Dollar Tree may occupy Sloane Medic Drug Store space

[Bill Call]

Dollar Tree stores are seriously considering using the space vacated by Medic.

There is a demand for retail space in Lakewood but it must have adequate parking. Much of the store front space in Lakewood is obsolete and is likely to remain vacant or be converted to small office space.

[Joan Roberts]

Dollar Tree stores are seriously considering using the space vacated by Medic.

There is a demand for retail space in Lakewood but it must have adequate parking. Much of the store front space in Lakewood is obsolete and is likely to remain vacant or be converted to small office space.

I think it's beyond "seriously considering" They have a sign up.
You're right. Parking drives everything.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Dollar Tree stores are seriously considering using the space vacated by Medic.

There is a demand for retail space in Lakewood but it must have adequate parking. Much of the store front space in Lakewood is obsolete and is likely to remain vacant or be converted to small office space.

I think it's beyond "seriously considering" They have a sign up.
You're right. Parking drives everything.

I agree Joan it is way past thinking. But I wonder about the parking problem. We have a story running this issue and next where Ken, Steve_X_2, and I went to the land of big box stores. At Walmart we were over 4 spaces away, at Crocker Park we were two block away.

I am not saying that businesses do not want parking, but...

The weird thing was Crocker Park was empty at least the stores we went in. And Walmart had so few people we were able to photograph at will without ever having to worry about others in the photos.

FWIW

[Kenneth Warren]

Jim:

While we thought we needed a coop, because retailers were neglecting us, we now have the 21st Century Five and Dime on the edge of the Emerald Canyon.

That's exciting news, an innovative back to the future single price point retail model disruptive to both Walmart and drug stores but wholly consonant with America's rush to the bottom.

All those $9.97s looked like bargains at Walmart.

Now Lakewood can attack the Big Box leakage with small scale, cheap, price and convenience.

Here's something from "Innovators’ Insight"
May 17, 2004
#12: What Worries Wal-Mart?

"Let’s look at the dollar store phenomenon first. Dollar stores sell a limited range of products at extremely low prices, with most merchandise costing less than $10. Category leaders Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree operate small outlets that offer stripped-down service in high-traffic urban areas and in small towns.

Wal-Mart is trying to fight back in this arena by testing a “Pennies-n-Centsâ€Â￾ section within some of its stores that offers similar products to dollar stores at similar prices. Is Wal-Mart following the right course?

In general, assessing whether a company is responding properly to an emerging attacker requires addressing two issues. First, you have to determine if the attacker is armed with an innovation that is sustaining or disruptive to the defender. Then you have to determine if the defender’s response strategy is appropriate to the circumstances it faces.

Following this line of thinking, we first need to assess whether the dollar store strategy is disruptive to Wal-Mart. Some aspects of it most certainly are. Dollar stores are trying to operate on a new basis of competition: simplicity and convenience. The limited range of merchandise allows them to operate stores in easy-to-reach locations. These aspects fit the pattern of low-end disruption, bringing simple, low-cost solutions to customers who don’t need the 125,000 products available at a standard Wal-Mart.

But certain aspects of the dollar store strategy don’t fit the pattern of low-end disruption. Low-end disruptors typically use financial models that make money in new ways, usually with lower gross margins and higher asset utilization, measured by things such as sales per square foot, inventory turnover, and capacity utilization."

For more:
http://www.seeingwhatsnext.com/insights/insight12.pdf

Now we must realize we have only begun to hunt the cheap stuff for hard times.

Be sure to get your ad guy on the case, and let's do a story, too.

"Dollar Tree is embarking on a more aggressive ad campaign, including TV and radio. The campaign is expected to cover some 23 markets, up from 14 last year, and revolves around the chain's strong seasonal selection.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... 8022/print

Dollar Tree should become your first big national account.

Here's the Dollar Tree Company Overview

"Where everything's $1.

Walk into one of our stores and it hits you immediately: this is a place where shopping is fun. We call it "Thrill of the Hunt". We have worked hard to create an environment where our customers can discover new treasures every week. Where entire families can enjoy looking for that special something.

Our stores are bright, clean, fun, and well organized. They're stocked with a wide array of gift bags, party supplies, housewares, seasonal decor, candy and food, toys, health and beauty care, gifts, stationery, books, and a variety of consumer items. And everything is priced at $1!

Conveniently located in shopping centers and malls, we are a national company with stores in all 48 contiguous states."

Kenneth Warren

[Suzanne Metelko]

Ken, My questions are these: how do we know we wanted a Dollar Store? How does this fit into the overall community development plan for retail? How does this fit into the community vision? What will the economic impact be of a Dollar Store?

[Joan Roberts]

Hi, Suzanne.

