Councilman Shares Resident's Concern About 'Inconvenience'
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
City Councilman Jerry Frush brought a friend’s concern about how “inconvenient” the city of Warsaw has become to the Redevelopment Commission Monday.
In her email, Renee Lucas, of Hoffman Estates, Ill., and a third-generation owner of a farm on CR 300S, cited the closing of Marsh Supermarket on Buffalo Street and Ace Hardware on East Center Street, the congested parking lot of Owen’s Supermarket on East Center and having to drive to a big box store for a small hardware purchase.
In their response, Commission members said they’re constantly working on projects, but also that retail shopping has changed because people do it more online now.
Frush told the board he received the email from Lucas Sunday night and that Lucas comes to Warsaw as often as she can to relax. In part of the letter he read to the board, Lucas wrote, “In many ways I’m sure economic progress continues, but redevelopment of basic necessities is in need of immediate attention.”
Commission President Tim Meyer asked Frush, “In what ways, sir?”
Frush said he didn’t know.
“As a redevelopment commission, we have addressed a lot of different projects here and I’d like to know what her specific objection is,” Meyer said. “If we are to address any issues, I need more exactly of what she means.”
Frush said he could email Lucas back and ask, and Meyer told him to, please. Meyers said the commission is always happy to hear from the public and what their recommendations are.
“We’ve addressed some very major issues here in the last few years with the Tech Park and the Buffalo Street project and Market Street and on and on. That being said, some things surprise us like the Marsh store closing and the Owen’s store closing. We hear that after the fact,” Meyer said, noting that the Marsh building is being repurposed by Cardinal Center.
He said Lucas’ letter that said Warsaw doesn’t have the same “feel” is a pretty “vague” remark. He said he didn’t have any problem with anyone bringing an issue before the commission, he’d just like more specifics and recommendations.
George Clemens, commission member, said, “Unfortunately, those problems aren’t unique to Warsaw. Small grocery store. Hardware store. It just changes all the time. You can’t deal with big companies like Kroger’s, they’re not going to listen. ... Ace Hardware, they tried to sell that for a year or two. It’s a very large building. They just couldn’t.”
Meyer said Martin’s and Meijer moved in and created a lot of competition. “Normally you would welcome competition. The problem we get into is, it might not be located where you would like it to be,” he said.
Mayor Joe Thallemer said everyone knows how retail is changing tremendously from brick-and-mortar to online.
“We’re certainly concerned about the grocery part of what’s going on. We didn’t choose that. It’s tough and we’re working hard on trying to come up with a solution,”?he said.
City Planner Jeremy Skinner said it’s a social question.
“I could go back to Renee and ask how many times have you shopped online in the last six months. At the same time, they want brick-and-mortar stores. Well, retail is changing and it’s changing because of convenience. We’re all very busy, so how do we conveniently get something? We reach out and grab our phone and buy it. And at the same time, when we’re driving down the road, we say, ‘Well, I wish that Ace was there.’ But you didn’t buy the screws from Ace. You bought them and they’re shipped to your house. So it’s a social issue: How convenient do we want to get and how convenient would it be to have Ace, because you can’t have it both ways,” Skinner said.
Retail is changing therefore because of the convenience of buying online.
“Progress is great but progress really changes things,” he said. “... The same thing we’re all complaining about, we’re doing to ourselves.”
