MED zone threatens Diamond Hill plazas

Monday, March 21, 2005

Hooray! The city has a Starbucks!

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against new business and I have nothing against Starbucks, but the Mayor’s gushing enthusiasm over the coffee shop’s grand opening shows just how out of touch with this community Mayor Menard has become.

As she welcomes a new business in Diamond Hill, she pushes through a new development on the other side of town which will siphon away so much traffic from the Diamond Hill area as to leave it a ghost town.

The 3.5% sales tax MED zone, a part of the larger Dowling Village, will not only crush the small, locally owned businesses but will draw significant amounts of traffic from the Diamond Hill Road area. Lowes and Sears, two of the anchors of those shopping centers will have a tough time competing against a reduced tax Home Depot.

What happens to the rest of the stores in those plazas when traffic at the anchors plummet? These are questions that have not been answered by the city administration in its rush to get the MED zone started.

Economic Development Director Jeffrey Polucha quotes that old city tag that this is a “city on the move”. If this MED zone is established the only movement we will see is the movement of retail traffic from one part of the city to the other and the movement of locally owned businesses OUT of the city.

The mayor needs to get out of Starbucks and get back to reality. The reality that the MED zone plan will destroy local businesses, create traffic nightmares which will make Route 1 in North Attleboro seem like a Sunday drive, and rip apart the very fabric of the community.

Walter Chomka, Jr.
Manager - Vose True Value Hardware
Member of The Valley Alliance for Smart Growth