With Target planning to open in Madison in the Summer of 2012, Walmart has accelerated their plans to open a store just to the west of the Target site in Huntsville city limits. Pending a City Council vote later this month, Huntsville is planning to provide up to $1.4 million in infrastructure improvements for the store and its surrounding center, Colonial Promenade. In addition to the 180,000 sq. ft. Walmart, the center will have 55,000 and 75,000 sq. ft. anchor stores along with 50,000 sq. ft. of small shop space. The Walmart is expected to open in Spring of 2012.
Site plan of Colonial Promenade
Lets see drive from Huntsville through Madison to get to Huntsville again for a Walmart. Nice of Huntsville to get the tax dollars of the nearby residents from the city of Madison...Woopee...
ReplyDeleteThe new Wal-Mart will be 6 miles from the University location, 7.5 miles from the Hwy 20 one, and 11 miles east of the one in Athens.
ReplyDeleteSurely, Wal-Mart's real estate team has done the research to show that the region can support so many stores, but I'm still a little amazed to think that it actually can.
So, is Jimmy's going to stay or will Wal-Mart quietly pay them to move somewhere else?
ReplyDelete@Lee: Probably. Jimmy's is outside of city limits, so there's nothing we can do about it.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see Huntsville chipping in free improvements for this development. There's your tax dollars at work, subsidising more wasteful sprawl further out into the country.
ReplyDeleteQuite the dirty trick by Huntsville with this development. Not only are they right on the city limits, they are guaranteed to take away from the Madison Wal-mart with this move.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if Huntsville tries to put a Costco on the corner of County Line and 565 that they control.
@Dave: You don't think that was the reason behind Madison putting the Target on 72 West, even with most of that corridor being in Huntsville city limits? Cities use this strategy all the time-- putting big-box developments on the city edge to attract out-of-town shoppers. Nothing "dirty" about it.
ReplyDelete@James, of course. All's fair. However, considering where the Home Depot and Kohl's is, and HSV surrounding the city and expanding itself too far, i.e. Brownsferry and I-65.
ReplyDeleteI understand why HSV would do it.
I just hope Madison residents are smart enough to realize it. Although I wouldn't bet on it as so many don't even realize Home Depot is in HSV city limits.
Wow, Madison coughs up $8 million for a Target and Huntsville gets a super Walmart for only $1 million.
ReplyDelete@James - I don't consider it a dirty trick by Huntsville, but poor form on the part of Walmart, Home Depot, and Kohl's to build stores that don't support the surrounding community. That is, the tax money from those stores is spent elsewhere in Huntsville and not in the west part of the county. Except to waste money widening Nance Road, and the highly congested (not) McCrary Road.
Huntsville has no interest in 72 West except for extracting money. As far as I can see, they won't spend a nickel widening 72 west of Providence Main Street. I believe the Slaughter Road project (which was mostly going to benefit the new Kroger store anyway) has been canceled or deferred. But thanks for the new traffic light on 72 causing more congestion.
@James - you can draw a circle of any diameter you choose around the Target and you will get a lot of Madison City residents. Then draw that same circle around the new Wal-Mart and see how many Huntsville City residents you get. It won't be many.
@Dave - Huntsville will be lucky to hold onto the one Costco. If you have ever been into other Costcos, they are much busier than the one in Huntsville.
This news story hit
ReplyDeletethe Huntsville Times a few days after Jame's original posting. The 17+ comments on the al.com site largely echo the sentiments here - that Huntsville is stealing Madison's consumers to boost their own sales tax base. People are unusually worked up about it...
My opinion is that time will tell whether it was a good idea to open a new Wal-Mart here. I think that in a matter of 5-10 years, we'll see development all along US-72 from Madison west to Athens, and the new Wal-Mart store will help to spur some of this growth. The critical question in how that area evolves will be: how will US-72 cope with the additional traffic? Again, time will tell...
Quit whining - Madison is nothing more than a suburb of Huntsville. Madison only exists because of its proximity to the jobs in Huntsville based at Redstone Arsenal and in Research Park. Be thankful that Huntsville is spending the money to bring these jobs here!
ReplyDelete