Why Can't Lookout Valley Get A Grocery Store? - And Response (10)

  • Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I just do not understand. We can build a Publix on North Market, but Tiftonia (Lookout Valley)
cannot have any kind of a grocery store. 

The emails I sent to several grocery stores did reply back that there was no interest for them in that area.  Surely some grocery store chain would be interested in supporting us with somewhere to buy groceries. 

Feedback on this would be appreciated.
 
Kathy Cresswell

* * *

There is a Walmart smack in the middle of Lookout Valley. And three miles from that, there is a Bi-Lo in St. Elmo.

Mike Willingham

* * *
I wonder why all areas in Chattanooga have a grocery store except inner city, East Chattanooga/3rd Street/Avondale. If you don’t have a car you are out of luck or have to go the Indian gas stations that are not clean or nice and the products are overpriced and outdated.

North Shore/North Chattanooga has several options for grocery shopping just as every other area in this city.  It’s not fair. 

Kelli D. Patillo

* * *

I am curious as to the original post and to the response that ended with “It's not fair."  Exactly how do those two posters think that someone decides where to put a grocery store? For that matter, how do they think someone decides where to put a gas station, Hooters restaurant, coffee shop, shopping mall, bike shop, etc? Was there something in their education that made them skip the idea of market forces, demographics, traffic pattern studies, cost of goods sold, potential for sales, etc. or do they think that a developer uses a combination of a Ouija board, dart board, coin toss and a class taught by Hugo Chavez?   

With respect to the “It's not fair” comment. How would one propose to make it fair? Would we create yet another government agency and call it the INFTIDH agency (“It's not fair that I don’t have”)? If you succeed in getting that agency created, while you are down their asking for your grocery store in an area that marketing studies show that there will not be enough profitable sales to support the store, will you submit my “Its not fair request" as its not fair that I don’t have a Cessna 37 Skymaster, good coffee and Sam Adams in our break room, brown hair, a million dollar salary, and a perky University of Georgia cheerleader for an assistant.

As all of us have heard a gazillion times from our parents (including my kids)….”Dude - life is not fair."

Arch Willingham

* * *

In response to Mr. Willingham....Really.

I can't believe you answered that with a sassy, smart alecky answer such as that.

Did you ever think to consider that some people, like myself, do not like buying groceries at Wal-Mart?  Nothing against them, I shop there regularly, but for non-grocery items.  I prefer to buy my groceries in a grocery store.  You know, BiLo, Ingles, Publix, etc.

What makes any other area non-essential for a grocery store than another?  I don't know, you got me.   But I do feel like the good folks of Tiftonia deserve a grocery store for their area rather than having to travel any further than necessary, oh, let's say to St. Elmo. 

Do you think, if there weren't a BiLo in St. Elmo those folks wouldn't want a grocery store there as well?  I can remember when BiLo closed the location on Broad Street and there was an instant uproar over the fact that St. Elmo was losing their grocery store.  Fortunately, BiLo moved back into the area in the old Winn-Dixie location. 

I am excited about a Publix coming to the North Shore.  Is it convenient for me?  No.   Not unless I want to do my shopping at lunch time and bring my groceries back to my office only to lug them back to my car to take home.  Would I like a Publix in Tiftonia?  Sure.  Although I must confess, I have shopped at BiLo a/k/a Red Food for all my life, and it is hard to break tradition....but I do like variety. Just like I will run into Ingles just because I don't want to drive all the way up to the BiLo when I only need a couple of things after church. 

So Mr. Willingham, how far do you drive for groceries?  Do you stay in your neighborhood where you have a store close at hand or do you have to drive out of your "comfort zone" for groceries?

Trudi Burner
Lookout Mountain, Ga.

* * *

As a Lookout Valley resident, I understand that there is no grocery store (save Wal-Mart) because it obviously isn't profitable for grocery stores to operate in Lookout Valley. If it was profitable for a grocery store to operate in Lookout Valley, there would be a grocery store. The object of grocery stores is not to provide patrons with a service, it is to earn a profit.

