I like good ideas that have a decent chance of working but this ain’t one of ’em. “Let’s talk” about it…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thursday, Danville’s Economic Development office sent out this press release…<\/p>\n
The Office of Economic Development asks citizens of Danville, Pittsylvania County, and surrounding localities to sign a petition to help recruit a specialty grocery store to Danville.<\/p>\n
\u201cA similar process has worked in other localities,\u201d said Corrie Teague, project manager for the Office of Economic Development. \u201cWe are constantly making connections and seeking new ways to market Danville. We\u2019ve been advised to show a need from the citizens and highlight the local produce we have to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The completed petition will be one component of a marketing package that will be sent to key people in at least a dozen different grocery companies. The marketing will also include a map of local farmers, ranchers, growers, and producers of various agricultural products and artisan foods throughout the region. These individuals will also benefit from an increase in sales and the grocer would benefit from lower handling and transportation costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have found hundreds of products within a three hours\u2019 drive of Danville ,\u201d said Teague. \u201cIt\u2019s a win-win scenario for all parties involved. A specialty grocery store would bring more jobs and tax revenue to the city of Danville, provide additional healthy grocery options that everyone in the region could enjoy, and our local producers would benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deadline to sign the petition is February 19. You may find it at http:\/\/ow.ly\/teYQM<\/a> or by visiting\u00a0 www.discoverdanville.com<\/a> and clicking on \u201cGrocery Petition\u201d in the left link menu.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let’s get one thing now, I’m not faulting the Economic Development office for trying (yet again) to lure a “specialty grocery store” to Danville. That’s part of their job. That being said, this is not going to work… not in the way that they want it to. Let’s go to a Big Board Of Random Thoughts why…<\/p>\n
\n
- Danville doesn’t have the economic demographics to even come close to the big boys’ requirements for consideration. Windsor Heights, Forest Hills… those type of neighborhoods do. That’s not enough. Those neighborhood residents are already driving an hour to go to these places when they want to and the big boys are already getting their money without any new construction and new store expenses. Why spend that kind of money when there’s no chance that the other 92% of Danville won’t shop at a new store because the prices are too high for them?<\/li>\n
- The ability to have local and regional suppliers is awesome for small stores like Danville already has. Old Dutch, Midtown, Farmers Market? Back that pickup truck to the loading dock and toss the boxes of tomatoes in, boys! The big players in the specialty grocery industry already have their supply chain logistics worked out and these local & regional suppliers would only be a small incentive if at all. Also, don’t think that you can just grow a field of corn and have it up for sale at Trader Joe’s when you pick a row. Quality assurance, liability insurance and that kind of stuff can make it expensive for these small-scaled suppliers to get into the door of a big player, and the ability to supply more and more if you get in can make it even harder to stay in that door.<\/li>\n
- What happened to this Danville Economic Development survey project done in partnership with Averett<\/a>? Why reinvent the wheel unless the results weren’t what you wanted them to be? And if the results weren’t what you wanted them to be, swallow the dose of reality that you got from the survey and move on in another direction. Oh yeah, where are those results? Let’s see them. Proof Or Not Real, that sorta thing.<\/li>\n
- Instead of trying to hit yet another homerun with another big business, why isn’t our Economic Development office going for the easy base hit in working with our existing businesses and budding entrepreneurs into starting small and possible growing? The Launch Place is fine and dandy for that company that came to Danville to write security software, but where is the public push to encourage and help little\u00a0 people like us to fill this need?<\/li>\n
- Online petitions are insanely useless. There’s no way you can assign any credibility to a webpage that lets Jim Shoes, Jim Shorts & Jim Nazium declare their support.<\/li>\n
- Here’s a list of the grocery chains that they’re going to send this marketing package to: Whole Foods, Earth Fare, Harris Teeter, Trader Joes, Fresh Market, Kroger, Bloom, Bi-Lo, Ellwood Thompson’s, Publix, Wegmen’s, and Lowe’s Food. OK, that’s cute. Supply chain logistics wipe out about half of that list from consideration. Remember Boscov’s, where the Danville store was over 200 miles from another store? How’d that work out? Kroger and Lowes’ Foods are just plain old grocery stores with a few specialty items on their aisles. Oh yeah… Kroger & Harris Teeter are now the same company and combined, they’ve opened and closed four different times in Danville’s history. I think their business development people learn from their failures. The only one on that list that’s a viable option is Lowes’ Foods, because they’ve got a supply chain to Roxboro and Reidsville NC.<\/li>\n
