home depot’s grand opening of its store in ithaca was today. it’s located in the extreme southern part of the city of ithaca. it has been many many years since the original plans for a store in that area (1989 maybe? i was still at cornell), and finally all the arguments, lawsuits, appeals, screaming, carrying on, and whatnot are done… fourteen years later. the original store was going to be a walmart; lowes came next, and finally, the home depot was the one that actually opened. walmart and lowes will be coming shortly near tops and wegmans. of course, now people are bitching about the parking lot draining crap into the floodplain and the like; it’s not like most of ithaca isn’t already there.
i was always prodevelopment in ithaca; i always wanted ithaca to be as big as boulder but without the sprawling outlying areas. i used to go to syracuse to look for stuff (if i didn’t just mail order it); now that is not necessary. at least, when i wasn’t dirt poor for most of the nineties, anyway (pre autodesk). the point is moot really, since all kinds of stores have opened up in ithaca recently, and, of course, i live in buffalo now.
as for hurting the small/local businesses in ithaca, i think just like everything else they have to change and adapt. the smaller places are probably nimble enuf carve out a niche for themselves. as an added bonus, maybe some local places whom shall remain nameless will lose some of the attitude they had (i.e. you have to deal with us because we are the only vendors here so we can be as rude and annoying as we want).
perhaps the real unknown is the big stores competing with themselves… home depot/lowes and barnes and noble/borders… can all of them exist in ithaca’s market. i guess tops and wegmans existed together, even side by side before their relocations, so what do i know.