1 post tagged “fredericksburg”

Target coming to Fredericksburg

I had a surprise last Wednesday during my weekly trip to visit clients in Fredericksburg: a giant sign in the field opposite their new Super Wal-Mart announcing the groundbreaking for a Target store and an Olive Garden restaurant.
Target, a retailer that specializes in offering design-type merchandise at discount prices, started as an offshoot of the Dayton Company; its first store was in Roseville, Minnesota, opening in 1962.  It now operates 1502 stores in 47 states, with 131 of those stores in Texas.  I’m sure you’ve seen their advertisements on television: they’re the ones with the red target logo.
Olive Garden is a popular casual dining restaurant chain featuring Italian-style food.
While I’m glad these national chains are coming to Fredericksburg, my first question was why not Kerrville?
The answer has to do with average retail sales – some demographer somewhere seems to think that the average retail sale in Fredericksburg is higher than the same statistic here, even though most of the sales in Fredericksburg are probably made to out of town visitors.   Traditionally Kerrville has served as a regional shopping center, supplying customers not only from Kerrville but also from the smaller communities around Kerrville, such as Fredericksburg, Bandera, Junction and Rocksprings.
And while tourism is a major part of our local economy, it is an even larger percentage of the economy of Fredericksburg; our economy here is a little more diversified.
Despite the hard work of people like Guy Overby, the president of our local economic development foundation, the people up in Target headquarters wouldn’t budge from placing their new store in Fredericksburg.   They never understood that the retail dollars in Fredericksburg are largely spent by people from communities which already have a Target store.
People smarter than I run Target, so I guess they know what they’re doing.  But to me it seems that they’re opening a store mainly for people who are already their customers back in their hometowns.
Ms. Carolyn knows more about stores like Target than I and she says the stores are nice – and I know Olive Garden restaurants are popular with my children.   I suppose they’ll be a hit with customers, even in Fredericksburg.  Still, I wish they were coming here, if only for the nice economic impact they’d have for our community.  Perhaps I’m being selfish: in reality, Kerrville’s and Fredericksburg’s economies are closely tied together.  If something benefits Fredericksburg, it also benefits us here.
I can remember a time when there were two men’s stores in downtown Kerrville, many ladies’ stores, two shoe stores, a children’s clothing store, two pharmacies, a furniture store, and two grocery stores, several jewelers,  a variety store, two discount stores, and a nice department store.
Now you’ll be able to find all of this in this one new store in Fredericksburg.
I guess this is progress, though in truth I am a little nostalgic for the way retail used to be, even though it was inefficient and probably cost more.   Generations of families ran the little shops and generations of families clerked for them.   Now everything is run long-distance, with supplies flowing like a river through a complicated distribution system, and the decisions seem to be made by computers.
If you’re interested in attending the groundbreaking ceremonies, where they’ll be giving away all sorts of free goodies, it will be held in Fredericksburg at 1510 E. Main on Sunday, April Fool’s Day.
Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who occasionally tells little white lies.