- I distrust and dislike vague statements like “A similar process has worked in other localities”. Really? How? Where? I want to know where an online petition has caused a specialty grocery store has decided to build in a Danville-like demographic.<\/li>\n
- “We\u2019ve been advised to show a need from the citizens and highlight the local produce we have to offer.” – What?! More consultants? Can this Economic Development office do anything on their own? What kind of consultant comes up with this online petition stuff anyway? Now that Jeremy Stratton is in Happy Trails mode, the main face of Danville’s Economic Development office is Linwood Wright… and he’s not an employee. He’s a (…wait for it…) “consultant”! I don’t understand why, but hey, that’s government for you.<\/li>\n
- Why did they set the goal on this useless online petition at 10000 “signatures” and publicize that number? If it falls short (and there’s a good chance that it will), this paints this idea as a failure even though it has some potential benefits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Whew I’m done. I’m already not popular with Danville’s Economic Development office and I’m sure that this article opens that rift further. But that’s why you people love SouthsideCentral…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I like good ideas that have a decent chance of working but this ain’t one of ’em. “Let’s talk” about it…<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,58,98,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-businesscentral","category-danville","category-lets-talk","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-27M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8158,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/01\/23\/economic-develop-mentally-challenged\/","url_meta":{"origin":8170,"position":0},"title":"Economic Develop-Mentally Challenged","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The day after Danville's Economic Development Summit, Danville's Economic Development director resigned. Oh, that's a good sign. After an unplanned SouthsideCentral hiatus, I'm not sure where to start... Day-long summit dives into good \u2014 and bad \u2014 facing Danville You know, it sounds like a good idea. Let's get a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8521,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/19\/the-free-money-had-nothing-to-do-with-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":8170,"position":1},"title":"The free money had nothing to do with it…","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I love economic development spin. Actually, I love to expose economic development spin and mock the hell out of it. Here's the press release from Danville's Office of Economic Development... A Thai restaurant has started renovations to a building on North Main Street adjacent to the Historic North Theater in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8549,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/28\/whats-the-going-rate-for-an-economic-development-consultant\/","url_meta":{"origin":8170,"position":2},"title":"What’s the going rate for an “Economic Development Consultant”?","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"People love to know the salaries of City of Danville employees, so I decided to find out how much Economic Development Consultant Linwood Wright was being paid... Ex-mayor Linwood Wright is well known in the Danville Economic Development Office, but he's not an employee there. He works on a consultant\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8524,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/19\/time-machine-once-twice-three-times-a-job-bust\/","url_meta":{"origin":8170,"position":3},"title":"Time Machine: Once, Twice, Three Times a Job Bust","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a strange mashup of two SouthsideCentral types of features. We're going to hop in the Time Machine and go back to November 20, 2012. That's the day that Danville City Council approved grant money to a losing trifecta of Job Busts. Get ready for a not so fun\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"norhurst","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/norhurst.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/norhurst.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/norhurst.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8401,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/03\/24\/dumbass-idea-of-the-day-32414\/","url_meta":{"origin":8170,"position":4},"title":"Dumbass (Idea) of the Day! (3\/24\/14)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"You don't have to commit a stupid crime to be featured. Government officials can have dumbass ideas. Regional economic director a possibility? (Although I'm sure somebody named \"Bob\" would like to be developed, I'm thinking that the header should be \"Job Development\") As a Danville city resident, I think about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94184,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2020\/01\/01\/oddsmakers-1-1-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":8170,"position":5},"title":"OddsMakers! (1\/1\/20)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 1, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, well. Let's get the new year started with a SouthsideCentral favorite that hasn't been seen for 3.5 years. It's OddsMakers! What are the chances? It works just like PTI's version does. 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