Swake, thanks for the citation.
"He said he'll re-evaluate the performance of the long-awaited grocery store in four to six months and decide whether it's worth keeping open.
The 57,000-square-foot store is one of the largest in the city and has about 50 employees.
City leaders had worked for two years to find a tenant for the building, and Perez received $2.2 million in Community Block Development Grant funds to put a grocery store at the site.
The space had been empty since 2007, when Albertson's pulled its stores from the area.
"Gateway Market, because of its location, has suffered perception problems since the project was announced. Those only worsened when a man robbed the supermarket at gunpoint Feb. 6.
Since the robbery, Perez said, the store has added security, but business has continued to decline.
"We had to deal with the robbery and people being afraid of people coming into the store," he said. "But business hasn't gotten any better since then."
Read more from this Tulsa World article at
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100317_11_A9_Gatewa320612Here's a few issues I take with the story as written and a few random thoughts:
The World seems to be banking on this store collapsing. Perez says he will review performance in four to six months. The article seems to report with glee near the top of the story that the store may close within months as if the closing is certain and imminent. That sure as hell doesn't help the image of the store if people think it's going to fail.
Any idea what all the $2.2 mil block grant went toward? Why wasn't there a year of operating capital included in first year funding and the business plan? What happens on the re-payment plan should the project go tits up? As I recall there was some sort of repayment expected toward TEDC or one of the economic development agencies.
I call BS on the armed robbery being any sort of a problem. An employee was killed by a gunman during an armed robbery at the former Albertson's at 41st & Peoria about ten years ago and there have been countless armed robberies of various grocery stores and people robbed in parking lots and yet those stores remain robust and solvent.
Maybe, as other posters suggested, this store over-serves the area and it was nothing more than a perception by some that north Tulsa was being under-served in the grocery market.