Mayor Connelly: Kroger, Cracker Barrel looking to open in Berea
By Andy McDonald
Two hundred jobs will be coming to Berea if Kroger,
Inc. follows through with plans to open a grocery store in Berea.
That prospect was revealed last week by Mayor Steve Connelly in
his annual state of the city address. Connelly said the proposed site for the shopping center would be in the “Glades Road, Rash Road corridor,” a development which Connelly implied would profoundly impact commerce in the area. “If they came, they are talking about 200 jobs. That would be good for some and hard for others, but it is something that is going on in our community,” said Connelly. |
 Mayor Connelly fielded question from audience members at the Berea Forum last week. |
The mayor also addressed rumors that a Cracker Barrel restaurant is working to open a franchise in Berea. According to Connelly, representatives for Cracker Barrel have scouted a number of sites in the city and have expressed interest opening a store near Wal-Mart, close to the former Stuckey’s location.
“Cracker Barrel is interested. I understand the delay is that the site that they wanted, as you go into Wal-Mart, tested positive for gasoline,” Connelly said. “That caused them to postpone it a little bit. But apparently they are interested in it.”
One of the city’s conditions for opening a store in that location is that Cracker Barrel’s parent corporation would have to fund the construction of a right hand turn lane from Highway 21 to access the new restaurant. While developers voiced objections to that condition initially, Connelly said they appear to be ready to meet that stipulation set forth by the city. Still, Connelly reminded the audience that the deal hasn’t been finalized yet.
“It sounds to me like they are coming. But again, they haven’t
got a building permit, they haven’t purchased any property, but
they certainly have talked seriously and made a lot of pre-arrangements.”
In other economic news, Mayor Connelly said the city is still actively
pursuing an initiative to purchase Berea College Utilities, hoping to
secure ownership of the local water and power supply. In his remarks,
Connelly made reference to the city of Lexington, where a German-based
corporation recently moved to purchase Lexington’s water supplier.
“The reasons the city is pursuing the purchase is in part to gain control of a valuable resource – water, and the service and supply of electricity,” said Connelly. “In essence, we don’t want our future decided in Dresden or Düsseldorf. We want to make whatever mistakes we’re going to make locally. Nobody’s approved anything, but we’re forging ahead.”
The purchase of Berea College Utilities would potentially enable the
city to offer an even broader range of services, according to Connelly,
including high-speed Internet access and city-owned cable television.
“The Internet and cable TV might be down the road. If we are fortunate
enough to put this purchase package together, those are some possibilities
that might come out of the city continuing local ownership of the utilities,”
Connelly said, further noting that a municipally-owned franchise would
allow local control of programming, while providing customers cable for
approximately half the price of current service.
The mayor added that one other business is making serious moves to open a franchise in Berea – a retirement home operated by United Church Homes (UCH). According to Connelly, representatives for UCH have returned to the city several times, and last week, the organization’s real estate planner made a visit to town. While there is more to be done before any plan is finalized, Connelly said City Hall fully supports the effort to provide new living opportunities for the region’s senior citizens.
“We will be continuing to try to support the creation of a retirement
community in town,” Connelly said. “The city will support
that in almost anyway we can.”
Written by Andy McDonald - BereaOnline.com Contributing
Editor
