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Wednesday, May 16, 2001

The long-rumored news that Home Depot is planning an Albert Lea store is exciting and presents many opportunities. Adding a giant retailer of Home Depot’s caliber is bound to help any community.

But along with the Wal-Mart Supercenter planned on the eastern edge of town, what does it hold for Albert Lea in the future? It appears there is room for optimism and worry.

The stores will be far from the city’s residential areas and downtown district. More development will certainly pop up in the freeway corridor after the two mega stores open – we’ll probably see gas stations, restaurants and the other businesses that usually accompany interstate-highway development.

This business district will cater greatly to freeway traffic. Its two anchoring businesses will not be locally owned.

It will employ our workers and provide access to more shopping, but it will have little character unique to Albert Lea. And it will highlight the need for small businesses and downtown shops to find creative ways to survive the inevitable siphon effect of the giant retailers.

It will be a part of Albert Lea, but a distant and uninvolved one. This kind of development likes our freeway and our strategic location, but is not concerned about our welfare. This is how big business works in the age of huge chains and big-box retail.

That doesn’t mean the new development will not bring good things. It has the potential to make life here better. There is no doubt that the local economy will get a boost, with new stores bringing thousands of shoppers from many miles around, and more wages paid into local pockets. The local tax base will expand. Adding a few hundred jobs is nice, especially because the Home Depot employees will be well paid. And the most important effect may be helping to make the city more visible from I-35 and more prominent as a regional shopping center. These assets are necessary to make a town Albert Lea’s size competitive in rural Minnesota.

In many ways, Home Depot’s plans are good news for Albert Lea. But its coming, along with the new Wal-Mart, will involve change, and change is almost always a mixed bag.