What is a MetroCenter?
That’s the question I found myself asking late Monday afternoon as I walked along the damaged “Sidewalk of Stars” in downtown Binghamton.
I was taking a walk through the desolate area to examine our faux Walk of Fame, recently rumored to be moving from its current location — in front of this so-called MetroCenter — across Court Street.
When I reached the end of the weather-damaged sidewalk, I noticed, in front of me, some sort of mall-type entrance. I figured it was closed off and full of ill-fated construction, like almost every other building around me, but I gave the door a tug anyway.
It was open.
Sort of.
When I walked in, a young female peered out at me from an exquisite-looking jewelry store to my left, as if to ask, “What are you doing here?”
Further to the left sat two quarter-operated candy machines, the contents of which, based on a quick inspection, I wouldn’t recommend ingesting. The desolate hallway also held an ATM that looked to be unplugged, collecting more dust than transactions.
Those minor attractions were about the highlight of my first stroll through the two-floored MetroCenter.
After browsing through the newspaper’s dozens of articles touting the “long-awaited opening” of the center in September 1984, it’s worrisome to realize that the center, and the surrounding area, have more or less stayed the same in those 23 years.
Here’s the lead to a preview story by Kevin Maney on June 3, 1984: “‘You can be the first person in my new office,’ Diran Kradjian joked to a visitor. Both stepped over a metal pipe lying on the bare concrete floor to stand in a corner of a large, open, unfinished room on the second floor of MetroCenter Mall in downtown Binghamton.”
Monday afternoon, only my footsteps broke the dead silence of that same second-floor hallway. Cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling filled many of those large, open, unfinished rooms.
And accompanying the 1984 story? A three-column photo of Kradjian — one of the team of developers building the mall, according to the story — and marketing director Fay Claus, standing on the flimsy stairway in the center’s lobby. No pedestrians are visible in the background.
Monday? Throughout the 30 or so minutes I spent in the supposed MetroCenter, I saw three, maybe four customers.
I certainly couldn’t tell from my walk why it was originally called the MetroCenter. The archives tell me there were big plans for the area dating back to the early 1970s, when the so-called Mondev MetroCenter was a $25 million dream of a Montreal firm, Mondev International Ltd.
But those plans, according to archived Press articles, fell through. In 1981, Kradjian, along with a group of developers, applied for financing for the center. The City of Binghamton paid $4.5 million to build the shell of the mall; $700,000 came from the state Urban Development Corp., while Kradjian’s partnership ponied up $2.1 million.
What a waste. The large complex, sandwiched between empty office buildings and a strip mall that includes the old home to Phil’s Gift Shop, is a symbol of what used to be — or, more accurately, what could have been.
From its opening in ’84 to as recently as the early 2000s, the Metrocenter saw varied levels of success. A February 2000 Press article suggested that the flourishing center was seeking to add a third floor. But from what I saw, it seems in the last few years, the center has seen a mass exodus.
Even the large expanses of construction around the area seem to have stalled. The most promising sign of construction I saw was the advertisement for “Big Al’s Sandwich Construction Co.” along the side of the nearby Bing Wings Restaurant on Court Street.
That’s not to say the whole area is a lost cause. There have been plenty of suggestions throughout the past couple of decades that are worth rehashing, but the conundrum remains: businesses won’t move in until customers walk the streets, but there’s no reason to walk the streets until there’s businesses.
The biggest problem, to me, is that there’s very little reason to walk around Binghamton at night. State Street provides a viable option to binge drink; beyond that, there’s an ATM on the corner of Court and State that lets you get money to, well, binge drink. That’s about it.
In a world where cost doesn’t matter, there’s plenty of options; I’d probably start with a small movie theater, which Press columnist Jeff Davis speculated about in June 1986. The Regal theater on Front Street is somewhat close, as is the Loews theater on Vestal Parkway, but neither is a viable walking option.
And what’s a movie without dinner? Moviegoers would only flock to the MetroCenter if there was nearby food available, but as of now, there’s not much to eat in the area. The storefronts on each side of the Court Street entrances would be conducive to nice restaurants. Even nicer is the mostly empty waterfront property, formerly known as the Fair Store building, which now houses the city’s probation offices. What restaurant owner wouldn’t love to serve customers at a table overlooking the Chenango River?
Perhaps more practical was a 1994 suggestion to house the Department of Motor Vehicles in the center. The DMV center in Happauge, a towering building in the middle of Long Island, has its own limited food court despite its relatively desolate location on a major highway. The DMV in my native Huntington is at the heart of a strip mall we call “The Big H,” with fast-food shops and small department stores all around.
A 1998 editorial discussed the pros and cons of moving the Broome County Central Library into the center, another plan that fell through.
Dire as the situation seems, I think the place has potential. Binghamton residents, and BU students, would surely enjoy a MetroCenter-type environment, if it offered something worthwhile.
But any way you look at it, it’s obvious the MetroCenter needs something — perhaps another ambitious young entrepreneur with deep pockets — like Diran Kradjian.
Strub is a senior at Binghamton University, a part-time copy editor at the Press & Sun-Bulletin and a new resident of Binghamton’s West Side. His column appears Thursdays.
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