Hope Blooms eternal

Lake Anne residents aren't giving up on their dream of having Bloom, Food Lion's slightly less NASCAR- and bleach-intensive chain of grocery stores, squeeze into the stucco wasteland better known as the Tall Oaks Shopping Center. They're writing postcards.

Bentana Woods cluster president Tara Coonin is opening up a more traditional line of communication to find a solution with a postcard campaign.

To date, Coonin said she has handed out nearly 1,500 postcards addressed to the Bloom Grocery Store Real Estate Department, urging the chain to open a location in Tall Oaks. Residents simply have to sign the card and stick a stamp on it.

A woman who answered the phone in Bloom Real Estate Department said they've “been enjoying those, there's been so many.” The typical efforts involve a couple phone calls, she said.

Awesome! We're glad they're enjoying the postcards. But who wouldn't enjoy getting 1,500 postcards like this one?


Meanwhile, there's still the question of whether the Tall Oaks owners actually want to fill the vacant space, or if they'd rather the shockingly empty shopping center degenerate into a pile of moldy, rotting stucco in anticipation of some awesome redeveloped shopping center, perhaps made of synthetic stucco.

Coonin said Bloom representatives did not deny they had looked at the space when she contacted them. Despite her best efforts, Coonin, a Realtor, said an ulterior motive by the owners may mean Tall Oaks has an uncertain future.

“I'm not convinced the landlord or the management company are doing that much to fill the space,” she said. “I wonder if they aren't trying to vacate it to redevelop it.”

On the bright side, that means there'd be space for the Macaroni Grill once its current location is razed.