Carmel Convo
I’m a firm believer in the free market. In capitalism, sometimes you have winners and sometimes you have losers. Sometimes businesses expand and thrive and other times they fail and go out of business.
I don’t believe the government needs to meddle too much in the free market. But there are times when a free market failure can be the concern of the entire community.
I believe the O’Malia’s Grocery story vacancy in Carmel could become a community concern the longer it stays empty.
Large vacancies like these can have a negative effect on the surrounding storefronts, most of which are still filled and operating. If these businesses see a dip in revenue, that’s bad for tax revenue and if nearby property values are negatively affected, that compounds the issue.
At 126th Street and Gray Road in Carmel, an O’Malia’s Grocery store that was operated by Marsh closed when Marsh closed its stores. It was a beloved community fixture for many years and constantly residents tell me that they wish another grocery store would come in and fill this space.
There’s so much community desire to see a grocery store there that it boggles my mind that some company hasn’t jumped in and claimed that spot. It’s a gold mine in my opinion.
Now there could be some deal in the works as I type this and I don’t know about it. There could be a lot of information that I’m not privy to.
I don’t have all the answers or solutions. But I do have one thing I think I can do to help and that’s letting any companies out there know that there’s a huge demand for this service in this location and I have a strong suspicion that your store would be successful. If you’re unsure, just come out and talk to our nearby residents. They’ll tell you how much they miss that store.
So if you’re a grocer or similar concept, take note: This should be your next location.
Adam Aasen is a co-owner of Donatello’s Italian Restaurant and a former journalist who lives in Carmel. His column “Carmel Convo” will appear twice each month in The Reporter.
It is unfortunate that the Reporter has chosen to omit the fact that Adam Aasen is a candidate for the Carmel Common Council for the Southeast District. While Mr. Aasen is entitled to his opinion (‘Grocery vacancies are a concern’, 2/22/2019), he is promoting a specific site and issue in another area of Carmel that is not even within the area of Carmel that he seeks to represent. As someone that purports to be a firm believer in the free market economy, he should also recognize that this is a matter of simple supply-and-demand economics with potential private-sector investors seeing only lukewarm demand for a grocery of the size that would fit within the existing former O’Malia’s location.
The reckless overuse of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) by the city of Carmel, through the Carmel Redevelopment Commission. has created a double-whammy disincentive for private capital to redevelop the former O’Malia’s and many other shuttered businesses around the city. Carmel officials have become so focused upon developing a single part of the city using hundreds of millions of dollars in bonded debt backed by TIF lease-rental and other agreements that many developers are now literally sitting on the sidelines waiting for the next available public money to fund their projects for them, rather than raising their own private capital to do so. At the same time, the growing number of parcel and projects funded by TIF has caused the real property tax base within Carmel to shrink, increasing the burden on residential and small-business taxpayers.
Adam Aasen should see and acknowledge this, but is receiving significant campaign support and exposure from the very incumbents that have allowed this problem to grow unabated. He can try pointing to the need for a grocery store in Carmel’s eastern side, but also needs to realize that the incumbent leadership at Carmel’s City Hall whose support he covets and needs have done much to create the situation that has hindered a new grocery tenant at that site.