilities this year. I considered telling you about the week Susan, Leah and I spent in Northern Minnesota. In the town of Grand Rapids we visited the birthplace of Judy Garland, which also houses a children’s discovery center and museum sponsored by the local paper mill. My favorite display was “Treesa” a 10-foot animated plastic tree, which, when activated by the red button marked “push me,” would share snippets of information about forests. Standing there with my daughter, listening to Treesa tell us how important the logging industry is, I felt like I was in a Simpsons episode.
Then I thought I could talk about my building disgust over the national political scene and the apparent inability for either campaign to effectively articulate anything other than arguments over what happened in Vietnam over 30 years ago…never mind the fact that nearly 1000 Americans and countless Iraqis have lost their lives in a hasty war that stole our focus from the more obvious threats to our country…like Al-Qaida, the rising costs of health insurance, or our over-dependence on foreign oil, for example…a war that is costing U.S. taxpayers over 100,000 dollars a minute…with no clear end in sight.
I also considered telling you about the Sunday a few weeks back when I caught a tele-evangelist from Florida (where else?) preaching about how discrimination has gotten a bad rap in our country…that God actually wants us to discriminate against those who do not follow the mores of his chosen people…which, from the makeup of the audience and the tenor of his program, seemed to be that of conservative, heterosexual white Americans.
But as I like to begin the year on an up-note, I decided to save these topics for another time. Instead, I will speak today about what has seemed to capture the imagination of central Iowans this summer even more than the prospects of new casinos, pork chops on a stick or the butter cow: the Jordan Creek Town Center.
Not long after I arrived in Des Moines just over three years ago, I began reading newspaper articles about the proposed mall that became Jordan Creek. I was fascinated with the excitement over this project even then. I couldn’t fathom that metro Des Moines needed another mall…especially as the country seemed to be headed for a slowing economy and the events of September 11th promised to lead us all to do some re-organizing of our priorities, despite our president’s exhortations to keep shopping or else the terrorists would win. Jordan Creek developers claimed that the mall would not adversely affect the existing shopping centers in Des Moines because the new mall would house several stores that could be found nowhere else in Iowa. It would be a destination mall…a retail resort that was needed to keep local shoppers from going to Minneapolis and Kansas City to get their overpriced knick-knacks and designer clothes. Jordan Creek, it was said, would bring Des Moines into the 21st century of retail. When I learned that one of the three shopping anchors (the fourth is a movie theatre) would be the area’s fifth Younkers store, I just knew Iowans were in for something special.
As the mall began to take shape, I had the urge to drive out to see the progress…how the landscape had been sacrificed so that my fellow citizens and I might soon enjoy two million more square feet of shopping than we already had. But, I just couldn’t do it. As the opening date neared, more and more articles about the mall appeared in the Register, trumpeting Jordan Creek’s resort-like atmosphere. The local television stations devoted what seemed like half of their broadcasts to stories about the mall. At least one station even had a clock it would show at the top of each hour counting down by the second until Jordan Creek would open its doors to the public at last.
To meet my responsibilities as an observer of culture, I knew I had to make a pilgrimage to this new local mecca, but the reports of tens of thousands pouring through the gates on opening day, the traffic jams and full parking lots kept me away until just this past week. On Monday afternoon, I decided to load up Leah into the car and make the trek. With all the hoopla around this place, I must admit, I was anxious to see it myself.
Driving into the parking lot, I was surprised by the bland look of the grounds. I had received in the mail a few weeks earlier an advertising pamphlet about the mall that featured a girl in a field of wild grasses, with her arms outstretched in delight and a couple walking into the sun on a tree lined street. So naturally, I imagined a pastoral setting…a meadow maybe…certainly some trees. Not to mention a creek! But all that I could see was brown, close-cropped grass. I knew there had to be a lake somewhere. I decided I would find it on my way out.
Following the curve of the blacktop parking lot was a concrete path that I figured was the biking/running trail that the publicity had bragged about. From what I could tell, this “trail” makes the path around Gray’s Lake seem like the north woods of Canada.
