Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.
This blog is for the CEO of every grocery chain operating in Arizona:
- Aldi
- Whole Foods
- Kroger (Frys)
- Trader Joes
- Sprouts
- Albertsons
- Safeway
- Bashas
- Winco Foods
I have been on and off city council since 1992 and to date have served 22 years on Glendale’s City Council as the Yucca District Councilmember. Over the past 22 years a grocery store has never located within the Yucca District. Within the past 5 years a minimum of a dozen multifamily complexes have been constructed or will be completed this year within this geographic area. Each complex has a minimum of 200 units. That’s 2,400 units at 2.3 persons per unit or 5,520 new arrivals in the Yucca district. Add new residential construction of a minimum of another 2,000 units and you can add another 5,000 persons. The residential subdivision of Stonehaven alone will have 1,635 new homes. New construction, both multifamily and single family residential, has added an estimated 10,000 people to the district.
The Yucca District base population before all this new construction is 40,000 persons. In other words, with the addition of the new residential, this district has a population of 50,000 persons with no place to do our weekly grocery shopping. There is a Super Walmart within the district, but a majority of the residents don’t use it. Instead, we are forced to use the closest Safeway in Phoenix or the closest Fry’s in Peoria, both of which are in neighboring cities, some miles away. A typical resident spends between $200 and $300 a week for food and household items.
The most common request I receive from Yucca district residents is for that of a traditional grocery store. Any grocery store that does a one-mile or five-mile demographic study will discover that there are sufficient rooftops and sufficient income to support a grocery store in this area.
I am personally sending this blog to every CEO with a request to do demographic research of this area. You will find that it not only meets your criteria but exceeds it. Better yet, I encourage you to contact Glendale’s Economic Development Department’s Director, Brian Friedman (623-930-2984; bfriedman@glendaleaz.com) or the Department’s Assistant Director, Jessi Pederson (623-930-2996; jpederson@glendaleaz.com) . They can provide the economic data that you seek. This is a community that wants you and will patronize you regularly.
I know my district and I know my residents. This is a community that not only wants you but needs you. I suspect that were you to locate in the Yucca District, your revenue projections will be greater than your best financial forecast. Please consider locating in the Yucca District. You won’t be disappointed.
© Joyce Clark, 2022
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which is in accordance with Title 17 U.S. C., Section 107. The ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law and who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such material. For more information go to http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use,’ you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.