Home Depot must find another home

BY MARC SARNOFF
One Grove Alliance

We are the One Grove Alliance. The Alliance consists of 14 Grove groups, some of which are well known -- such as the Village Council, the Village West Homeowners and Tenants Association, the Merchants Association and the Village of Center Grove.

We formed the alliance to create consensus on issues that are important to the Grove. We have historically been divided by Miami developers seeking special favors or exceptions in our small village, as they ask to be excepted from the Miami code.

Grants of money have been promised to what was perceived as the weakest group with the intent of dividing the Grove and hoping we would fall like dominoes to demonstrate fragmentation, creating an image of the Tower of Babble.

The Alliance now brings all Grove Groups together under one umbrella, working through committees to show Grove-wide support on important issues, creating unity where in the past there appeared division or apathy. We have made the Grove aware of the Home Depot issue.

The One Grove Alliance created The Grove First select committee to lead the way to make the Grove and its neighbors aware of what a Home Depot will mean to the community and surrounding areas in terms of traffic, loss of our only grocery store, job loss, crime and property devaluation. The Grove has reached a unified consensus opposing the ''Big Box Facility'' use of zoning classification ''Commercial 1'' by the former Kmart space in the least restrictive zoning the city allows.

By no means do we oppose Home Depot. We merely oppose the placement of Home Depot at the gateway to the Grove. We are at a decisive time in America where we must see beyond our own shopping carts.

Cheap goods made with cheap labor are flooding the American markets. They are sold in Home Depots, Wal-Mart's, and other gargantuan retailers. Warehouses, once designed for the open expanses of the suburbs and rural areas, are squeezing their way into urban life as a result of poorly constructed zoning laws or through lobbyists. The warehouse takes advantage of cheap gross square footage and leverages the square footage by placing the greatest amount of customers per square foot possible.

Our neighborhoods will change. We will lose the Milams grocery to mega Wal-Marts, Publix will come under pressure and the superstores will continue to squeeze into sites never designed to accommodate 100,000 plus square foot facilities. The infrastructure will crumble under the weight of these monster stores next to homeowners. Our local Ace, Tru-Value Hardware stores, paint supply stores, lighting stores, and flooring stores will give way to Home Depots. Businesses will close, giving way to megastores unless we see beyond our own grocery carts.

Today the parking lots of Home Depots, Wal-Mart's, and Costco are partly adorned with Lexus, Lincolns and BMW's all driven by their leaseholder consumers sounding the battle cry, I need to save a few bucks. Our failure as a community to see beyond our own grocery carts will change the landscape of our neighborhood. By seeing beyond our grocery carts we can rekindle the art of conversation and greeting of our neighborhood as we meet each other at the local grocery, pharmacy and oh yes the hardware store.

We in the Grove have never lost the art of conversation, now we savor it ever so much more as our 'meet and greet' places come under the pressure of the mega-store. We know our merchants, and we have managed to reacquaint ourselves, and put aside some old conflicts with each other in the battle for our Village that we simply call the Grove.

Marc Sarnoff is chairman of the One Grove Alliance. To reach the group, call 786-302-5352, or visit thegrovefirst.com.

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