8 and tours, with bids being due on 8/11. Parney & the Squirrels ownership watching this process closely as this 21.5 acre site is #1 on almost everyone's list for the new stadium for VCU baseball and the Squirrels, once the ABC moves somewhere else. Also, lots of people showing up (mostly in opposition) to meetings about Union Presbyterian Semi-nary's plans to build a 301 unit apartment complex on 15 acres of their 33 acre Westwood Tract. I'm a big supporter of democracy, but do tend to take a dim view of those who use every obscure argu-ment they can come up with to try to slow down and obstruct a project such as this, which has been under consideration for years by the property owners. It does appear that this project will be going forward, as the Seminary seems to eventually be getting the approvals they need, one after anoth-er. Opposition by a much smaller group (this one the Auto Dealers Assn.) also seems to be in the pro-cess of being overcome as Tesla has their sign up and work underway on the former Bassett Furni-ture site at 9850 W. Broad. VADA continues to protest its illegality under existing state laws that ap-pear to protect the middle man and prevent direct from the manufacturer sales of autos. With a fa-vorable ruling from the DMV Commissioner, however, Tesla is moving ahead and states that they will be open for business on that site before the summer is out. At the other end of the spectrum, old timers like me are saddened to watch Sears (who we had shopped at as long as we can remember) go slowly down the drain. Liquidation sale at the Regen-cy location started on 6/16, and we watch with interest what the Thalhimer/Rebkee partnership in-tends to do in their effort to revitalize what was the area's #1 shopping mall for many years. And, as Lidl moves along in getting the Hermitage & Staples Mill site ready to open, and picks up their 8th area location on Iron Bridge Rd. near Meadowbrook HS, someone finally blinks in the “Grocery Wars” as Kroger cancels plans for stores in Colonial Heights and Mechanicsville. Instead, they are planning to use the $3.5 million they had budgeted for the new stores to upgrade their oth-er Mechanicsville location. Colonial Heights elected officials express disappointment, as they feel that they are in need of another grocer, while a new Publix planned for less than a mile from Kroger's proposed Mechanicsville location may have contributed to that decision. As I've said previ-ously, this will be great for us customers for a while, but we are over-stored and we will be seeing some more empty former super markets around before the next decade has gone by. And, no one quite knows what to make of Amazon's just announced acquisition of Whole Foods. Probably lower quality of produce, meat & baked goods, along with lower staffing levels and prices along with more delivery service. Always some surprises in the results of the annual statewide Craft Brewers Guild competition. No different this year, as the only local brewers to take blue ribbons were Castleburg (right around the bend from Hardywood) for their “Cream Ale”; Extra Billy's – Midlothian for their “Trappist Ale”; and Petersburg's Trapezium for their “Fruit Beer”. Garden Grove (in Carytown) was the only local to take 3 ribbons and since we are going out to Lickinghole Creek next month, I'm going to try their “Great Commander Imperial Stout” which took 2nd in that category and was their only award. And our area's count of firms making the Fortune 500 list remains at 8 this year, led by Altria @#148; Performance Food Group @#171; CarMax @#174; WestRock @#190; Dominion Energy @#238; Owens & Minor @#288; Genworth Financial @#329: and Markel @#460. **************************************************** (Continued from page 3)
IFMA_July_17_Newsletter 2017
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