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| What does Livonia have more of .....; Drug Stores or Dollar Stores? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 8 2008, 01:25 PM (343 Views) | |
| Nikki | Feb 8 2008, 01:25 PM Post #1 |
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Veteran
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A buck trend Dollar store fills vacancy, draws opinions http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...0/80207017/1027 By Alex Lundberg Staff Writer City leaders might have wanted something different, but a new tenant has been found for the former Walgreens at the corner of Farmington and Plymouth Roads, and the neighbors are mostly fine with that. The easily-recognized drugstore’s architecture now adorns a new Dollar Tree that opened Feb. 3. Dr. Raj Singh is the owner of the A-Quality Care Veterinary Clinic on the other side of Farmington Road from the new Dollar Tree. He said he was sorry to see the Walgreens go. “It should be a pharmacy, that was excellent for us,” he said. “It made it easy to tell people where we were and they filled some of our prescriptions.” Still, he said he was confident that someone would purchase the drugstore before too much time passed. In reality, he said he is more concerned about the future of the strip mall on the southeast side of the intersection. Mohamed Bakkar is the owner of the Mobil gas station on the northwest corner of the intersection of Farmington and Plymouth roads. He said it’s hard to say what the new dollar store would mean to his business. “It may be good news, it may be bad news,” he said. “On the good side it could bring new customers around, on the bad side we could be competing for some of the same customers. I think it’s good more than bad if it brings more customers to the area and makes things busier.” But not everyone is happy. The unhappiness started when the drugstore closed less than a year after it opened. The corporation abandoned the Farmington and Plymouth store after opening another one at Newburgh and Six Mile Road. Livonia City Councilman Thomas Robinson railed against the proliferation of dollar stores and check cashing businesses last year but could find no legal way to stop their spread. “I believe the infiltration of these stores in the community reflects badly on the economy of the city and state,” he said. “I don’t support an ‘any business we can get’ approach. I don’t want Livonia to settle on expectations or standards.” Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. Spokeswoman Shelle Davis said the company’s method of choosing a new store is its own, but they do look for a few things when they choose a new location. “Our core customer is a woman from a middle-class neighborhood with an income just under $50,000 a year,” she said. “She is married and has children.” Dollar Tree is a variety retailer, selling everything from household cleaning chemicals to mylar balloons for Valentine’s Day. By the same token, the look of a building isn’t the most important thing, so the purchase of a distinctive-looking building like a Walgreens is not novel. “If we get the demographics and the rent per square foot we want, we’ll take the store,” Davis said. “In this area (Chesapeake, Va.) we have stores that used to be a chain of toy stores. People who grew up around here can see they used to be a Castle Shop.” Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. has 3,411 locations in the continental United States with 123 in Michigan. The company recorded $4.2 billion in sales in fiscal year 2007. alundberg@hometownlife.com | (734) 953-2109 |
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| Sourapples | Feb 8 2008, 01:58 PM Post #2 |
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Advanced Member
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What we mostly have is a useless ineffective city gov't that caters to their friends and screws up our city founders master plan. |
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