“Wal-Mart is not, as I had expected, playing Christmas music. Instead, they have big-screen TVs playing in-store commercials, which mostly consist of one line of ‘Deck the Halls’ played over. And over. And over. Forget vests, those folks gonna need bright blue straitjackets.”
— Karen Cravens, president of the Delano Neighborhood Association, on a recent shopping trip to Wal-Mart
“Doggone, we’ve been under contract many times. This one almost got away, too.”
— Star Lumber’s Chris Goebel, who’s finally closed a deal on his 11.4 acres at Central and Maize, where Wal-Mart now plans a Neighborhood Market
WICHITA — Wink Hartman Sr. formally announced his bid for Congress today but still had time to talk business, too.
The seemingly always-busy Hartman is bringing another Jimmy’s Egg to Wichita and about 20 more to Houston.
First, the next Wichita restaurant.
Hartman and business partner Whitney VinZant will build their fifth Wichita Jimmy’s Egg at 47th and Broadway.
It’s not a done deal yet, but Hartman says, “Everybody’s agreed to agree.”
WICHITA — Wal-Mart’s plans to bring its Neighborhood Market concept to Wichita are still progressing, but there don’t appear to be any done deals yet.
“We’re still under contract,” says Chris Goebel of Star Lumber.
Goebel hopes to sell his property at Central and Maize where he once planned the Gaslight Creek commercial development on more than 11 acres.
“We’ve had to do some extensions,” Goebel says of the contract.
That’s because there’s “a wee little bit of an environmental issue.”
Goebel says there are leaking underground storage tanks on another site — not his — that are of concern.
WICHITA — It was about this time in the summer of 2003 that Dino’s Italian Grille closed at 21st and Tyler and the Italian Garden moved in after leaving its Douglas and West Street space.
Now, the Italian Garden is closing and Senor Tequila is moving in.
Today is the Italian Garden’s last day in business.
“We’ve been looking for a location in . . . Old Town, basically,” says the Italian Garden’s Mike Issa.
He hasn’t found that space yet, but Senor Tequila’s Jose Cesar Ayala wanted the west-side space.
“It’s going to be a quick move, but it’s going to be a good move,” Issa says.
WICHITA — For the first time, Bud Gates of Easygates is bringing two of his Easyhome stores to Wichita.
He has eight others elsewhere, including stores in the Kansas City area and Salina.
The stores sell, lease or lease to own home furnishings, electronics and appliances.
The two here will be in the former KenMar shopping center at 13th and Oliver, which is now called Providence Square, and on Pawnee near Broadway in front of Wal-Mart.
The stores will be about 5,000 square feet each.
The one down south will be in a new building, which Larry Cook of Cook Construction is building. Construction has just begun.
The other store, which Coast to Coast Builders is preparing space for, should be ready within a few weeks.
“We’re very excited to be going in there because of the work they are doing and the development they are doing around that center,” says Chris Prater, president of sales and finance for Easygates.
He says the redevelopment of that center is part of what attracted Easyhome.
Prater says there are no other plans for more Easyhomes here yet, but he says, “We will most likely do some more here.”
WICHITA — Gessler Drug Co. is heading home.
So says Hal Schwarz, who is relocating the store from Normandie Center at Central and Woodlawn to where AAA Kansas used to be next to Il Vicino near Douglas and Oliver.
That’s one corner over from where Gessler first opened in Wichita in 1938. Watermark Books & Cafe is there today.
Schwarz says Gessler was one of the original anchor tenants in what became Lincoln Heights Village in 1949.
When he recently was looking for new space, Schwarz says the 4,300-square-foot location he found “just stood out far and above anything else we had seen.”
WICHITA — The planning commission last week voted to recommend city approval for John Dugan to rezone about 50 acres south of Kellogg between 119th and 135th to limited commercial.
“I bought it several years ago to develop,” Dugan says of the property, where there’s also a new frontage road.
He could develop it himself or sell it to someone else.
“We’ve got a couple of things working,” Dugan says. But he also has the property listed with J.P. Weigand & Sons.
“I’ll go any direction,” he says.
“We’re just sitting here like everybody else just ready to do something,” Dugan says. “We think that will be popular when things start happening.”
Dugan also has property in Goddard that Wal-Mart may be interested in.
“We’re talking to them,” he says of land he has east of Goddard and west of what would be the interchange for the proposed bypass.
“They think that’s the new development for commercial,” Dugan says of Wal-Mart. But he adds, “Things have slowed down with them.”
It looks like Wal-Mart’s possible move to Normandie Center at Central and Woodlawn is forcing at least one longtime business to leave earlier than planned.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, says Hal Schwarz, president of Gessler Drug Co., who hopes to open two new stores after moving out of Normandie in August.
Schwarz was manager of Gessler when it moved to Normandie in 1965.
“It wasn’t that long ago,” he says. “I still see people I saw that first year.”
But a while back, he decided to go month-to-month on his lease instead of renewing it.
“I was horrified at first, but it looks like a Yuppie version of Wal-Mart.”
– Best of Times owner Nancy Robinson on the possibility of a Neighborhood Market coming to Normandie Center at Central and Woodlawn where her shop is