I found a parking spot suspiciously close to one of the main entrances. Apparently the crowds had died down quite a bit. I wedged my car in between two urban attack vehicles that could eat my little Toyota for breakfast. I slipped Leah into the bjorn, giving her a front row seat for her first visit to a mall.
As we walked toward the entrance I began to hear the musak, which is thoughtfully piped outdoors, to, I suppose, help create an experience out of one’s walk from the parking lot.
“There is nothing like this in the country,” I repeated to myself as the strains of Kenny G-style pseudo-jazz filled my ears.
When I opened the door to the mall and stepped inside the climate-controlled confines of shopping paradise, Leah instantly let out a shout. Of course, you can’t always tell why a 10-month old is shouting. She could have been simply acknowledging that we were some place new. Or perhaps she just wanted to hear her voice echoing through the big corridor. Or maybe she was bummed upon realizing that the watered down dentist office jazz was playing inside the mall, too.
I must say, though, the plunky bass and happy saxophone music created the perfect soundtrack for our walk, since it reminded me of the last period of my life when I spent any meaningful time in malls…the 1980s. This was the decade when I would accompany my high school girlfriend on her frequent shopping excursions that often passed for our dates. Oh…the hours I spent in the various women’s departments in the malls of Northern Ohio. At each shop, I knew where to stand so as to stay out of the way of the other shoppers while my beloved tried on the latest fashions. Even better, I knew all the shops that had chairs for dutiful boyfriends and husbands. I liked those shops the best.
As my presence in the mall this day was for sociological observation only, I was not encumbered by a shopping list. I felt free to wander and take in the scene as my spirit moved me. I was anxious to see what would set this mall apart from others I had visited. I walked past a store that specializes in white clothes and black clothes. I walked in just long enough to get a look at a price. I chose a cotton, knit blouse close to the exit so as not to excite the clerks who were leisurely hanging around the register at the back of the store. Still having fun with my visit, I pretended I was a spy, retrieving classified information. I knew I only had a few moments to get my price before being noticed. So I worked quickly. The price of the blouse, which I figure could be obtained elsewhere by the thrifty shopper for about 20 dollars was over three times that amount--68 dollars. I decided I didn’t need to look at prices anymore.
Only a few stores away, I saw a sign for a store that intrigued me. “Blue Willi’s.” Sensing a pattern developing here, I muttered to Leah that it couldn’t possibly specialize in “blue” clothes, could it? Well, I didn’t go in, but all the clothes in the window were various shades of blue. I began to wonder if Jordan Creek is like no place in the country for a reason….
I took my time strolling through the mostly empty corridors. I didn’t go into very many stores. I did pay a visit to the Barnes and Noble, in hopes of determining what made this location different than the one that already exists in West Des Moines. As far as I could tell, the only difference was a feature that enables the customer to “listen to any cd in the store” by simply holding its computer bar code up to a reading device at a listening station. Yes, I did try it. No, it didn’t work.
As you know from the unavoidable publicity the mall has received, some of the stores have yet to open. I walked past what will soon be a Lane Bryant, a store that features fashions for the full-figured woman. The only thing in the windows other than a few assorted workers were a gaggle of naked mannequins with their plastic arms draped over each other looking out at the handful of shoppers walking past, as though they were huddling up to discuss marketing strategies. Incidentally, these mannequins looked pretty skinny to me. Maybe they were being put on a high-calorie diet in preparation for the grand opening.
I did enjoy walking into Spencer Gifts, a store I remembered from my childhood for its perfume-y incense smell, its black light posters, and its off-color novelty items that appeal most to twelve-year olds. I figured this Spencer Gifts was probably not all that different than the other two locations already in other malls in town.
I counted no less than four different stores specializing in cellular phones. Even more intriguing to me when I consider there are two similar stores less than a block from my house in the Drake neighborhood. How many cellular phones stores do we need, anyway?
