Reshaping Woodbridge: Once the place to shop, Marumsco Plaza getting a facelift (Shooters Paradise)
Bruce Jackson
Reshaping Woodbridge: Once the place to shop, Marumsco Plaza getting a facelift
May, 30, 2010 06:35 AM - Manassas Journal Messenger (Woodbridge, VA)
May 30--Note: This is the first in a three-part series on the
revitalization of Woodbridge
Coming Monday: Traffic and transit improvements are needed to make the
vision work
Sheila Beaty may not be a local historian but she is well versed in
the evolution of Marumsco Plaza in Woodbridge.
An avid movie goer as a child and eventual property management company
employee, Beaty has seen how the once popular shopping center has
changed for the worse.
By the time she was working for Southern Management in the early
1990s, "it was already going downhill," Beaty said.
Today, empty storefronts and parking spaces litter the southern end of
the massive shopping center, which is now anchored by Big Lots and
Peebles department store. On the far end, it is much the same.
Once a popular hub for grocery shoppers for more than four decades,
Super Giant has sat vacant since 2008--a victim of, in large part, the
Potomac Mills effect and new and more dynamic grocery stores, like
Weg-mans up the road.
Along with the fragile economy and the bursting of the housing bubble,
the illegal immigration resolution passed by the Prince William Board
of County Supervisors two years ago also had a tangible effect on the
plaza's businesses.
Surrounded by empty spaces, Rent-A-Center has seen a dramatic dip in
its customer base--which assistant manager Luxy Melendez blames in
large part to the resolution.
"We had 815 customers and right now we're at 711,"Melendez said last
week. "...A lot of good people we lost."
To add insult to injury, the space formerly occupied by Shooter's
Paradise-- a popular range for gun enthusiasts that was gutted by a
fire in 2007-- was set to be filled before the business owner passed
away last year.
But changes are afoot these days. Starting this week, the plaza will
be renovated to the tune of $13 million. This includes a new facade
and parking surface that will feature landscaped islands dotting the
expansive blacktop.
The facade work is expected to be done by the summer with the parking
lot work to immediately follow, according to co-owner Kevin Sells of
Manassas-based Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Investments Inc.
Ownership will also be welcoming new businesses to the center. Todos
Supermarket, a popular Hispanic grocery store down the street from
Marumsco, has signed a lease to take over the space formerly occupied
by Giant.
While "treading water" like many other businesses, Todos has outgrown
its current spot, said owner Carlos Castro. Moving into the larger
spot makes sense, said Castro, because he wants to expand Todos'
customer base.
Approximately 50 percent of his customers are non-Hispanics. The
current Woodbridge location and the one in Dumfries are expected to
remain open, said Castro.
THE PLACE TO BE
With very few options in Prince William County in the 1960s and 70s,
Marumsco Plaza was the place to shop for thousands of residents up and
down the U.S. 1 corridor.
Along with Giant supermarket, it sported a People's drugstore, a movie
theater, a pizza parlor and even a pond with a fountain near the
current Wachovia Bank site.
"My mom wrote to my grandmother [about the plaza]," Beaty said. "She
was so excited about a new grocery store. It had everything. You could
buy a mop and you could buy a hamburger. We, came from upstate New
York and there was nothing."
"We used to love going into Peoples Drug when they had the dining area
and soda fountains," said Woodbridge native Dorothy Lowe, who now
lives south of Fredericksburg. "You could sit at the bar and have an
ice cream."
A 1983 Gar-Field graduate, Beaty remembers being dropped off by her
mother at the plaza so that she and her friends could take in a movie
and a slice of pizza from Brother's Pizza.
"For a sixth-grade field trip, I saw the original Romeo & Juliet,"
Beaty said. "I saw Star Wars then [too]."
Dave Barron, who grew up just nearby on Mt. Pleasant Drive, said the
theater was beautiful. One of his favorite memories of the theater was
an incident involving the long-running Star Wars movie and a teenage
prank.
"They used to have a marquee that sat in the parking lot," Barron
said. "Someone rear-ranged Star Wars and it spelled out Raw Rats. It
lasted three days before they realized it and changed it. It was
hilarious. People got sick of seeing Star Wars up there."
As the years wore on, though, the shopping center became no laughing
matter. By 1987, the theater moved out and by the mid- 1990s, both
G.C. Murphy's department store and Alexandria-based Peoples had
departed.
As an employee of Southern Management, Beaty remembers painting yellow
striping on the curbs during a renovation of the center in the early
1990s. Unfortunately, she also remembers times when she used to show
apartments at nearby Bayvue and potential residents would ask about
the old police substation that was located on Fisher Drive.
After she drove them by a police cruiser with missing tires, people
would ask, "Wow's the crime around here?" said Beaty.
According to Barron, whose father worked a government job in
Washington for several decades, the change in the neighborhood
demographics began in the 1970s when government employees and military
officers started to move their families to the new Lake Ridge
neighborhood.
By the 2000s and thanks to the subsequent boom in commercial and real
estate development in Prince William County, the area had become
largely Hispanic. When the boom ended, values of the homes around
Marumsco tanked, foreclosures became rampant and area businesses began
to suffer.
NEW BEGINNING
Sells purchased the shopping center six years ago with the hopes of
eventually giving it a facelift.
Unfortunately, just when he wanted to get the ball rolling, the
economy bottomed out, lengthening the process by several years.
"I am a very impatient guy," Sells said. "I have wanted to do this for
a long time. ...We wanted to tear it down but obviously the economy
turned on us. We are trying to get this thing brought back to life."
According to Sells, at least two of the tenants will be switching
spots--including Rent-A-Center--and he expects to ink a handful of new
businesses in the near future.
Mattresses For You has a building permit approval and will be moving
in next to the former Shooter's Paradise. Sells said he is also in
discussion with a national coffee chain.
Eventually, Sells wants to tackle the abutting Jefferson Plaza, parts
of which have stood vacant for years. But for now, Sells' project is
the start of what area civic leaders hope is the beginning of a new
Woodbridge.
County Supervisor Frank Principi has been a strong advocate for the
North Woodbridge Master Plan, which was just formerly approved by the
board earlier this month. While it doesn't go as far south as the
Marumsco Plaza, the plan addresses a 160-acre piece of land where
traffic is a nightmare and many properties are vacant and unkempt.
"We want to provide people with a place to live, work and play," Principi said.
Castro said he's excited to be part of the new and improved Marumsco Plaza.
"It's going to give a different look to that area and it will also
provide more employment in the area," Castro said. "And most
important, we don' t want to look like an abandoned community."
Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-530-3904.
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