Ms. Patillo, it is 2012. There is no need for you to put your ethnocentrism on display for the world to see. Please judge individuals as individuals and however you choose to stereotype them.

Drew Daugherty 

* * *

Commenters should not be so quick to put down the plea for a grocery store in Lookout Valley (some local residents still refer to the south end of the Valley as Tiftonia).  One of the earliest Red Food Stores was located here on Cummings Highway for some 30 years or longer, expanding and changing its name to BiLo long before Food Lion opened on Browns Ferry Road. 

Food Lion management told me they were not closing their store here because of lack of business.  And now we have a Walmart superstore.  That is the last place I would consider purchasing perishable foods.  And who wants to stand in a checkout line when only three of the 20 or so registers are open, assuming you found what you were shopping for?  Drive by and check the parking lot and wonder how that store can remain open.

In considering grocery shopping and access to business districts, Lookout Valley begins at about the toe of Moccasin Bend and extends along the River's edge west to the Marion County line (including Williams Island); south, including Elder Mountain, Racoon Mountain, and Aetna Mountain; east to the foot of Lookout Mountain including the Nature Center, Tiftonia and Wauhatchie; and north to the River at the point of beginning.  So do not limit your scope when you casually refer to Lookout Valley as a spot on either side of Cummings Highway and three miles from BiLo in St. Elmo.  It is at least 10 miles from my home near the River to BiLo in St. Elmo.  It is much further for those living on Cash Canyon Road near the Marion County line and for my friends on Elder Mountain.   

We need a Publix-quality grocery store, a health food store, and an emergency health facility.  We need all these deteriorated buildings condemned and torn down and those that have been vacated and left empty put to use providing the needs of our communities.  

Perhaps our County Commissioners could take time out long enough from praying to attend to the people's business.  After all, we city residents pay county taxes too and have essentially nothing to show for it.  As for the city, I have given up.  I thought I lived in the city of Chattanooga, but it seems that Rivercity is taking over much of all my family have paid taxes on since our presence here in the late 1800's.

Charlotte Parton

* * * 

Arch and Drew, you guys go to the head of the class.  You were paying attention in school.

The rest of you need to turn off the boob tube and quit spending so much time watching
American Idol or the Kardashians and read a book on business.  

One of the whiners in the group that said it isn’t “fair” that they don’t have a grocery store in Lookout Valley was told there is a Wal-Mart smack dab in the middle of their community.

Wal-Mart sells groceries.  So if the 600 pound gorilla already has a store there in a limited population area why would anyone in their right mind build a grocery store in the same limited population area to compete against one of the world’s largest and most profitable corporations?

Maybe one of you who think it isn’t “fair” would like to take your life savings and put a second mortgage on your home to open a competing grocery store in Lookout Valley?  Post back here in a year and tell us how it went. I doubt you’ll have the same opinion after your experience.

Curtis Smith 

* * * 

Kudos for your comments, Mr. Willingham.  I fear that we are not too far from the INFTIDH government agency. To survive,  businesses must base their decisions on sound economic principals and those decisions can, at time, run contrary to an individual’s desires. 

We all suffer from INFTIDH symptoms of one degree or another but any attempt to influence business to correct that fact of life would have disastrous results. 

Unfortunately there are far too many folks who don’t realize that resulting in a march toward a nanny state we now see. 

Gus Bryan

* * *

Ms. Burner, Mr. Willingham lives in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.

Ms. Petillo, a northern newspaper with a tenuous link to this city in April published an expose of alleged “food desserts” based upon two recent studies which both have found that poor urban neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents. 

A quick Google mapping shows you have any number of options, even if you do not wish to buy from Indians.

Wilson von Kessler
Lookout Mountain, Ga.

* * *

Once Black Creek Golf and Subdivision in Cummings Cove get their million dollar project finished, I assure you, the Rich will want a grocery store in that area. So one will come when we hear their whine. I agree with Trudi, not all of us like shopping at Walmart for our groceries.

Michel Bryant


 

 

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