There aren’t many giant corporations that, when they arrive on the block, they immediately transform the climate on that block in a largely positive way, not just economically, but also the vibe.

The list is short. Apple Stores are climate changers. IKEA. Whole Foods. These are companies that alert the world that the consumers in that neighborhood have sophistication, taste, and a willingness to spend their expendable income on products designed to prove that one has sophistication and taste.

Urban Outfitters is another one. As I wrote about earlier this week, Urban Outfitters has put in for a certificate of approval to Norfolk’s Design Review Committee. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything; just because a company submits a design for approval does not bind them in any way to produce said design. Plus, I can tell you, via people close to the situation, that a deal isn’t going to happen without some outside help. That said, UO’s architect on the project, Phillips Partnership out of Atlanta, did mock up some designs, and we can only assume they did submit the required 16 copies of the thing, an effort that says to me there’s at least some real smoke here.

It’s fun to see this and dream about what Downtown Norfolk would be like with an Urban Outfitters anchoring the retail marketplace:

Look, even real live people walking outside!

In the discussion that ensued on our Facebook page after that initial post, the reaction was mixed. 60 people ‘liked’ the article via our Facebook plugin. The first six comments were entirely positive, with readers saying things like “that would be awesome. i’ve included it in every survey the dnc has sent out for suggestions” and “Say it’s true!” and, simply, “please!!!!!!!!!!”

Then someone posted a link to this blog on Jezebel with the headline “Miley Cyrus Bashes Urban Outfitters For Knock-Offs And Anti-Gay Politics.” Suddenly Urban Outfitters went from having one strike–corporate giant blotting out our favorite local suns–to an instant three. And with that–as with so many potentially positive things around here–the tone of the conversation turned sour, any benefits were summarily ignored, and everyone moved on.

Urban Outfitters: just another really fun thing we would all have loved if we weren’t so busy hating anything about it.

Let’s take a minute to look more closely at these allegations. To say that any corporation “supports” anti-gay politics because their CEO donated to a nutjob like Rick Santorum is to use a logical bazooka that destroys everything in its path. You know who else supported Rick Santorum’s campaign? According to this FEC Disclosure Report, a Mrs. Jeanne Barnes donated $1,200 to Santorum in 2006. You know who she works for? The Salvation Army. So, that’s right, when you donate to the Salvation Army, you are actually, in some way, supporting an anti-gay agenda.

Does disliking Sanotrum mean disliking anyone who donated to him?

Of course that example is far from perfect, but when we start digging into the political practices of the corporations we support, we’ll probably find few corporations that we feel entirely clean about supporting. Forget political donations of CEOs and employees. What about ethical practices of the companies themselves? The American food industry is literally killing us and, according to the UN, the majority of the world’s farm animals currently live in miserable factory conditions. According to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, “workers producing clothing for Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Kohl’s and Hanes at a factory in Jordan have been routinely beaten, underpaid and forced to work hours in excess of what the local law allows… and have been forced to live in bed bug-infested dormitories that lack heat and hot water…” According to a federal probe, BP’s cost cuts contributed to oil spill disaster.

I am all for taking ethical stands and only supporting companies whose business practices I can live with. But let’s be for real for a minute here. The majority of us still go to the grocery store, we eat factory farmed meat, wear clothes made in sweatshops, and drive cars that run on the oil of companies like BP. So let’s not feign a pick-and-choose moral superiority. Either we care about all this stuff–including donations to people like Santorum–or we don’t. Our culture has proven time and time that we don’t care, except when it becomes trendy. I wish that we did, but we don’t, and that all sucks, but until we all decide to actually really truly honestly consistently care about the ethical practices of the companies we economically support, arguments like Ms. Cyrus’ don’t hold a ton of weight with me. Because the next headline could just as easily be, “Miley Cyrus Supports Baby Birds Drowning in Spilled Oil!”or other such (true) nonsense.

[Okay, so I'm not touching the accusation of them stealing designs for smaller shops and designers. In another lifetime when I was part owner in a small production company we had numerous ideas--or at least critical elements of ideas--blatantly Bogarted by some of the TV stations I grew up loving. That Urban Outfitters has stolen designs makes them jerks. No doubt. To begrudgingly give them the benefit of the doubt, though, it's easy to imagine that this was the ethical lapse of one or a few staff designers, and not an organizational policy. Anyway.]

All of that out of the way, Urban Outfitters would be a complete culture changer on Granby Street. We all get this! We all know this! Here are ten reasons that I believe Urban Outfitters would be most excellent for Granby, Downtown Norfolk, Hampton Roads, and the Milky Way:

1. UO will lay the ground work for the kinds of business we really do want.

Places like Urban Outfitters create a market for all the kinds of independent local businesses that we love. If UO came to Granby suddenly there would be the foot traffic to support businesses like good art galleries, bakeries, a rad yoga studio, food trucks, a place like PATH, a shop selling locally made and designed Ts, an art supply store, and other boutique businesses. Right now there simply is not the foot traffic to sustain any of those businesses. UO–for all its corporate warts–would provide that, while also establishing Downtown Norfolk’s brand as certainly hipper than it is now to people (and businesses) from out of the area looking to move here.

It feels so real in black and white.

2. Urban Outfitters will help bolster our local artistic community.

I would have to respectfully disagree with one reader’s statement of “it would be counterproductive to support Urban Outfitters coming to Norfolk as the goal is to create an art scene here.” I think we too often look at the demand side of an issue and say there aren’t enough people here who care enough to support a good art scene. But I’m starting to see it more as a supply side issue. Until there is enough of a good art scene here, we can’t expect the art scene economy to develop to a point it can sustain itself. (Flies go to where there is honey; honey doesn’t go to the flies.)

I see the ancillary benefit of UO being it encourages people to think with a design aesthetic in mind. Not to hate on Norfolk and Hampton Roads, but when you look at the architecture of the buildings, the interior design of restaurants, even the public art, there’s clearly far too often not a huge emphasis on a unique, cohesive, artful aesthetic vision. Say what you will about UO, but they’ve got a lot of neat shit. Let’s lead the spenders first from the mall to UO, and the next logical step in sophistication is supporting local artists and designers. Or at least that’s my theory.

3. All of those empty storefronts on Granby make Norfolk look like it’s in decline. A bright, festive Urban Outfitters storefront will give the opposite impression.

4. It bears repeating: Urban Outfitters actually has some really cool stuff. They even had a Norfolk jacket once.

5. An Urban Outfitters Downtown just might, in some way, feel like the start of something. Somehow with UO on the scene it is easier to picture a Downtown Norfolk full of bike riders, with an innovative recycling program, where the streets are shut down for festivals and markets, and teeming with people who are openly gay, goth, and any other ‘g’ word typically picked on by frat dudes.

6. TCC’s downtown campus will seem even cooler and more desirable just by its proximity to an Urban Outfitters.

7. At one point Urban Outfitters helped bring Polaroid pictures back. If you don’t think that’s good and cool, change something about your life.

8. They have a sweet-looking blog.

9. UO has a tendency to work with historical buildings rather than tear them down. According to my old lover Wikipedia, in 2007 Urban Outfitters received the National Preservation Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the Urban Outfitters Corporate Office Campus located on the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. In choosing to live on Granby in a cool old building, UO would be forsaking Mac Mall, Town Center, and all the other places that are just fine but lack a certain soulful character I personally appreciate.

10. We need more people around here who can print words but make it feel like cursive:

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