In the June edition of the Advocate, I asked for your opinions of what type of retail businesses you wanted to see in Lake Highlands. Apparently, I hit a nerve because the written response has been tremendous.

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I also have been stopped wherever I go by people who had not responded by email or fax, but wanted to make sure I knew their opinion. I have tallied the responses and here are the results.

 

As of August, I received 78 written responses. These responses listed over 200 requested retail businesses that we either don’t have or we want more of. The winner far and away was Starbucks with 33 requests. La Madeline was next with 21, followed by some serious shopping at the Gap with 20, and Old Navy with 19.

 

It would seem to be a retailer’s dream come true with a bunch of caffeine high shoppers who, after eating a buttery croissant, hit the store with credit cards in hand. After some clothes shopping, you will want to stop and read a good book at a Borders or Barnes and Noble, and enjoy a bagel from Einstein’s. Requests were in more than 10 categories, but “more restaurants in general” were on over one third of the lists.

 

Others with multiple requests include Corner Bakery, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Chick Fil-A, Baskin Robbins or Marble Slab Creamery, and California Pizza Kitchen. In the non-food category, those receiving multiple requests include Hallmark Store, Party Place, Learning Express or other toy stores, Stein Mart, Hobby Lobby, Crate and Barrel, Container Store, and a Uniform Store. Also, on several lists you included what you did not want, which included charter schools, game arcades and pawn shops.

 

So now what? My plan is to contact several of the retail shopping center real estate groups and see how we might be able to influence these retail establishments into giving Lake Highlands another look. I would also hope they might be able to identify ownership of centers in our area that have the willingness to put the necessary dollars into their properties to attract better quality retail.

 

If these retailers feel that a town hall meeting with Lake Highlands would help to influence their clients to invest in our neighborhood, I would propose a king size town hall meeting to show how serious we are about having them here. What I mean by king size is filling our high school auditorium with people of all ages with lots of dollars and only needing a place to go spend them.

 

This would mean a strong commitment from all of you to help me fill the hall.