TRINITY — Staff members from the city of Trinity will travel to Nashville this month to take the next step in attempting to bring the community’s first grocery store to Trinity.
City Manager Stevie Cox said at the regular October meeting of Trinity City Council that he and Utility and Public Works Director Rodney Johnson will attend a Retail Live! event in Nashville to draw attention to the city as a destination. Retail Live! is a national networking event company which brings retailers together with the industry’s leading landlords, brokers and developers.
When asked by council members why the urgency compels staff to act now, Cox articulated that he did not want to place the city in direct competition with neighboring Archdale. Trinity’s next-door neighbor is firmly entrenched in a current bid to entice a significant company to locate in the area.
The aim is “to actively go out and recruit for both grocery stores and support businesses,” Cox said. “The thing I’m most afraid of right now is what’s getting ready to happen in Archdale, and I don’t want to put us in a position where we’re trying to compete against them.”
Cox said he would circulate a list of businesses who will be at the event to council members, who will then have the opportunity to strategize which companies they’d like to recruit.
City staff members were instructed last month to negotiate with a company that could help facilitate targeted economic development in the Trinity city limits. Lacy Bacchus with Retail Strategies presented Trinity City Council with information on how her company could assist the city in drawing the interest of coveted business relocation.
Several members of council noted that the city has tried unsuccessfully to bring a grocery store to Trinity, along with other retail businesses. Multiple councilmen also suggested that perhaps it was time to try a different approach.
Councilman Tommy Johnson said he was in favor of seeing Cox taking proactive measures to bring business to town.
“I think it’s good if we can get our foot in the door somewhere and present ourselves to some grocery stores, retail, commercial, whatever,” Johnson said.
Bacchus estimated that the city loses approximately $50 million per year in tax revenue to residents shopping in neighboring municipalities for everyday items. Councilman Jack Carico has said that he hopes the city can finally entice a grocery store to offer residents a place to conveniently shop near their homes. That mission is twofold, he explained.
In order to bring additional businesses to Trinity, it’s his understanding that the “big fish,” so to speak, must come first. Bacchus suggested to council members that if it contracts with a company to produce results, Trinity can expect a minimum of 12-18 months to wait for any recruitment efforts to yield fruit.
The city manager said an upcoming meeting with developers of a potential townhome project could also help jumpstart the conversation with potential investors in Nashville.
“When you think about what we’re losing in sales tax leakage out of the city every year,” Cox continued, “$58 million — $13 million of it being grocery sales — it will be beneficial for all of us if we can at least be competitive now in terms of trying to move forward with that and at least try to leverage our conversation that we’re going to have with Keystone with this event.”
Staff writer Daniel Kennedy can be reached at 336-888-3578, or at dkennedy@atnonline.net.
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