Los Alamos County Views: Does Trinity Place go down smoooooooth?

I am torn on this NADG Trinity Place deal.

On the one hand, it just seems wrong to use citizen owned land to grant an iron fist monopoly to Kroger over a major portion of our county's retail parcels, especially given that Kroger will then have the legal right to block most, if not all, of our hometown retailers from setting up shop in what will become the "Krogerville" section of town.

Some of our local retailers will likely go under as Kroger brings in competing out-of-state chains that are compatible with Kroger's operations. Other hometown retailers will survive and even thrive if, as anticipated, shoppers spend more of their dollars in Los Alamos. A renewed retail environment may even attract new business to our town!

White Rock will, in all probability, lose the local Smith's at some point. It's very unlikely that Kroger will maintain a second Smith's within a relative stone’s throw of a Smith's Marketplace. It makes no economic sense to do so. Even Kroger did not guarantee the survival of the White Rock Smith's, when asked point blank at a recent County Council meeting.

We could reject this NADG deal and wait for the economy to pick up again and make a better deal that is more in line with what we had originally negotiated with Boyer before the economy sunk. We could exclude Kroger on the grounds that they already control too much of our retail environment, given that a deal with Kroger would create a government sponsored monopoly.

On the other hand, my wife reminded me of the Co-op’s original location problem. The Co-op spent years trying to find a suitable site for their store downtown. Later they were approached to take a spot at Entrada that would be built to the Co-op’s specifications. The Co-op board had a huge dilemma, to build on the edge of town or to wait even more years for a suitable downtown property to become available. In the final analysis they voted that it was best to move forward at Entrada rather than waiting who knows how long. Building at Entrada turned out to be a huge success for the Co-op, exceeding all expectations (after all, Entrada is 40 miles closer to "town" than Santa Fe).

In the same way, we may need to push forward with the NADG deal now. This deal may not be optimal, it may stink like dead fish (in my opinion), but it may just finally be the time to move forward. I have no doubt that a Kroger/NADG shopping center will be a financial success.

Is this development what we envisioned for Los Alamos? Most definitely not. Will it meet the major goals that the citizens put forward for this project? Probably: Schools get their lease money; citizens get improved shopping; more shopping money stays in Los Alamos.

Will we be proud of this shopping center when we drive by? Probably not. Will it look the same as hundreds of thousands of other mediocre centers across this great land ... very utilitarian? Yes.

We are recognized nationally as one of the smartest and wealthiest communities in America yet, for the most part*, we don't drive fancy cars, don't live in big mansions, don't shop in high end stores and don’t eat in fancy restaurants. Our thriftiness is a major source of our prosperity, given that most Los Alamosans are essentially government employees. What are we in Los Alamos if not utilitarians? Shouldn't our major shopping center reflect our true nature?

My prediction is that the lease deal will be approved by the Council and School Board on Wednesday. The deal is much like taking fish oil pills – the benefit to your health outweighs the bad taste they leave in your mouth.

* except when on vacation!