If you didn't see this op-ed in today's Plain Dealer, read it. If you've already read it, here are some other things you should know:
The author, Dan Saltzman, is listed as vice-president of Dave's Supermarkets, but that understates his stake in the business by several miles. Dan is a third-generation owner of Dave's, along with his father (the CEO) and some siblings. Burt Saltzman, the company's CEO/father, can be seen every day bagging groceries at their original store on Payne Ave., where the chain's general offices are also located.
I met both men in 1991, when I was director of a CDC in the Stockyards neighborhood and they came to a neighborhood meeting to tell us about plans to open a full-service supermarket in a big vacant store at Ridge and Denison. They weren't hustling support for a tax abatement or city loan... they just wanted to meet the neighbors.
And Dave's turned out to be a very, very good neighbor. They hired dozens of local residents, brought in a badly needed commercial bank branch, created space for a local family practice clinic, supported community activities. And they ran -- still run -- a very classy mid-sized store that pays attention to its poor and blue-collar customers.
That was Dave's fourth store in the city. Since then they've built new stores in Ohio City and Central, replaced their old Slavic Village store with a brand new one, and begun construction on another in Shaker Square. In each case, the Dave's branch has been designed to fit a larger community retail vision. In the case of the new Arbor Park store -- in the old drug-ridden Longwood Plaza on East 40th near Woodland -- that vision was largely Frank Jackson's.
Dave's is the kind of business that's supposed to be impossible nowadays. It's a local family firm that's made a niche in a tough competitive market, approaches its urban customer base with imagination and respect, gets along fine with its unionized workforce, and makes a good living for its community-minded owners.
In other words, it's a sitting duck for Wal-Mart.
It's not at all hyperbolic to say that Cleveland's neighborhood development groups love these guys. Up to a few weeks ago, the Saltzmans had every reason to think that City Hall -- especially the Council President -- loved them, too.
But as you can tell from the op-ed, recent events have raised serious doubts in their minds. The key line is this one:
A Wal-Mart in Steelyard Commons will force neighborhood food and drug retailers to scurry to consolidate their existing locations in order to survive.This is a thinly veiled reference to the Saltzmans' ownership of two near East Side stores -- the original Dave's at 33rd and Payne and the new one just a mile south at Arbor Park. And it's a message to Council President Jackson, at whose behest the Arbor Park store was opened. Unveiled, it goes something like this: "Councilman, do you really expect us to stay personally invested in a store we don't need, in a poor and dangerous neighborhood that's also in the direct blast zone of the likely Wal-Mart supercenter that you're not willing to oppose?"
Nice guys sometimes turn out to be tougher than you think.
A