FWIW, here's the letter to the editor I sent to Madison Newspapers Inc. I
hope others will also send their own letters. You don't have to be a
Northsider to do it, either. Even if you live on the other side of the
dreaded Zinfandel Curtain, talk about how it's important to you to be able
to walk or bike to the store, whether it's a major supermarket, a small
co-op, or any other kind of shopping you do.
----
To the editor:
Copps' irresponsible announcement that its purchase of area Kohl's
supermarkets from absentee owner A&P will include the closure of the
Sherman Plaza Kohl's store is an act of economic violence against the
Northside community.
The Sherman Plaza Kohl's store--rebuilt and modernised just a few years
ago--is currently the ONLY supermarket on the Northside, and serves a
diverse Northside community. Having a supermarket in Sherman Plaza is
extremely important to the residents of the many rental housing complexes
near the store and to the senior citizens in surrounding neighbourhoods who
can no longer drive and who walk to the store. But having a supermarket on
the Northside is important not only to lower income Madisonians and senior
citizens who do not have cars or can no longer drive, it is important to
the entire Northside community. The Northside is a great place to live
with a diversity of income levels and neighbourhoods ranging from rental
housing, to reasonably affordable owner-occupied single family homes, to
upper-middle income homes, to the exclusivity and affluence of the Village
of Maple Bluff. Sherman Plaza is the most accessible supermarket for all
those people, and a supermarket or locally-owned co-op that would offer the
right combination of prices, quality, and variety would have a great
business opportunity in a market like that.
If Copps were a local company it would recognise that opportunity, but
instead it says that its current east side store (beyond the eastern
boundary of the Northside) in the desolate Highway 30/Aberg
location--unwalkable and un-bikeable for all but a few Eastside
neghbourhoods between the highway and Commercial Avenue--is too close to
Sherman Plaza to justify operating both stores.
If that argument had even the tiniest shred of credibility, Copps would
also be closing the also-new Kohl's Shorewood Hills store on University
Avenue because not only is it across the street from Sentry Hilldale, it is
also just about the same distance from its current Westside store on
Whitney Way as the Northside Kohl's is from the Eastside Copps. Hmmm,
three major supermarkets--two of which will be owned by the same
company--within less than a 1.5 mile radius on the Westside near Shorewood
Hills is not too many stores, yet they can't operate even one store on the
Northside near Maple Bluff because they already have an Eastside store they
think is "close enough" to the Northside.
Great neighbourhoods are those that are built on a human scale where people
can walk or bicycle to shopping and recreation. Although streets like
North Sherman, Northport, and Packers need significant improvements to make
them good for bicycle transportation, it is still possible to walk from the
Warner Park neighbourhoods to Sherman Plaza--which also has a branch
library, a fairly decent hardware store, a bookstore, a bank, a great new
restaurant, and other businesses. It's only a short mile walk or an
extremely quick bicycle ride from my house to the store. Even if I have
been driving my car elsewhere, it's an easy stop on the way home, or I can
get off the bus on my way home from work to stop at the store and walk the
rest of the way home. (Note also that more bus routes pass Sherman Plaza
than Shopko and Copps.) For those of us who drive cars (even if we choose
to walk or bicycle some of the time), the store closure will be a mere
inconvenience, but it will have a huge impact on other people. But even
for those of us who can choose to drive, if we've already left our
Northside neighbourhoods anyway to get on Aberg/Highway 30, it's no big
deal to keep going a couple more miles to shop at Woodman's or Cub.
If Copps doesn't want to operate a supermarket in Sherman Plaza, fine.
It's their loss. Let another supermarket take advantage of the business
opportunity. What does concern a number of Northside residents, however,
is how secretive the deal between A&P/Kohl's and Copps has been. Even the
owner of the shopping centre is being kept in the dark. If the sale
includes a condition that no other supermarket can occupy that space, Copps
will be deserving of the strongest condemnation from the community and
Madison-area residents should refuse to reward that kind of
irresponsibility with their patronage at any of the stores.
Bob Paolino
Madison
(not for publication: 825 Troy Drive, 608.249.7126)
Bob Paolino
"Something like this makes you think, 'Oh yeah.
This _IS_ rocket science.' "
--Kristen Fortson, NASA payload specialist
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