As Tim Redmond blogged yesterday, Home Depot has notified the city that it will not be opening a store on Bayshore Blvd. – ten years after the land entitlement process began. Guardian intern Michael Leonard spoke with several people involved in the process:
Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, whose District 10 would have hosted the outlet expressed regret at the giant retailer’s decision, “People were certainly looking forward to the jobs and the convenience…and the sales tax dollars,” Maxwell said. “Now, it’s back to the drawing board.”
Not everyone in Maxwell’s district, however, or the city at large, was eager to have a mammoth chain store located in a vital neighborhood.
“Actually, there was not a lot of community support. There were people with money who tried to override real community voice,” Marie Harrison, a community organizer for GreenAction, told the Guardian.
According to Harrison, community opposition centered around two factors: the extra traffic and resulting pollution in the already industrialized area; small, local businesses being forced to close by a large, national chain.
It remains unknown what will become of the land plot. Mayor Newsom has requested that Home Depot hold off on pulling out of the deal. Maxwell stated that the some in the community had suggested a Target store or a movie complex during talks in past years.
As for Home Depot, the behemoth home improvement firm says it is not giving up on San Francisco. Spokeswoman Kathryn Gallagher told us, “We want to reiterate our thanks to the many customers, city officials, and partners that expressed support of us…We hope to be part of the community someday.”
Harrison had some words of advice for Gallagher and other company officials should the firm opt to show up in town again. Noting that their proposed job numbers constantly fluctuated and that the estimated economic benefits of the proposed location never added up, she stated, “Don’t make promises that you can’t keep.”