As someone who has had their posts misinterpreted, I'll only respond to yours with the proviso that I can retract everything if I've misread you.
But your post triggered my conservative capitalist warning system.
Last I heard it was the City of Lakewood, not the People's Republic of same. "We" don't get to decide what legal enterprises an investor can undertake on property zoned for the purpose. After all, who's "we" anyway? Dollar Tree, I'm certain, did its due diligence and market research and concluded they could be successful in that location. They don't have to ask "we"...I mean, "us." We get to decide after the fact, with our dollars. My guess is, we do "want" one of these stores.
As for your other three questions, they're interersting but also immaterial. I'm sure the owner of Dollar Tree would tell you that you can do whatever you like with the rest of your overall community development plan, vision, etc. What happens in the rest of Lakewood is of interest only to the extent that it affects his (or maybe it's her) profit.
"We" are perfectly empowered to choose whether or not we want to patronize this business, although I'm pretty sure many of "us' will.
As for the economic impact to Lakewood, I'd point out that there is a dollar store next to Pat Catan's on Berea Rd, one in Warren Village, and a new one just over the bridge in River. So Lakewoodites are already shopping in those stores. My guess is that they're more of an irriitannt to their bigger competitors than anything else.

[Suzanne Metelko]

Joan,

My questions were just that - questions. No communinist, capitalist, it's more about good parenting. Bob and I didn't wait until Hilary's senior year to try and figure out how to pay for college. We started thinking about retirement when we got married. My home didn't look like it does now when we bought it. We planned it, we purchased it and decorated it as we could afford but we just didn't throw up wall covering, window treatments and furniture just to have those things. I know what the effective life of my boiler, hot water tank and roof are. I plan for those expenses. I budget for car repairs and purchases. I expect a catatastrophe and we have savings for that. We drove old cars and ate a lot of macaroni to make some of those things happen. But we didn't just wait for stuff to hit the fan.

My point was that if we're not careful, we will have development, but it may not be what we're hoping for. That could mean the gentrification of our neighborhoods or a Wallmart. But right now, I don't think the community knows or has been asked.

The planning sessions at LHS were hard work and fun. I look forward to similar opportunites from the city.

Suzanne

[Joan Roberts]

]\
Suzanne.

I understand. It's just not within a city's legal domain to say, "we don't want this" and "we don't want that."
Some cities have tried to block Wal-Marts with varying store size and other zoning ordinances, and many have spent hundreds of thousands in legal fees, only to lose.
That's the twin (evi?) brother of the eminent domain debate. If I own a piece of property, who says I can't sell it to Wal-Mart? \
In the case of the new Dollar Tree, I believe Medic is basically going out of business or at least has decided to close quite a few stores in the Cleveland area. Dollar Tree may not be Nordstrom's but it's better than an empty building.
The idea, then, is to work as hard as you can to see to it that Lakewood's commercial properties are filled by the kinds of businesses you'd like to see.
You really have no other (legal) choice.

[Suzanne Metelko]

Joan,

We can control this to some extent and that would be by developing a vision and a plan to implement that vision. Other communities have been very successful doing that. As for Wallmart, the towns that have failed to block Wallmarts have failed to put into place ordinances, policies, etc. that make it difficult or unattractive for them to be there. You can't wait until they're there to decide how to get them out! Then again, we don't know if we want a Wallmart.

Suzanne

[Kenneth Warren]

Suzanne:

I am not much of a shopper. I didn't dream a Dollar Tree for the edge of the Emerald Canyon.

Since we don't own the property, we don't get to pick, as Joan suggests.

The market is showing us what we know from the demos we track.

Your point is, obviously, our city needs a master plan, a vision for development. Otherwise the market and the dollar will speak in ways that smother the potential for a larger community vision.

I understand.

The voice of the market and the dollar is louder and more pragmatic than my communal dream of an Emerald Canyon Coop. Or Mark Schroeder's Third Place book store at Medic.

These are fast moving times. There is velocity in retail. We snooze; we lose.

The good news with Dollar Tree is Lakewood is tracking and not lagging a major retail industry trend.

Kurt Barnard, Barnard's Retail Consulting Groups, says of the Dollar stores, "They're the greatest invention since sliced bread for the shopper."

I must look for the bright side to be read in the spread of the Dollar Channel to suburban and middle-class urban zones.

From doing anthropological inquiries about retail in Lakewood I have come to see in a very primitive way how the availability of retail venues with desired supplies is pretty much all people are seeking. What I have learned from inquiries of women attending Lakewood Futures programs at the library is that affordable, practical retail opportunities are what they want.

They'd like a Target, a Cosco. But those two are not in the cards.

Into the Lakewood void rushes Dollar Tree. I am sure many people will be happy shoppers.

At least Lakewood is on the radar screen of a small-format value retailer dedicated to bringing larger brand name manufacturers at a cheap price.

We don't have to envy Rocky River their Dollar Tree, I hope.

With Dollar Tree, targeting annual household incomes of slightly less than $50K, we are one up from Family Dollar, which targets the lowest end of the consumer spectrum.

Dollar Tree's best selling categories are party goods, greeting cards, gift wraps and batteries. So Party Center might not have wanted this enterpise to come to Lakewood.

So I want toThe shift from Medic to Dollar Tree can be read in different ways.

Dollar Tree is looking to become a destination in itself. Perhaps that will help the Bin. But I can't say for sure.

With communal dreams dashed near the petroglyphs on the canyon's rocky all I want is an ad from Dollar Tree for the Lakewood Observer.

