What’s wrong with us?
On the Flying Star restaurant website the slogan “You’re never far from a Flying Star” is heralded. However, if you live in Southwest Albuquerque, you are far away – quite far. While there are seven Flying Stars in the Albuquerque area, there are none west of the river and south of I-40.
Another restaurant, Weck’s, has five locations, also none west of the river and south of I-40. Of the five Home Depot and four Lowe’s home centers in the Albuquerque area, again, none are west of the river, south of I-40.
A big boost to Southwest Mesa residents’ hopes for much-desired commercial development was dashed earlier this year when Lowe’s, which had committed to opening a home center at Unser and Central, withdrew at the last minute despite spending a considerable amount of money preparing the site they own. They blamed the tanking economy for their decision.
It turns out while this year they did close 20 underperforming stores nationwide and reduced new store openings from the 30 planned, they did open 25 new stores. Later, they lamely claimed that the southwest area of Albuquerque had too many rental units to justify opening the planned store.
Their decision caused other planned Unser Crossing businesses to shelve their plans.
A Target location that had been announced for Unser and I-40 several years ago was withdrawn in favor of a store in the Uptown area, a store that is being fought by local residents and that is within three miles of two existing Target stores.
It’s claimed that national stores study demographics closely when deciding where to open new locations. What do they look at? Population, income, competition, ethnicity? Why did Lowe’s buy land and prepare it for construction of their home center initially and suddenly withdraw?
While it is easy to blame the economy, they still opened 25 new stores! It’s a pretty safe bet that they opened many in smaller market areas than the growing Southwest Mesa of Albuquerque.
Albuquerque as a whole is actually overbuilt with retail space. But while many storefronts in other parts of the city are now vacant, Southwest Albuquerque has almost no storefronts. It is a virtual virgin landscape for retail shops, restaurants, movie theaters, etc.
If one includes adjacent county residents, in the past decade the Southwest Albuquerque market area has grown dramatically to now include upward of 165,000 souls, yet it is ignored by national corporations and, worse, by local businesses.
While many parts of the city fight to keep large retailers at bay – take note of demonstrations against a proposed Walmart at Coors and Montaño and the proposed Uptown Target, among others – residents of Southwest Albuquerque practically plead for Target, Lowe’s and other retailers of that type.
We shop at their stores, but must travel many miles to reach them. Money spent on gasoline could instead fill the cash registers of retailers that would locate close to our homes. Come on! We’re not asking for a Lord & Taylor!
National and local retailers should rethink their attitude toward us. For too many years, we have had almost no takers despite long pent-up demand for goods and services. Consider that the Dion’s pizza parlor that was finally coaxed to open here is consistently first or second in revenue. The new CVS pharmacy at Unser Crossing is also first or second in revenue in New Mexico.
There is money to be made on this side of town!
Norman Mason is the president of the Stinson Tower Neighborhood Association.
