In approximately 2014-15, during a change of zone for a parcel on Route 9 from AR-1 to commercial, the developer promised an anchor store – Kohl's. This developer said this right to me face to face. I had never heard the term anchor store before. Well, here we are, 10 years later, and we see how that materialized. What we, the residents, received instead was a supermarket, a gas station and a small strip mall with a small restaurant, a nail salon, a physical therapy office.
The No. 1 rule in advertising and marketing is sell, sell, sell. And residents believed the developer when they recited they had commitments from Target, Whole Foods and Costco. This is exactly what the developer wants – to sell snake oil and let the news spread like wildfire to get support from the community. And they succeeded.
Dear reader, do your research. Many, many years of research are completed by Walmart, Costco and Whole Foods before a corporation such as these will commit. Do you really think a Whole Foods or Costco would commit before the parcel was even approved for a zone change by planning & zoning and then county council? I, for one, do not believe the developer's rhetoric, and it is about time our planning & zoning commission started seeing through the kaleidoscope of false truths by the developers. Mark my word, what we will get with Atlantic Fields is yet another supermarket, a strip mall, a nail salon, another eye doctor or physical therapy office.
Years ago, I watched a documentary of what research is completed before a brick-and-mortar Walmart is built – 10 years of research is involved. I would believe the same would apply for any of the supposed stores the developer promised that would encompass Atlantic Fields.
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