AMHERST, N.Y. — A story about some new stores opening in Amherst that 2 On Your Side posted last week continued to be the top-read story on wgrz.com into Monday.
First reported by Buffalo Business First, it involved the opening of four discount stores in The Boulevard – South District, formerly known as Burlington Plaza.
"It certainly has generated some excitement for consumers," said Amherst Town Supervisor Brian Kulpa.
T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods, which relocated from 3050 Sheridan Drive, Amherst, and Homesense and Sierra, new shops to the Buffalo market, opened Oct. 27 at 1501 Niagara Falls Blvd. Homesense is a discount home furnishing brand, and Sierra is an off-price outdoor gear and apparel retailer.
At 1 p.m. Monday, the area near the new stores resembled a Black Friday of yore, where business appeared brisk and it was challenging to find a parking spot near the stores.
"I think they hit on value and people are looking for valuing these times," said Kulpa, an urban planner by trade, who is in his second term as Town Supervisor.
Kulpa also noted it's the first time that these four stores, all owned by TJX Companies, had ever been grouped immediately adjacent to each other, and credited the property owner with doing an excellent job with them
"Benderson Development is putting a lot of money and attention to detail into their stores and into their facilities and sometimes you don't see that at other retail complexes," Kulpa said.
The Changing Pattern of Retail Shopping
The success of retail, notably involving large shopping centers, is of particular concern for Amherst because it has so much of it.
"And the biggest concern I have any time we see big box retail is land use... the amount of land it's grabbing and the tax yield per acre because it's not a very high tax yield per acre," said Kulpa. "What we are seeing now is a little bit of an evolution of where retail is kind of tucking itself in to sort of a tight area and in tight confine...with popular stores feeding off the success of one another."
The model of having stores with outside entrances configured around parking areas is a trend that is becoming more popular, as opposed to indoor shopping malls, according to Kulpa.
"People just aren't going into malls...the (nearby) Boulevard Mall was once assessed at over $90 million valuation, now it's faded to about $10 million. There's a reason why we are pushing for a higher density mixed-use of that site because we don't want to take a 64-acre site and turn it into single-story retail anymore. We want to see things transformed so it's more sustainable."
For the same reason, the town is watching the ongoing redevelopment of the former North Town Plaza into station 12 and has suggested changes.
"That was one of those conditions where we said, 'hey, do you think you should be thinking about diversifying and going to a mixed us project'?" And they said, nope they have commitments and they felt that have commitment to do stand-alone retail. We'll see."