Superstores spell big competition for small town grocers

By ADAM MORRIS and KAREN HEINSELMAN, Courier Staff Writers

EVANSDALE --- Evansdale and Tripoli are two towns with the same predicament.

Neither has a grocery store.

Evansdale's Food Pride closed in April. The Tripoli Market closed last year. Residents in both towns wonder if they'll ever again be able to buy a full week of groceries without leaving city limits?

Grocery stores in small towns everywhere are struggling to stay in business, industry experts say. Many shut down after low prices lure customers from the local supermarkets to discount superstores in bigger cities.

"It creates an awful lot of competition," said Jerry Fleagle, president of the Iowa Grocery Industry Association and a former Waterloo-Cedar Falls area grocer. "It has a ripple effect in rural areas." Fleagle ran a Fleagle Foods grocery at the Evansdale Food Pride location.

That fallout can often be felt within a 25-mile radius, Fleagle said. Tripoli, about 20 miles from Waverly, sits in the heart of rural Bremer County. Evansdale borders Waterloo's east side and is about five miles from the supercenters at Crossroads.

A citizens group, Invest in Tripoli, is working to rally citizens to support bringing a grocery store back to this community of 1,300. Ideally, the group would find funds to purchase and lease the empty structure on U.S. Highway 18 to another food store, said Bob Kuhrt, who is organizing the effort.

American Savings Bank in Tripoli recently acquired the property but is looking to sell it to a grocery or any viable business.

"We'd like to sell it however we can get it reopened," said Steve Edeker, bank president.

In Evansdale, the owner of the old Food Pride lot has asked grocers to move into the store's former location in a strip mall on Lafayette Road, the town's main drag. As time passes, renting to another type of tenant grows more likely.

"There's been some interest, but nothing concrete," said Scott Morris, president of R.E. Morris Investments, which owns the old Food Pride lot. "It doesn't look good for small towns anymore. It's not that the business isn't there, it's can they compete?"

With superstore competition, many grocers see moving to a small town as a risk rather than an opportunity, said Fleagle.

An independent grocer would probably move into an existing building. A regional chain store would likely build a new store to match its corporate specifications. Either move is costly, Fleagle said. Building would likely be in the multi-million dollar range. Moving in would be somewhat cheaper. Either way, start-up costs for inventory, display, storage systems and computer infrastructure are expensive.

Size may also be an issue. Chain stores may require up to 100,000 square feet or more. The old Food Pride, at about 23,000 square feet, is more likely to attract an independent grocer, Morris said.

When Food Pride closed, Morris bought the store's refrigeration system. He figures offering to rent the system, which could cost $150,000 or more new, would be an incentive to a potential grocer.

Evansdale, which borders East Waterloo and Elk Run Heights, should still be a viable market for a grocer, said Fleagle, who owned the Food Pride from 1989 to 1995. For now, he said, this town of approximately 4,500 might be the largest in the state without a grocery store.

"I think it's an under-served market," Fleagle said of Evansdale. "Quite frankly, I'm surprised that nobody has stepped in so far."

When Marty Smalley moved to Tripoli almost 40 years ago, she remembers having three private groceries to choose from. Now she has none.

"Maybe without, people will appreciate the fact that they could get groceries here," Smalley said.

Her town went through a succession of stores over the decades including the Tripoli Mercantile, a Jack and Jill and, most recently, the Tripoli Market.

The market store received tax increment finance backing from the city and opened at a larger facility that included a deli and gas pumps. Despite the owner's efforts to find a niche market, that store closed after about four years.

Morris, the Evansdale strip mall owner, recalls similar glory days. Back in the 1970s, Evansdale had five grocery stores operating at once, he said. Over time, the stores went out of business.

Residents of both towns are already shopping elsewhere. At least one Evansdale convenience store has noted a spike in sales of staples like milk.

"Not that I don't like the extra business, but not having a grocery store is really hard on lots of people here," said Karla Poldberg, manager of the Casey's General Store across from the old Food Pride. "If a grocery store doesn't get in here soon, I'm afraid people will already be in the habit of shopping somewhere else."

Impact on residents

The impact of having no store has far reaching consequences for residents in both communities. The loss hits especially hard for the elderly and those who don't drive.

Richard Crowe, 53, of Evansdale, used to walk or bike the seven blocks to the store from his Jones Drive home several times a week. Grand mal seizures prevent him from driving, he said. Now Crowe, like many others, hitches a ride with a neighbor to Wal-Mart or Hy-Vee at Crossroads once a week.

"It's a pain in the butt," Crowe said. "Even higher prices wouldn't be too bad if it was convenient."

In Tripoli, those that still travel said they treat every grocery store in every town like the last water hole in a desert. Gladys Rettig buys larger quantities to cut down on trips to nearby towns but finds she can't always eat fresh food fast enough and has to throw produce away.

No local grocery means dinner recipes gone awry, Tripoli resident Marcia Judisch said. One evening, stuffed peppers was on the menu at her household. But she ran out of instant rice. Driving 10 miles to Sumner or 20 to Waverly was not her definition of an emergency trip. So her family settled for meat loaf instead.

The lack of a grocery impacts schools, too.

No grocery store means no bananas served at school lunch. Judisch, head cook at Tripoli Elementary, used to buy the yellow fruit at the Tripoli Market, just across the street, to make sure it was ripe and not bruised. Bananas ripen too quickly to order them on a truck, she insists. She'd also rely on the market to pick up last minute items.

"So you just forgo," Judisch said. "I know people are anxious to have a store."

Katrina Allen, 23, of Tripoli, is one of them. She reluctantly takes her business to chain stores, but said she'd switch back to local if a new store opened in her town. And she's not alone.

"I do think our town would support a grocery store," Allen said.

In some ways, the evolution from small town groceries to onestop shops is ironic. In centuries past, it was common and convenient to buy cloth, flour and a wagon wheel all under one roof. But for Rettig of Tripoli, mega stores with miles to go between mustard seed and milk can't beat a community store familiarity.

"I have not been to a store I feel was as good as the one I had," she said. "What we had was a jewel."

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