I did go into the Scheel’s store, a two-story sporting goods store that lured me in with its promise of free fudge samples. Never mind what fudge has to do with sports…they have it… and they’ll give you some for free (along with Bavarian nuts, too). As I left the fudge area of the store, my attention was grabbed by bigger than life pictures of babies dressed in hunting camouflage. I had to see more, and soon I found myself in the gun department. Guns everywhere…every shape and size and all waiting for me to hold. There was even a display for Glock pistols, those half-plastic guns favored by police officers and street gangs. I started to get the creeps and got out of there as fast as I could.
On my way out, I took note that there was at least one tree on the grounds of Jordan Creek. Scheel’s has a giant plastic tree, with almost life-like foliage in a perpetual state of fall. Ah, nature!
Eventually we wandered into the food court. Figuring this would be a place where some exotic cuisine might be a draw to shoppers looking for an experience like no place else in the country, I looked forward to seeing a wide array of selections. Other than two basic fast-food Asian choices and a pizza joint, the exotic cuisine featured Subway, Taco John’s, Wendy’s and a place that sells those big pretzels. A short walk away, I could also find an Orange Julius and a Cinnabon, but that’s about it for food inside the mall. Of course, one could sit down at the Cheesecake Factory for a 7 dollar piece of dessert, or go outside to the “lake district” of the complex featuring some of the nation’s most popular chain bistros, but as I noted on my way out of the parking lot, these would involve driving a distance from the mall…at least from where I had parked.
Not far from the food court, was the Century Movie Theatre. As we approached this enormous 20-screen movie complex with its towering screen of movie choices, Leah let out another proclamation: “uh oh.” I laughed…until I saw that at the hot dogs at the concession stand were $3.50.
In this section of the mall I came across the most poignant feature of the Jordan Creek Town Center…at least for my message this morning. A sign hanging above a side hallway directed me to the “Community Room, sponsored by the Des Moines Register.” “Great,” I thought. “Every ‘town center’ should have a community room.” So I followed the sign. Down this comparatively dark hallway, past the management offices of the center and a door that said “for authorized persons only” I saw the doors for the community room. Through the windows on the doors I saw a generic looking meeting room…probably the most drab place in the whole mall. More effort had been put into the bathrooms! I reached down to let myself in to the “community room” and discovered that the door was locked.
And I guess that’s the best place to end my story of my visit to Jordan Creek…at the locked door of the community room.
Now you may be thinking, what’s so uplifting about this story? Didn’t Mark say that he wanted to start the year on an up note?
Well, my trip to Jordan Creek may not be all that uplifting. But it is a reminder of where I can find real community…the real town center. I find it here…at this church I have come to love. Maybe you do, too.
In this world where we are encouraged to see our lives as commodities and where the primary source of meaning often seems to be how much stuff we can accumulate, we need a place where we can be reminded that being human means more than buying and selling. And this church is that place. Our church is where we remind ourselves that we are inhabitants of a beautiful, blue-green planet…a home that is our duty to protect and to preserve. Our church is where we reconnect to the best parts of ourselves, those places of creativity, forgiveness, humility and respect for those who share our world. Our church is where we explore and celebrate the mystery that it is to be alive and able to care for and connect with others in ways that can transform our very lives. Our church is a place where we are called to give something back to a hurting world, to fight for justice for all people, to raise our voices for peace, and to remember that we are all connected in an interdependent web where what we do matters greatly, even if it feels like we are impotent against the forces of the market and corporate greed. Collectively, we hold more power than any of us realize individually. Our church is where we are encouraged to seek this power…not to lord over others, but to do our best to build a world of which we can be proud…a world where we protect our environment, not scar it with unnecessary retail resorts…a world where we work for freedom and justice for all people and towards democratic ideals but not without great care and vision…a world where we discern right from wrong not according to our own always-limited perspectives, but in creative interchange with others…dialogue that is always open to understanding, questioning, and well-reasoned debate. So welcome back to your church…the real town center. I can’t wait to see what this coming church year will bring…and what we will build…together.
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