[Durham INC] Subsidizing Save-A-Lot

[Michael Brooks]

John,

I thought this was a eloquent, reasonable and important letter, 
expressing your opinion as someone involved in community activities. No 
polemics, no one got "blasted", but rather the letter presents facts, 
personal involvement, and questions that an involved citizen would like 
answered, since public money is being spent (apparently somewhat 
precipitously) on the project.

Good job -- a nice example of civilized dialogue!

Mike Brooks, Parkwood

On 1/10/2012 2:54 PM, John Martin wrote:
> /In the interests of full disclosure, I sent the following email to 
> the City Council and Tom Bonfield and Kevin Dick. I mentioned my 
> position in INC because I think it is relevant, but I did not claim 
> that what I have to say represents INC. No one, to my knowledge, has 
> had time to weigh in on this. /
> /
> /
> /If you missed Ray Gronberg's story in the Herald-Sun, here it is:/
> /
> /
> /http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/16988450/article-City-approves-incentives-for-new-Alston-grocery-?/
> /
> /
> /
> /
>
> Mayor Bell and Members of the City Council,
>
>
> I was very surprised to read in the Herald-Sun that the City Council 
> voted 6-0 to give $150,000 of taxpayers’ money to a private company to 
> renovate the old Winn-Dixie at the corner of Liberty St. and Alston 
> Ave. I would like to raise the following issues and questions:
>
>
>  1. The City needs to talk to neighborhoods about projects like this.
>     As vice-president of the Golden Belt Neighborhood Association and
>     president of the Durham Inter-Neighborhood Council, I did not know
>     that anything like this was still being considered. Two years ago,
>     this was talked about, but it seemed to fall apart. When did the
>     City start reconsidering this? What neighborhoods did it consult,
>     and when? Specifically, which persons were consulted?
>  2. According to the Herald-Sun, the City did not talk to an existing
>     grocery store, Los Primos, about moving to the site. Instead the
>     City has apparently chosen to give $150,000 to a large
>     out-of-state corporation, headquartered in Eden Prairie,
>     Minnesota, rather than a locally-operated, minority-owned,
>     business. Supervalu, the parent of Save-A-Lot, has a corporate
>     market capitalization of 1.75 billion dollars, according to Bank
>     of America/Merrill Lynch. Why did the City prefer to subsidize a
>     large corporation rather than a local, small business?
>  3. What kind of store will Save-A-Lot be? According to Mr. Kevin
>     Dick, in his presentation to the Council, Save-A-Lot will increase
>     the “availability of healthy produce and fresh meats,” and lessen
>     the “food desert” in Northeast Central Durham. Mr. Dick’s
>     presentation would lead us to believe that Save-A-Lot is a smaller
>     version of Whole Foods. In fact, according to Standard and Poor’s
>     corporate stock report: “Save-A-Lot food stores are typically
>     15,000 square feet and stock 1400 high volume food items as well
>     as a limited number of general merchandise items. The majority of
>     food products offered for sale are private label products. The
>     company positions itself to offer low prices by carrying a limited
>     selection of the most frequently purchased goods.” Thus, the City
>     Council should be under no illusion that it is providing funds to
>     establish a high-quality grocery store. Save-A-Lot is the grocery
>     equivalent of Dollar General, and while such stores are welcome,
>     they are not normally subsidized by the government.
>  4. How big will this store be? The contract says it will be
>     “approximately” 12,202 square feet. That size is twenty percent
>     smaller than the average Save-A-Lot, which means that the store
>     will carry a smaller selection of goods than even a typical
>     Save-A-Lot.
>  5. The existing Winn-Dixie building is 8,256 square feet according to
>     tax records. Thus the existing building will need to be expanded
>     by about 50% in order to reach the contract size. Yet the
>     rendering included in Mr. Dick’s presentation simply shows the
>     same building with a new facade. How do they propose to expand
>     this building? Given that the proposed Alston Ave. widening will
>     take some of the existing parking lot, an expansion seems
>     problematic. Has the Council actually seen a proposed building plan?
>  6. The Herald-Sun cites Mr. Dick as saying that neither Los Primos
>     nor the TROSA Grocery on Angier Ave. “are the kind of stores that
>     someone can walk in and do a week’s shopping, a niche that the
>     Save-A-Lot should fill. . .” I live a block-and-a-half from Los
>     Primos, and I go several times a week. I see many people who are
>     doing their weekly shopping. Moreover, Los Primos offers free
>     delivery to people without automobiles. Will Save-A-Lot do the
>     same? In any case, according to the tax records, Los Primos is
>     10,203 square feet, almost 25% larger than the present Winn-Dixie,
>     and about 16% smaller than the Save-A-Lot will be if it is
>     expanded to 12,000 square feet. Is it really creditable to believe
>     that 16% more space is the difference between being able to do
>     weekly shopping or not?
>  7. What effect will this new store have on Alston Ave. widening?
>     Originally, the planned widening would have destroyed Los Primos.
>     The plan was changed to save Los Primos because of the
>     “environmental justice” issue: there would be no grocery store in
>     the neighborhood. If Save-A-Lot moves in, will the Council allow
>     DOT to revert to the original plan and destroy Los Primos? If so,
>     Mr. Dick’s claims of “new jobs” produced by the incentives is
>     imaginary. The “new jobs” will be bought at the price of jobs lost
>     at Los Primos. Moreover, a local, minority-owned, business will
>     have been destroyed chiefly for the benefit of a large
>     corporation. Is this what the Council intends?
>  8. The old Winn-Dixie is an eyesore, and everyone would like to have
>     it improved. That said, it is important to remember how we got
>     this eyesore. Winn Dixie closed the store in the mid-1980’s after
>     getting “incentives” to open a new store in Phoenix Square. If
>     Save-A-Lot causes TROSA Grocery to close, we will just be
>     repeating this scenario: a new store causes an old store to close
>     and creates a new eyesore where the old store used to be. If TROSA
>     Grocery closes, how will that benefit the Angier Ave./Driver St.
>     area that the City has proposed spending large amounts of money to
>     improve?
>  9. Ultimately, Winn-Dixie went bankrupt and closed all of their North
>     Carolina stores. There is obviously no guarantee that this
>     Save-A-Lot, if opened, will necessarily stay in business.
>     According to Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, the parent company,
>     Supervalu, has closed an average of 55 stores per year during the
>     last five years. The company also has a high level of debt, and it
>     has been trying to deal with its highly-leveraged position by
>     cutting costs and closing unprofitable stores.
> 10. Finally, I am personally disturbed by the disparagement of Los
>     Primos. The claim that Northeast Central Durham is a “food desert”
>     is based on nothing more than the personal preferences of some
>     people. But I go into Los Primos regularly. It is a thriving,
>     vibrant store that supplies ethnic foods that will almost
>     certainly not be among the Brand-X goods offered by Save-A-Lot. If
>     it is destroyed in favor of Save-A-Lot, you will be killing a
>     genuinely diverse store. Is this what you want?
>
> Please rethink this.
>
>
> John Martin
>
>
>
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