Mike Salsbury/The Olympian
Cathie Barnes and her son Brett, 8, shop for school supplies at Fred Meyer.

Shop 'til you drop

Revitalized retail brings in tax revenue

Orginally published August 15, 2001

It's 5 p.m., and Virginia Graham is finishing her work shift at the new Walgreen drug store.

But she isn't heading out to the parking lot to drive home. She's going to grab her wallet and go back inside the store to shop.

"I shop in Lacey. I don't go to the west side (of Olympia) except for a shoe store for my son," says Graham, an 8-year Lacey resident who likes to sew and has a growing 14-year-old son to keep clothed and fed.

Graham likes the affordable stores in her town -- Walgreen, Fred Meyer, Shopko -- and doesn't like fighting with Olympia traffic, so "90 percent of my shopping is in Lacey," she says.

Which makes her all the more happy that a new Target opened in the South Sound Mall, and two Wal-Mart stores are scheduled to be built in the city in 2003.

"I like those because they're geared to middle class, and both me and my husband have to work if we're going to have a home," Graham says.

Lacey's shopping choices are growing again after it watched many of the stores in South Sound Center close over the past several years. It also lost some large retailers like Smiths Furniture and Home Base.

The city now has 207 retail stores. In the past 12 months, those stores had $306 million in sales, bringing $2.6 million in taxes to the city.

Sales taxes provide about 25 percent of Lacey's general fund budget.

This evening, Lacey's shoppers, many of them coming from Olympia, say they're glad to have new stores to choose from, and new theaters and restaurants coming into town.

"If we don't have to leave Lacey, we like that," says Robert Costello, who is looking for batteries and a radio at Walgreen with Sherri Walker and their 3-month-old daughter, Kaitlin.

The couple shops at Walgreen, Fred Meyer, Harbor Freight (a tool store), and will be visiting the new Target store soon.

Costello has lived in Lacey since 1971. "In the time I've been here, I've seen a lot of changes," he says. "It seems like a lot of the stores left."

Costello believes Lacey has suffered from an unfair reputation for years.

"It seems like Lacey was ignored, like the stepchild nobody talks about," he says. "I think they're losing that (reputation). They're starting to do more with Lacey, and I like to see that."

A few blocks away, Molly Schladetzky is strapping her 2-month-old son, Jonathan, into his car seat. She just visited the new Target store with her mother, Gloria Hemmen.

A former Lacey resident who now lives in Bellevue, Schladetzky is visiting her mother for the day and bought cookies and a baby bottle sterilizer at Target.

Target is a great addition to the city because "South Sound Center was starting to die," says Schladetzky, a lawyer who wants to move back to Thurston County eventually to raise her family.

But she thinks Lacey still needs to work on its retail mix.

"I would like some of the more mom-and-pop stores," she says. "It has gotten kind of commercial. It would be nice if there were more of a town center. The places to shop are so far away (from each other), you have to drive."

Across Sleater-Kinney Road at Fred Meyer, three Lacey firefighters are making a quick stop to grab some food and get back to the fire station on Pacific Avenue.

They're returning from a false alarm call on the 24-hour shift they work.

Tim Hulse, A.J. Paulsen and Scott Santhuff, all Lacey residents, agree the city has enough places to shop, although Santhuff says, "it's hard to compete with (Westfield Shoppingtown) Capital mall" in Olympia.

A few aisles away, Cathie Barnes is looking at school supplies with her 8-year-old son, Brett.

Barnes lives in Olympia but works at the Department of Ecology in Lacey, and Fred Meyer is a regular stop for her.

"We come here and we can get a lot of different things," Barnes says. "We came today to get vitamins, and you get as many things as you can."

Barnes likes the plans she hears for Lacey's downtown: to realign Sixth Avenue, put in a small corner park, add more stores.

"It could be like a little walking place," she says. "People are liking the changes. I'd like to see the congestion go down, but I like it better than the west side and downtown (Olympia). I like the look of it."

About a mile away at Shopko, Robert and Melanie Houston are back-to-school shopping with their 8-year-old daughter, Breanna, and 9-month-old son, Devon.

Though the couple lives in Olympia, they shop "religiously" at Shopko because they like the store's prices and merchandise, says Robert, a ship builder who works in Seattle.

They're also looking forward to construction of Wal-Mart stores in the city.

So far they've found socks, shoes and clothes for the children. Shopping is usually a late venture for the Houstons, who commute together to Seattle -- Melanie works as a legal assistant -- and get home late, particularly on days when the Seattle Mariners are playing at home.

With such long days, it's important for the family to shop where they know they can find what they need quickly, and it will be in their price range.

"That's why we like it here," Robert says.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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