The Observation Deck

So what are we? chopped liver??? That store and shopping center were remodeled only a few years ago.

Stan Austin wrote:So what are we? chopped liver??? That store and shopping center were remodeled only a few years ago.

I'm glad you asked!

When the city of Lakewood agreed to the construction of the Giant Giant Get Go on Bunts did they get any assurances that Lakewood would be getting something in return? A Gold's Gym and condos would have added some value to the City.

What value is added by a really big gas station?

Are we selling ourselves to cheaply?

I like the really big gas station.
It's very convenient, clean, and it does a good business.
I don't understand the complaints about the addition of a successful business...some of the people on this Deck have bellyached about it from the moment it was announced.

As for our Giant Eagle, I'm sure they will do some work on it.
This market is very large and GE can't afford to lose it.

I second that emotion on the gas station. Always busy and clean. And they provide free air stations, a nice touch.

I'm not a total devotee of Giant Eagle, but it's not nearly objectionable enough that I'd take my dollars out of the city.

So, Giant Eagle has 3 stores less than 3 miles from the Bunts Rd store. The store on w117 is maybe 5 years old. There are rumors of different store type (Market District Express?) to be built at 117 & Clifton and a multi million dollar renovation in Rocky River.

Does it make any sense to pour more cash into the Bunts Rd store to make it just like the other stores just a stones throw away? Or might Bunts become a Good Cents Grocery?

Dave Mechenbier wrote:Does it make any sense to pour more cash into the Bunts Rd store to make it just like the other stores just a stones throw away? Or might Bunts become a Good Cents Grocery?

I think a Gold's Gym and condos on the Get Go site would have been better. The City did just fine without the new Get Go. If Giant Eagle needed the City of Lakewood's cooperation to build the Get Go the City should have received some guarantees about the Bunts Road store. Why give Giant Eagle a premium location without asking for something in return?

Of course Drug Mart made all kinds of guarantees to the people of Grace. When the store was built the guarantees meant nothing.

The City is too quick to accept a development proposal. The new Drug Mart, Dollar Store and Value World are NOT value added development. They ARE doing real damage to the entire East end. Of course while areas like Crocker Park and downtown are eligible for hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies Lakewood is not. I guess we have a built in disadvantage.

Why is the leadership of this town so afraid to challenge the development model that subsidizes downtown and subsidizes development in the exurbs while starving the rest of Cuyahoga County?

I suppose a Good Cents Store is a possibility. A Good Cents Grocery would be bad for the City but the time to stop it was before the Get Go was built. I guess we will just have to wait and see what the people in Pittsburgh have in store for us.

If Pittsburgh wants to give Lakewood another Dollar Store I suppose I'll be shopping at the Heinen's in Rocky River.

Who knows? Maybe Giant Eagle will give Lakewood a value added store like Market District. But the time to make that argument was BEFORE the new Get Go was built.

I've said it here before and I'll say it again:

Giant Eagle: Pittsburgh-based and mega-corporate.

Heinen's: NEOhio-based and family-owned/operated.

Shop Heinen's for six months and you may be shocked at how much money you save.

And don't let all those food perks fuel perks scams fool you!

[quote="Bill Call"][quote="Dave Mechenbier"]
The new Drug Mart, Dollar Store and Value World are NOT value added development. They ARE doing real damage to the entire East end. quote]


How? What(who) is the Roots of that damage?

[quote="Bill Call"] The City did just fine without the new Get Go. [/quote]

Apparently you never bought gas at the old GetGo otherwise you would never would make such a silly statement. They doubled the number of pumps and added a huge convenience store with tons more merchandise that was not available at the old one.

Peter Grossetti wrote:I've said it here before and I'll say it again:

Giant Eagle: Pittsburgh-based and mega-corporate.

Heinen's: NEOhio-based and family-owned/operated.

Shop Heinen's for six months and you may be shocked at how much money you save.

And don't let all those food perks fuel perks scams fool you!

Actually, we have tried switching our shopping to Heinens twice and are surprised at how much MORE it cost us than Giant Eagle. I think there are a lot of variables that decide whether Heinens/GE is right for you: how many people in your family, what do you shop for, where else do you shop, how often to do you shop, etc.

In addition, I personally feel the Heinens in RR does not have a wide variety of items. Many times I want to run in just for something specific and they don't have it. And, this may just be me, but I cannot stand the RR Heinens' parking lot.

I'm personally a fan of the new Get Go - the old one could get so crowded at times and you'd be sitting in line into the street for 10 minutes waiting your turn. The new one is certainly nicer, much easier to get in and out of, and is always busy even with so many more pumps so it definitely seems like it was needed.

I love Heinen's but the parking lot there is atrocious. And they do seem to have less variety per item but more variety overall in terms of specialty foods - it's a trade off. I feel they do have a good variety for such a small store.

The new GetGo is great, whenever I go there it seems to be used heavily. Can't wait to go next door to the new Bob Evans.

Heinen's is OK but pricy, I go there mainly for meats...and get the rest from GE at a lower price. As others mentioned, the parking lot has much to be desired and reminds me of the reason I don't often go to Marc's plaza.

I don't think starving Giant Eagle out of town is a good strategy for improving retail food shopping in Lakewood. In fact, if Lakewood's most affluent already "only drive West" to shop as some have indicated here and elsewhere, Giant Eagle may have determined that its improvement dollars are best spent in River sprucing up that store to lure discriminating Lakewood shoppers away from Heinens. Pure speculation of course, but...

I have no idea what management is like at GE Lakewood, but I've seen the same employees there for years, with not a lot of turnover... many of them I would imagine live in Lakewood. They also have some special needs folks working cart returns and bagging. It's a solid, functional store and a reasonable citizen of the city, from my perspective.

I have nothing against Heinens, but they are 1) based in Warrensville Heights, and 2) not within the city limits. What does this do for me?

Finally, it's not like we don't have a Nature's Bin here. And that's actually "West" for most Lakewood residents.

Paul Schrimpf wrote:Finally, it's not like we don't have a Nature's Bin here. And that's actually "West" for most Lakewood residents.

A Lakewood resident once told me that she "shops West, never East". Those four words illustrate the challenge facing Lakewood.

A Gold's Gym and condominium project on Bunts and Detroit would have been better for the City than a Bob Evans and Giant Eagle. Having said that the new Get Go IS a very nice store. If Bob Evans encourages people to think "East and not West" it can be a plus as well.

I think a Market District Store would do very well in Lakewood and would encourage people to Think East. The time for the City to encourage a Market District Store on Bunts was BEFORE the Get Go was built.

How can Lakewood build on recent positive developments? How can we avoid the fate of the rest of Cuyahoga County?

A good start would be for our Mayor and Council to fight County institutions like Tri-C and the Cleveland Clinic and publically oppose their development policies. In a nut shell the development policy of our regional institutions is to:

Subsidize downtown

Subsidize urban sprawl

Squeeze the middle

And

Redefine the REGION to mean anything within 150 miles of Downtown Cleveland

By redefining the region our institutions hide the negative affects of their policies. Somewhere in a recent PD editorial the writers actually wrote that if we counted all the residents of Medina, Lake, Ashtabula, Lorain and Summit County the region has hardly lost any population at all. Success!!

Why... if we count the people of Western Pennsylvania as part of our region we are actually growing!!!

Leaving aside the motivations behind their policies the affects are clear, counter productive and chilling.