There was a special public Council meeting on August 13th which lasted about four hours. Following a presentation by staff outlining the three options discussed at the July 23rd meeting Wade Williams from Boyer had an opportunity to speak. He presented a fourth option for the council to consider. There are three components to Wade's plan. First the County and Boyer would continue to work together exclusively, without deadlines or discussions with other developers. Second there would be a new appraisal of the Trinity site land in light of the recent sale of the Mari-Mac property. Mari-Mac is the current location of the Smiths store here in town and this property was recently purchased by Simths. Third, the County and Boyer would talk jointly with perspective anchor tenants in order to finalize a deal.
I got the impression that Kroger/Smiths is the leading candidate for the anchor store and that Wade felt he was close to finalizing the deal with Smith's Market Place as anchor tenant on several occasions during the past two years. The biggest challenge to overcome is the fact that Kroger is no longer willing to pay a disproportionately high rent for the Trinity site property and subsidize the smaller rental stores on the site. I asked Wade about whether a County contribution for some of the utility and road work on the site would help us secure a Walmart supercenter. Wade indicated that it would help because Walmart is less flexible in negotiating terms. He also said that since he has been with Boyer for the past six years he has overseen two projects where Walmart was the anchor and he hasn't done any projects with Smiths. Prior to working for Boyer Wade was the senior vice president for Smiths and prior to that worked for seven years with Albertsons. He feels that we can have a Walmart but it will take longer to make a deal with Walmart happen.
Wade went on to say that he wasn't aware of Smiths intention to purchase the Mari-Mac center until the County told him and that Boyer itself was interested in purchasing Mari-Mac. He feels that since Smiths now owns the site it would make most sense to develop both Mari-Mac and Trinity Place together. He discussed the possibility of having a new Smiths Market Place on the Trinity site together with a new junior anchor store for Mari-Mac such as a Ross clothing store. He also mentioned linking the two properties so that the stores would complement each other and people would be able to walk safely across Trinity drive from one site to the next.
After Wade made his comments I discussed my position on the three options being considered by Council. I started by stating that I am against selling a portion of the Trinity site to the anchor directly and that I want the site to remain whole so that our public schools get the most amount of lease revenue possible. I went on to say that the County should not develop the site itself and spend another 20 million dollars to complete the project, rather a private developer should assume this cost.
I feel that if we get a big box store and nothing else than this would still be a good outcome and a big step forward for our county. There are many reasons why we need a big box store. Our citizens spend 30% of their personal income on retail off the hill. We currently have less than half the required amount of retail space for a community of our size. 50% of the total workforce in the county lives off the hill. People want to work here, but not live here. Since 1990 about 1500 people between the ages of 25 and 45 have left our community. Families can't meet their retail needs here in Los Alamos. The citizens want the big box store. We should move forward with it, rather than choosing one of the three options discussed which will lead to termination of negotiations with Boyer and with that we will lose the big box store.
I appreciate the public input about the Trinity site which the Council has received over the past few weeks. More than 140 emails were received as well as 80 written comments from various venues. I talked with folks for many hours at the Farmers Market and the County Fair. All of these things are good but, the most important input came more than 2 years ago when the citizens approved Ordinance 529 with a strong majority.
The people of this community and our young families, the silent majority, have told us that they want a big box store. They don't have time to come to council meetings or get engrossed in the fine details of county policies. Yet their opinion is as important as anyone else's. As Councilors are we going to listen to them or are we going to listen to those who would use the very real economic challenges facing the developer, the multitude of tasks remaining and the complexity of the situation as excuses to kill the project and kill the big box store?
With that I concluded my remarks. Council decided to postpone a decision about which option to take until some time late in September at a special public meeting. I will post the date of this meeting on this blog as soon as it is set. All the Councilors acknowledged that there is a strong desire for a big box store in the community. It is not clear to me however which option the Council will eventual choose. In my mind there is still a strong possibility that Council will choose a path that will lead to termination with Boyer. None of the three options discussed are good in terms of securing the big box store. We need to continue with Boyer without deadlines and discussions with other developers. I urge all those who would like to see a big box store in our county to continue to send email to the Council at countycouncil@lacnm.us . I totally appreciate the fact that people are tired of expressing their desire for more retail to the Council, but it is very important that our citizens continue to do so. The Council needs to hear from the citizens continuously on this issue or I fear that the big box store may be dead.
