By Ken Alltucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The former Big K store in Columbia Township shows signs of neglect.

A toppled light pole and overturned shopping cart litter an empty parking lot that just a year ago was used by thousands of shoppers. And Kmart's Big K is not alone. Penske Auto Care, Sam's Club and Circuit City all have vacated stores at or near the Ridge Road-Highland Avenue intersection over the past two years, too.

The pocket of empty stores created by chain retailers leaving the township has leaders worried because the exodus has the potential to cut into the township's budget.

Taxes from the commercial strip at the intersection of Ridge and Highland generate 60 percent of Columbia Township's property tax collections, which account for almost half of its $2.9 million budget. And the township wants desperately to defend its turf against more commercial churn that could drain money for police and fire protection and snow removal.

"It's our economic lifeblood," Michael Lemon, Columbia Township administrator, said. "Now anybody can't count on a business staying at that same location."

Columbia Township is just one area grappling with retail chain turnover. Real estate analysts say more communities in Greater Cincinnati are likely to feel the bite of closings during the next year, in part driven by key developments in the supermarket industry:

• Jacksonville, Fla.-based Winn-Dixie Stores announced last month that it would sell or close all 21 Greater Cincinnati Thriftway stores within a year.

• Wal-Mart's SuperCenter battle plan is expected to include vacating many of its older, conventional discount stores scattered throughout the region. Wal-Mart has at least eight SuperCenters planned or under construction in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

The likely result is some Thriftway and Wal-Mart stores will be vacated. They will join other national or regional retailers such as Kmart, All About Sports and Furrows that left behind more than a dozen big-box stores in the region in recent years measuring in excess of 1 million square feet of shop space.

Retailers' choices about store locations and format have become so sophisticated and uniform that there's little deviation from a set model, real estate analysts say.

Chains want to build stores in neighborhoods with the right mix of density and income levels for the types of products they sell. They want stores from coast to coast with an identical look and layout. They also covet easy-to-reach locations, especially near highways and interstates.

And as these chain retailers pursue the best sites that deliver the highest sales, they often leave behind older stores in what they consider to be less-desirable areas. The most profitable retailers also dominate the weakest chains, leaving more empty stores in what becomes a shell game of shifting commercial space.

"We've seen this massive overbuilding of retail across the country," said Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher with Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self Reliance, a nonprofit environmental and economic development group.

"A strategy many chains employ is to overbuild, reach a saturation point and drive out competitors. . . . We've built far more retail in this country than consumers can support."

Real estate brokers say Greater Cincinnati has been able to absorb most space vacated by chain retailers. Most has been taken by other retailers, and some sites have found new uses.

Crossroads Community Church rebuilt the former HQ building on Madison Road in Oakley, and Medpace took the vanquished Contractor's Warehouse in Norwood, stripped it to its frame and rebuilt it as an office.

So unlike some other cities, Cincinnati's retail market has a healthy vacancy rate of 10.5 percent for the region's 42 million square feet of retail space, said Dave Ebbesmeyer of Grubb & Ellis West Shell Commercial.

Yet some vacant commercial space isn't so easily filled.

Sam's Club and Circuit City left their Columbia Township stores to move less than a mile to Center of Cincinnati at Ridge and Interstate 71. The new stores have more sales floor space, allowing the retailers to show more goods. The shopping center's location abutting I-71 is easy to get to and allows retailers to display their logos to more than 141,000 motorists passing that stretch of I-71 daily.

Rob Smyjunas, who developed Center of Cincinnati, said Circuit City reported a "dramatic" increase in sales since relocating. He said he also thought that Sam's Club has registered better sales, but he didn't have specific numbers for either store.

Circuit City declined to release sales or lease information about individual stores. Sam's Club officials didn't return calls.

Such moves often are motivated by retailers' desire to upgrade the chain's most up-to-date format at the best location.

"The retailers that have been successful today will not take second-generation space," said Steve Brandt, a broker for Target and other national retailers.

So what happens to older space such as the vacant Columbia Township stores?

Already, the Sam's Club space has been leased to Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Home Emporium, a discount retailer with a handful of stores nationwide. The store will open this month.

Circuit City and Big K remain empty. Lemon said there's some talk that Wal-Mart might close its Highland Avenue location and build a SuperCenter elsewhere.

"With Sam's (Club) leaving, that (area) becomes such a secondary-type position, the strong national retailer doesn't want to look there," Brandt said.

With three national chains gone - and the possibility that more will follow - Columbia Township leaders don't want to hitch the future solely to big-box retail.

The township has hired the Hamilton County Development Co. to draft an economic development plan to recruit new businesses. Strategies could include enterprise zones that offer companies property and inventory tax breaks or tax increment financing, a method of diverting future property tax collection to pay for commercial projects.

The township also wants to build sidewalks along Highland and Ridge to create more than just a car-heavy destination.

"We're not interested in re-creating a big-box center," Lemon said. "We're looking for more mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly businesses that will be complementary to the type of development that's going on around us."

Retail analysts predict some neighborhoods may share Columbia Township's heartburn as Wal-Mart steps up its SuperCenter expansion and Thriftway exits.

Some Thriftway stores will likely be snapped up by Kroger or Bigg's, especially in areas where the grocers have outdated stores or none at all. Some locations will simply be left empty, analysts say.

Wal-Mart so far has only publicly announced plans to vacate three stores in Greater Cincinnati, but the chain has a reputation for leaving behind big stores. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance reports Wal-Mart has left or plans to leave 350 stores nationally.

The chain's stores in West Chester, Symmes Township and Florence will be closed and rebuilt nearby as SuperCenters. The Florence and Symmes Township stores are for sale or lease. In West Chester, Neyer Properties has hatched a deal to buy Wal-Marp's existing store on Tylersville Road and then build a SuperCenter at I-75 and Cincinnati-Dayton Road.

Dan Neyer of Neyer Properties said he doesn't think that the Tylersville Road store will be empty for long after Wal-Mart leaves next March. "There's a lot of demand there," he said.

Neyer Properties agreed to take over the empty store in part because the SuperCenter will trigger development of its $60 million Highland Square plaza. After Neyer completes construction of the 204,000-square-foot Super Wal-Mart, the remaining 35 acres at Highland Square can accommodate another 10 stores - a potentially lucrative deal for Neyer.

Neyer said a typical Wal-Mart SuperCenter generates from $80 million to $100 million a year in sales, so he thinks that other shops will be eager to be near it.

"That's a high volume, which means a lot of people will visit there," Neyer said.

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E-mail kalltucker@enquirer.com