No name dropping in Podunk

It's a case of if they build it, we will shop. But the question is where will we be shopping?

The public hearing into redevelopment of a parcel of land on Highway 16, attracted a larger than usual crowd to the City Hall chambers on Monday night. Interested Podunkians gathered to learn more about the development and perhaps try and find out which of the Big Box retailers had its covetous eye on the Podunk shopping dollar.

For the most part they went home not much further informed than when they got there. The developer the Royop Corporation took questions and explained what it's vision for the BC Hydro site would be.

The development is described as a shopping village, which will consist of two major retailers and four or five smaller retailers. For anyone who has been to Prince George, probably the best example would be the College Heights development which has a Wal Mart, Home Depot and Canadian Tire serving as the Big Brothers/Sisters to the little retailers. For those curious minds, the Royop website offers up a number of examples of what they have done in the past or are currently working on.

The bulk of the discussion seemed to center on concerns about the small businesses of Third Avenue, and how they may go under with the new competition. There was also the other side of the coin, as others pointed to the steady flow of traffic out of town presently heading towards Terrace and its big box stores.

The most vocal proponents of the Shopping Village seemed to be the car dealers of Podunk, who were strongly in favour of developing the shopping Mecca of Highway 16. Perhaps they have had the most to lose the last number of years, as countless Podunkians went to Terrace to shop and may have ended up buying a car while browsing the lots of Terrace.

There were some who didn't quite share in the euphoria over the advent of the Big Box culture, only one of the current council candidates made a public declaration about the development. Joy Thorkelson expressed concerns over the plans. Calling for a study whether the net migration of money out of town, really justified a development that might put pressure on current businesses in town. It will be interesting to see if her stand will result in more or less votes for her on election day.

Other local business owners also suggested that the current population base of Podunk might have trouble supporting both the Big Boxes and the little merchants at the same time. Some expressed fears that the Podunk downtown core would suffer greatly with a shopping village on the outskirts of town. Others questioned the environmental aspect of the streams in the development area and how much the necessary infrastructure would cost a city not exactly flush in money at the time.

At any rate the guessing game will continue for a little bit longer. The would be development would be the first major retail project in Podunk since the Canada Safeway project some five years or more ago. (update: sean at seanincognito advises me that the Safeway project was over 12 years ago, my how time flies eh, thanks for the timestamp sean). Royop declined to name the interested retailers at the meeting, stating that negotiations were still under way. They did drop the tantalizing hint that one of the merchants was anxious to get started as soon as February.

As noted in a Podunk passim, the list of rumoured merchants is long and is more of a wish list of Podunkians than a real hard and fast roster of would be retailers. So until the development gets under way we'll all just have to sing the Big Box Mart song and wait to see what develops.

Update: For those that don't read the comments section below, there was a great resource mentioned to follow the debate at a message board called hackingthemainframe. Check it out to get an idea as to the discussion of this and other Podunk issues.