In this occasional series, we try to inject some facts into wild and woolly rumors which float through town and social media.
Rumor: The Town is contemplating providing incentives to bring in a grocery store.
Nope. Not at all. We did commission a grocery-store study (funded by a federal grant), because we wanted to learn more about grocery stores with pharmacies. By the time Rite Aid expressed an interest in coming to town, we were already committed to the study. So we let it run its course with the simple goal of learning more about our market.
We are not recruiting a grocery store. And further, if we were recruiting a grocery store, we would not be offering incentives because we don’t like the idea of using public funds to compete with existing businesses. (This principle also explains why our Wellness Quarter concept doesn’t have a fitness center.)
Is another grocery store coming? We don’t have any reason to think so, but we imagine that we have a couple of landowners pitching all sorts of businesses.
So the bottom line here is that despite what you read on social media and despite the, umm, exuberance of the study, the town is not recruiting grocery stores, nor are we thinking of offering incentives to grocery stores, nor do we know of any grocery stores thinking of coming here, but neither do we know what private landowners might be working on.
And if you want to see the study which caused so much commotion, here it is.