It’s a done deal!

On Tuesday March 24th 2009, the last hurdle preventing the new proposed Lowe’s hardware store from going forward in Quincy was cleared.

A meeting in the city council chambers in City Hall in front of the board of appeals took place. In this meeting, representatives of Lowe’s presented their case and made the final plea before the board.

I am sure that by saying this I will sound naive but I was sad to see that only two citizens neighboring this project attended the meeting. I say that I may sound naive because at this stage of the game, there was very little that could be done to stop the project from going forward. It was also interesting that the council for WARD 4 where the proposed project will be located did not attend the meeting. He did however mailed a letter to the board, which was read for the record during the proceeding indicating that he had prior commitments.

I want to clarify that I am not against the project nor am I fully in favor. I think everyone has the right to do as they please as long as all the rules are followed. this project has touched pretty much all established regulatory hurdles requiring several filings for special considerations in order to go forward. Again, those are the rules and there are also rules for circumventing the first set of rules. It is the system we have and as such it is the one we use. I do however question common wisdom in this whole process starting with the benefits it will bring to the city. I also want to state that I reside on one of the streets neighboring the project. My concerns are more with the disruption of the status quo the presence of this store will bring to the neighborhood such as the lights on the parking lot left on at night, the noise during the evening hours and the potential nuisances inherent to a business of this kind for example, early delivery hours, noisy vehicles performing those deliveries etc.

To me it does not make much sense that a LOWE’s store is located less than 100 yards from an already established Home Depot. They carry the same items and provide the same services. It is nice to see direct competition this way but I really doubt that prices will drop much or that there will be extended benefits to the customers despite the closeness of these two giants. I think it is worth mentioning that Home Depot has two stores already in Quincy that I estimate are less than two miles apart. Again, this is what I think so I am sure that the marketing people with these two giants know a lot more that I don’t.

The proposed LOWE’s will be located on Burgin Parkway in the area across the street from the Quincy Adams T station. This road by itself is prone to traffic Jams, anyone trying to enter or leave Quincy through this road during rush hours knows what I mean. Imagine the possible adverse impact of having this type of store at this location. It could make things worse. Yes, the state is building a ramp to ease traffic access to rte 3 and the expressway but entrance to the ramp is so close to the proposed entrance to the LOWE’s store that it is scary. However, it is possible that this ramp will partially isolate the Home Depot store from highway traffic and provide Lowe’s with better opportunity ( I guess this validates my point regarding the marketing guys above).

Anyways, we let the smart people in city hall make those decisions however it is unfortunate whenever the big corporate interests come before the constituents.

Enough rambling on my part. I’ll be back with more at some point.

Take care and be good.

Thanks for reading.

Jim