Presstalk 671-TALK (8255) or editor@farragutpress.com
• I find it very interesting that the article on the (Farragut Municipal Planning Commission) meeting in reference to Hy-Vee building a grocery store in the middle of a residential area, that it was not mentioned that a majority of people who attended the meeting that night opposed Hy-Vee building smack-dab in the middle of many Farragut residents’ homes. Only three people spoke for having Hy-Vee there, everyone else was against it.
And the three people who spoke to build Hy-Vee there, they do not live anywhere near the property. They do not live in subdivisions that their accesses are directly to Kingston Pike. Four have to deal with horrible traffic getting in and out of their neighborhoods every single day. The truth of the matter is, Hy-Vee is incompatible to the current Land Use Plan and incompatible to the reasons Farragut incorporated: it is incompatible to the needs and the quality of life of Farragut residents. There is plenty of land down Kingston Pike, with a lot of roads, where it would be very appropriate to build that Hy-Vee store.
• Even if a Hy-Vee store would be a benefit overall for the Town of Farragut, the current proposal to build the store at the (private) property on Kingston Pike is flawed in many respects. First, Hy-Vee is asking for rezoning consideration for that property, which sets a bad precedent for once again changing the Town’s existing master plan and zoning.
Second, Hy-Vee has stated it has no interest in most of that property that would lie behind the store and would be willing to sell that off to some unspecified party.
Third, even if new traffic lights were installed, anyone who has to drive in the maelstrom of traffic around Kingston Pike, Campbell Station Road and Concord Road realizes how this would easily lead to total gridlock, especially considering existing school traffic.
Fourth, it seems difficult to believe that Hy-Vee’s market research supports the economic viability of locating yet another grocery store less than half a mile from four existing grocery stores on Kingston Pike (Ingles, Kroger’s, Aldi’s, Fresh Market), not to mention Publix nearby.
My concern is that if this store fails — or contributes to existing stores failing — then the Town is once again left with a large vacant property that may sit there for years (witness the vacant refurbished store next to Ingles and the old Kroger location, which only now is being developed after years of neglect).
Surely there is a more optimal place to build the Hy-Vee store.
