Southern Delaware County has been a high growth area for the past ten years. The farm fields quickly turned into new housing developments. People moved into these developments in droves. The Olentangy School District has been trying to keep up by building lots of new schools.
Naturally with the attractive income demographics of the area, numerous retailers have wanted to grab their piece of the pie. But therein lies the problem.
Wal-Mart is the most ‘persona non grata’. Currently there are two stores – both located in shopping centers away from homes. They want to close one of the stores and build two new ones. That would mean three mega-sized Wally Worlds within 5-6 miles of each other.
The two new stores abut housing developments. Since Wally Worlds don’t have a good reputation for many issues, including crime and idling trucks, the residents of the nearby homes are putting up a good fight.
The Powell store is still uncertain, being fought aggressively by Liberty Township. Wally World wants to build that store at the corner of Sawmill Pkwy and North Hampton, which is a back entrance into Wedgewood and Campden Lakes – two very upscale communities.
The second new store is planned for the corner of Cheshire Rd and Rt 23 and it seems to be a given. It will be located to the left of this huge Delaware water tower that was also a surprise to the people living neaby (see homes to the bottom right in the photo). That means that the current Delaware store will become vacant, leaving yet another blighted, nearly empty strip shopping center.
The most recent retailer to enter the fray is Target who wants to build near the intersection of Sawmill Pkwy and Home Rd. Per the developer this parcel was planned for such a store when the Golf Village development was platted and zoned. The parcel is outside the boundaries of Golf Village, but those residents would prefer to have a “pedestrian-scale” business.
Also, in discussion is a Kroger store across Home Rd from the proposed Target store. There is already another Kroger store a couple miles south.
Since Sawmill Parkway will eventually be extended northward from Home Rd to the west side of Delaware, there will no doubt be other NIMBY’s as the big box stores want to build in the prime locations along the new road extension.
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