Kenneth Warren

[Lynn Farris]

While we can't stop legitimate business from opening in our city, nor should we, we can market and recruit the ones we want.

Wal Mart it is my understanding doesn't do anything without large tax abatements. If we don't want WalMArt, we don't have to give the tax abatement.

A citizens group in Oberlin tried to get rid of them by passing a living wage law, figuring they wouldn't pay a living wage. They exempted the college etc. but the law went down to defeat.

[Joan Roberts]

But here's the good news. NOTHING is STOPPING you from realizing your dream of a coop or a "third place" bookstore or whatever, whererver.
Lots of folks have said they want a bookstore, and I guarantee you that more than a few people, be they corporate barons or individual entrepreneurs, have checked it out, looked at the figures,and said, "darn, it looked like such a GOOD idea."
I've given up on bookstores, but I'm flabbergasted that the "City of Homes" doesn't have a single GARDEN CENTER. I know my plants. Wanna trust me with your retirement to let me start one?
As you correctly said, we don't get what we want as much as what the people with the capital believe we deserve. We can want all we want, but we can't change that.

Our posts crossed, Lynn. i totally agree. Encouraging businesses is a lot better than trying to stop them. And the Dollar Tree sign is on the pole in the parking lot.
By the way, I LIKE dollar stores. They're fun. I don't need an upscale shopping experience for pens, light bulbs, and dish soap. Ken's right. They're really just Kresge's reborn (without the snack bar)

[Suzanne Metelko]

I just want to be clear - I did not advocate stopping the Dollar store. I didn't say I didn't want a Dollar store. I was trying to make the point that we don't KNOW how the Dollar store will fit within our plan because WE DON'T HAVE ONE. I'm just trying to make the point that we can try to control our destiny to some extent or we can just drift along hoping it all works out. I'm not in favor of the latter.

I absolutely believe that we should be actively marketing our town. But if we want sustainable development then we had better understand how a Dollar Store or a Talbots or a Wal Mart or a Judson Retirement Community or a new Cleveland Clinic or a University of Akron or a cool new development on the lake, fits into our plan so that we can work to bring retail or any development to our city that can be sustained. It is a win/win.

[Kenneth Warren]

I can detect a simple Laizzes Fair eloquence to the Dollar Tree development landing, perhaps from the will of Allah, on the edge of the Emerald Canyon.

This simple Laizzes Fair eloquence attests to the force behind a number of old chestnuts now breaking into the communal planning vision:

1) Demography is destiny;

2) Markets are dynamic;

3) Money isn’t everything, but it’s more than anything else.

Thus far our thread about the community’s reception and perception of Dollar Tree raises three fundamental questions:

1) What drives the political economy in Lakewood?

2) What is the theory of economic development in Lakewood?

3) How is economic development practiced in Lakewood?

We can see as we track various demographic segmentations such as P$YCLE and Prism for Lakewood (see http://www.lkwdpl.org/focus) that the Dollar Tree makes perfect sense for the market as it exists here and now, with the anticipated cash flows reflected in the demos and cultural values.

Speaking in terms of P$YCLE, Dollar Tree is targeting a market well above the $30,000 Mass Market (35% of Lakewood), on the cusp of the Lower Affluent.

“Lower affluence is a relative term since these households are still well-above average in terms of household income, making $50,000 to $74,999 per year. They are more mainstream than their Upper Affluent peers and they tend to be employed as managers, professionals, or experienced craftsmen. However, they are similar to the Upper Affluent group in their use of financial services, but they maintain more modest balances and slightly lower penetration rates. The Lower Affluent group includes 4,518 households in Lakewood (17.5% of all Lakewood households).

Will the Mass Market migrate from Marcs to the edge of the Emerald Canyon for a “funâ€Â￾ shopping experience, rubbing shoulders with those on the cusp of Lower Affluent?

The smaller sized bargain objects in Dollar Tree rather than the bulk bundles of Cosco and Sam’s Club also fit the singles and down-sized Lakewood demos.

Some may feel an upscale shopping venue is their preferred future, but it unlikely that such a development will achieve the simple Laizzes Fair eloquence of the Dollar Tree on the edge of Emerald Canyon.

Here we stumble into the public/private partnership with its subsidization of retail, with its socialization of the risk, privatization of the profit, not a good idea in my opinion.

At the first Lakewood Alive meeting there was talk of hitting singles rather than grand slams on the economic development front?

Does Dollar Tree, with its simple Laizzes Fair eloquence landing on the edge of the Emerald Canyon, classify as a single?

As Joan says, the Dollar Tree is “fun.â€Â￾

That seems like a hit. We need “funâ€Â￾ in these scary economic times.

Whose batting average goes up with a Dollar Tree hit?

Tom Jordan? The Mayor? The Chamber of Commerce? Lakewood Alive? Mr. Nobodaddy?

Is anyone keeping score?

Kenneth Warren

[Stephen Calhoun]

Ken.

I would just love to know what percentage of the Upper Affluent segment's disposable income outside of housing and fuel costs gets spent in Lakewood.

My guess is that the less affluent one is, the more likely the hard won dollar stays close to home.

Any data?