Build Them & They Will Shop!

Exciting times for Front Royal shoppers - the new Target store opened last week, along with its in-house Starbucks and Pizza Hut Express outlets. Also now open is Famous Footwear. Over the next week, Staples (Aug 4) and Petco (Aug 6) will open their doors. And very shortly, we will see TGI Fridays, Fashion Bug, GNC, Radio Shack, and Game Stop, among others, all in the Crooked Run Shopping Center.

On the other side of route 522, the huge Lowes store is taking shape. Beyond that, the future Wal-Mart is about to spring up from its leveled site, and the rest of the Riverton Commons infrastructure is taking shape amid a flurry of activity. I drove around there earlier today to take a couple of photos, and was running the gauntlet of many large vehicles, concrete trucks, earth movers, and swarms of construction workers, surveyors, and engineers.

On a sadder note, isn't it a shame to see what has happened to the home in the last picture below? A handsome brick colonial of over 3,000 sq.ft. on a nicely landscaped 5 acres, this home once looked out over gently rolling land and a 2-lane route 522 wandering north towards Winchester, with the mountains as a background. Now it looks down on all this development, with a bird's eye view of Lowes and a busy intersection which at one point is 8 lanes wide. I guess that's the price of progress.