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Lowe’s gives Sylva site the go-ahead
By Carey King
You may have heard the rumor. Now there’s verification it’s true: Lowe’s home improvement store is coming to Sylva.
Members of the company’s real estate committee made the decision Tuesday evening (March 8) following a last-minute session the day before between a Lowe’s consultant and the Sylva town board.
Mayor Brenda Oliver called the special meeting to consider West Jefferson-based consultant Jennings Gray’s request that the town consider ways to sweeten the deal for Lowe’s.
“I certainly don’t want to give the impression that if you don’t play with us, we won’t come,” said Gray, who advises Lowe’s when the company is looking for new sites. “We’re certainly not trying to hold the town of Sylva hostage here.”
“This is merely an opportunity we give the town to say, ‘We want to build with you,’” he said.
The new store is expected to generate sales between $22 and $26 million a year, employ 100 full-time and 25 to 50 part-time workers, plus create an annual payroll of $2.5 million – an average salary of about $24,000 per worker, Gray said.
Due to what Gray called a slow local market, projected sales are slightly lower than the $30 million predicted for most new Lowe’s stores, but as at all stores in the chain, full-time employees will get benefits including health and retirement, and part-time workers will receive health care after being on the job for a certain amount of time.
Gray said Monday that he is “not privy” to Lowe’s “somewhat secretive” decision-making process, but noted he felt Sylva’s chances of getting the store would go up should the town help Lowe’s address what he called “extraordinary site costs” for moving dirt and making road improvements at the store’s entrance.
Jem Site Development, which like Gray is based in West Jefferson, has property for the store under option near the corner of N.C. 107 and Webster Road, just behind the State Employees Credit Union. To place the store there, three homes directly across from Ingles most likely will have to be removed, Gray said.
“We look for ways to help reduce some of the costs associated with site development and locating the store,” Gray told Sylva leaders, adding that he’d met with town Manager Richard McHargue the week before to discuss options ranging from federal, state and local grants to waived fees to a sales-tax sharing agreement.
Eighty-five to 90 percent of the store-siting projects he works on receive local incentives, Gray said.
Town leaders said they were wary of offering too many bonuses to North Wilkesboro-based Lowe’s at risk of showing favoritism over local businesses.
“It brings up the question of fairness to other merchants who are here, who’ve been here, or who want to come,” Oliver said.
“It’s my understanding that our neighbors where Lowe’s is located didn’t do that,” said board member Maurice Moody of the sales-tax sharing idea.
“Without a policy where we could have incentives for companies A, B and C, to me it would look like favoritism if we just started out,” he said.
Rather than specify incentives, board members instead agreed to enter into a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with the company, an agreement that says Sylva will apply for block and job grants that could be used in conjunction with the Lowe’s project. The plan passed unanimously, with the exception of the vote of board member Anne Cabe, who was out of town and not present for the meeting.
“If it’s a grant and it comes to the town, it’ll not only help Lowe’s, but any other business in the area,” Moody said.
The commitment proved solid enough Tuesday for Lowe’s leaders to approve Sylva, pending property acquisition, as a new store location.
“Basically what this means is that the developer (Jem Site) is given the green light to go ahead and proceed with the project,” Gray said. “This doesn’t necessarily mean the Lowe’s store will definitely be built (in Sylva). It just means the store did meet the standards for Lowe’s as far as return on investment numbers is concerned.”
Jem Site will “definitely move forward” with land acquisition plans, Gray said, and if all goes well, the store could open by late this year or early 2006.
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