Yesterday, I read in the Carrboro Visitors’ Guide that Carrboro Plaza is completely and diversely occupied, and that the Food Lion there is one of the top-grossing Food Lion groceries in the state. Today, I read in the Sept. 15 Carrboro Citizen that Argus Development plans to put, among other things, a large grocery store within shouting distance of Carrboro Plaza. Planner Jack Smyre says that while he recognizes this may be a concern, the new grocery store “will be larger than the Food Lion and will carry a wider variety of products.”
Is anyone else out there outraged by this? What a smug, self-serving, near-sighted justification! As if putting prosperous businesses at risk were justified by the promise of more stuff. (Can you say Walmart?)
And as Erica Eisdorfer so aptly points out (Letters, Sept. 15), we have a wealth of underused and stagnating retail space already. Moreover, since when does Carrboro subscribe to the notion that fields and grand old trees are mere placeholders until something more “useful” comes along?
Margret Mueller
Orange County